To create a game that would soon achieve cult status is no easy thing, and only a few game studios or designers can take pride in such an accomplishment. And the now defunct Looking Glass is one of them. Back in 1998, they unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses Thief: The Dark Project, a game that combined 3D action and stealth well before Sam Fisher got his first assignment in Splinter Cell. The huge success of the game was followed by the release of Thief II: The Metal Age, which proved to be a worthy sequel. However, before getting the chance to finish their trilogy, Looking Glass disappeared from the gaming scene.
So the task of creating a successor to the Thief series was left in the hands of Randy Smith and Ion Storm Austin. Unfortunately, after the fiasco that was Deus Ex: Invisible War, they lost a lot of credibility in the eyes of their devoted fans. And the fact that the next Thief was going to be developed the same way that IW was, for XBOX and PC, didn’t comfort them at all. To make matters worse, the new design decisions, like adding a 3rd person camera or the possibility to sell the loot that you steal during the missions were heavily criticized and made some fans cry out that the Thief series died with Looking Glass. Fortunately, the guys at Ion Storm headed (almost) every complaint of the fans and managed to create a game that, although has its share of problems, is worthy of the series.