Sept. 25, 2023, 5:14 p.m.   (Last edited: 11 months, 4 weeks ago)

From the first moments this mission creates high expectations - natural environments done well are a rare feat in dark engine and here they manage to conjure a very special atmosphere paired with nitbits of intelligent communication with the player, including literary and cultural allusions, cool scares and original enemies early and later on. Sadly the main part becomes one of the most terrible pixel hunts in thief ever, with three sets of small basically 2d objects strewn randomly across any surfaces of a fairly large house and beyond (to which a map of the sorts of "here be monsters" is a parody of (partial) help at best), worst part of which is that some of them are nearly invisible even from quite close up due to colour blending with the grey-on-grey environment. So you spend roughly 95% of your playtime examining every square inch and centimeter of a mostly wooden structure that by itself is not that visually spectacular - similar searches in similarly themed adventures done well include interacting in at least somewhat playful way with inventive puzzles (though some are present here as well - partly not needed to finish the mission) but here it is mostly just an awful grind. This aspect of the mission (although strictly said all the search is tied to optional objectives - but then again that's all there's to do beyond the main quest) cannot be salvaged even by the interesting story and top class spooky/scripted events that by themselves would put it much higher. As is, perusing a phone directory might be an equally appealing pastime proposition.