Overview Thief: Deadly Shadows is a stealth video game where the player takes the role of Garrett, a master thief. It is set in a fantasy/steampunk world resembling a cross between the Late Middle Ages and the Victorian era, with more advanced technologies interspersed.
One of the game's major new features was the ability to explore the City. While previous games sent Garrett straight from mission to mission, Thief: Deadly Shadows allows him to walk the City streets between missions where he can steal from passersby, spy on the townspeople's daily lives, and search for sidequests in addition to major story missions. The game also introduced an ability to switch between first and third person views, and to flatten against walls.
It was released for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox in 2004, on May 25 in North America, and on June 11 in Europe. Development for both platforms started simultaneously. Like its predecessors, Thief: Deadly Shadows has received almost universally positive reviews, winning IGN's "Editor's Choice" award and "game of the Month" award for May 2004. A follow-up to this game, Thief 4, is confirmed to be in the early development stages by the "very best core team" of Eidos Montreal Studio.
A major departure from the first two games in the series, Thief: Deadly Shadows was developed by Ion Storm rather than Looking Glass Studios (albeit with many of the same people). The game was powered by the Unreal-based Deus Ex: Invisible War engine. Unlike the original two titles, the third Thief game was developed simultaneously for Windows and the Xbox.
Because of all these factors, Thief: Deadly Shadows (Ion Storm decided not to name the game Thief III for fear that it would alienate console gamers who had never played the previous two titles) was different (and vastly updated) from the first two games in the series in both appearance and gameplay.
One of the game's major new features was the ability to explore the City. While previous games sent Garrett straight from mission to mission, Thief: Deadly Shadows allows him to walk the City streets between missions where he can steal from passersby, spy on the townspeople's daily lives, and search for sidequests in addition to major story missions. Unlike games such as Grand Theft Auto III, the city is not one large continuous map, but rather several small neighborhood maps connected by load zones. The game also introduced an ability to switch between first and third person views, and to flatten against walls.