26 years after Thief's release, one of its programmers is streaming the game's most ambitious mod

GamesActionThief: The Dark Project26 years after Thief’s release, one of its programmers is streaming the game’s most ambitious modWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Looking Glass Studios)

Garett climbing a building in Thief: The Dark Project.

After powering through Nightdive’s superbSystem Shock Remake, former Looking Glass developer Marc LeBlanc has returned toTwitchandYouTubeto streamThe Black Parade, a lauded mod that presents an interquel between the classic Looking Glass stealth games, Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age.

Thief modding is one of those little universes all its own, comparable to other retro treasure troves like the Doom and Quake scenes. Even still, the recent 10-level campaign The Black Parade is in a league of its own, boasting utterly huge levels, new voice acting and gadgets, as well as fresh systemic interactions like house servants who will clean up your sound-dampening moss arrow surfaces or relight torches you’ve extinguished. YouTube reviewerMandaloreGamingargues it might even represent a new peak for the series all these years later.

LeBlanc is an industry veteran who worked on Looking Glass' essential games like Thief and System Shock. His streamed longplay of the System Shock Remake features his thoughts on Nightdive’s changes (he mostly dug them) as well as some ’90s development war stories.

In one amusing sequence, a viewer pointed out to LeBlanc that he was keeping his weapons drawn, making it easier for enemies to spot him in the dark, when this was a feature he’d helped implement himself all the way back in 1998: “‘Putting away arrows makes you less visible'⁠—I wrote that code, I should know that!

“I don’t remember the specific code I wrote for that, but I do remember creating that feature…that having your weapon out increased your visibility.”

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At the time of writing, LeBlanc’s YouTube VODs of his playthrough are well into mission 3 of The Black Parade, and you can follow along yourself via hisTwitchandYouTubechannels. If you want to play the mod, it’s available onModDB, while a copy of Thief’s definitive Gold edition isonly a buck on GOGright now.

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