The hook that pulls you in easy and patiently; Garrett has rented a room at a hotel and is planning on robbing the inhabitants blind. It was supposed to be a simple job. And it is, at first. The hotel is small and smartly laid out, everything is deceptively easy to pull off. And then he finds a passage in one of the rooms..

Without spoiling much else, this was a surprising mission in a few ways for me. First off, it had no map, and while many mapless missions end up on a pile of disappointments for me, this was a different story. The world was extremely well designed in such a way that it was not large and maze-like, as is the case in many mapless missions. The passageways were somewhat linear, and tightly compact so that it was easy to mentally map out the passages you explored and the lack of map never detracted from the mission. Secondly, it ended up having a significant focus on some elements that are more unique to Thief 1 than Thief 2. These said elements are ones I'm not a huge fan of at the best of times, but it ended up working very well here thanks to the tight corridors and ample shadows. The gameplay was a fresh breath coming off more conventional FMs in that I had frequent opportunities to engage in combat, a lesser appreciated aspect of Thief. Suffice to say, the bodies piled up in this one, and it was satisfying. I probably would have been scared off from approaching the mission had the underlying portion of it not been hidden by the outward facing theme, but thanks to that initial impression, I was eased in with the simple pleasure of a standard burglary and was able to transition to the rest of the mission without my usual level of resistance to that sort.

Another thing of note in this mission was the use of puzzles. There aren't many FMs that incorporate genuine puzzles, instead focusing on what Thief is obviously built for - the sneaking and stealing. So to have puzzles is another fresh breath away from conventional FMs utilizing the game in an unexpected way and pushes the boundaries of what this 20+ year old game was expected to produce.