This mission has long been a personal favorite of mine for a few reasons...

The atmosphere is utterly dark and grim , not only thanks to the location the game takes place and the normal grimy DrK textures, but the story in general. There are only a handful of FMs that get so nihilistic and hopeless but it adds so much to the situation. The supernatural nature of what's occurring in the town of Rocksbourg is fully expanded upon here with tons of great ideas and a new Keeper-esque faction you find yourself embedded and in some cases in allied with, in an attempt to fight off this seemingly unavoidable apocalyptic future.

The gameplay is standard thief fare, but traversing the map is always fun thanks to some... idiosyncrasies about the location Garrett finds himself in. Add on to that there are tons of secrets and collectables hidden in every nook.

The level design itself is oftentimes clever and usually fantastic, not to mention beautiful. This is definitely one of those missions where you can insert yourself in some dark corner and just sit and absorb your surroundings. The textures, layout, lighting, and sound all come together to make one of the most impressively vivid, unique, and well realized settings you'll ever see in a FM.

As time goes on there are FMs released that contain more advanced level design that better wraps in on itself, higher quality textures, or unique gimmicks that set themselves apart. Not very many of them have such a cohesive and real realized vision-- from the graphics to the sound and writing, everything comes together in Ink & Dust to make it one of the most unforgettable FMs of all time.