Thief is set in simply “The City” — a dark fantasy sprawl that mixes Victorian grime, gothic architecture, and light steampunk tech. The Baron rules from the top, the poor rot at the bottom, and somewhere in between is Garrett, a master thief who’s come back after years away to find his home choking on plague, unrest, and bad experiments. You’re not a hero; you’re a professional trying to work the cracks while everything falls apart.

Gameplay is built around first-person stealth. Light and shadow determine how visible you are, sound gives you away, and line of sight is everything. You move slowly, hug corners, lean to peek, and plan routes through guard patrols and environmental hazards. Direct combat is possible but deliberately clumsy; the game is at its best when you never let a room fully realise you were there.

Garrett’s toolkit is simple but flexible: a blackjack for knockouts, a bow with different arrow types (rope arrows, water arrows, fire, choke, blunt), and a claw for climbing to out-of-reach ledges. Focus mode highlights climb points, traps, and interactables, and can be upgraded to assist with pickpocketing or combat — but you can also disable most assists if you want a purer, harsher stealth run.

Levels are built as semi-open spaces with multiple paths: vents, rooftops, hidden windows, and locked side routes that reward exploration and careful observation. Each mission is essentially a big burglary puzzle — main objective plus a web of valuables, documents, and optional side loot. Between jobs, you return to a hub district that slowly opens up with new routes and secrets, reinforcing the feeling that The City is your real mark.

Thief (2014) got mixed reviews at launch — strong stealth mechanics and atmosphere, weaker story and some layout issues — but under the noise, it still delivers a specific fantasy: walking out of a mansion or stronghold with every drawer emptied and no one sure how it happened. In the Vault, that’s enough to earn its place as the “pure stealth first-person” entry on the board.