I've been a major, major Thief fan for nearly 20 years. Ever since a friend sat me down with Deadly Shadows and introduced me to how sublime and atmospheric the stealth genre could be, I've been a devotee of sneak-em-up immersive sims and never looked back. I've played all the games multiple times, a ton of The Dark Mod, and even cast & directed Stephen Russell in something of my own, mainly just to satisfy my inner Thief geek.

The moment I discovered The Black Parade's development, my anticipation was high. When it finally released last year to a chorus of rapturous praise, my anticipation went higher. But I still wasn't prepared for what it ended up being: The Black Parade is one of the greatest fanmade creations in the history of computing, blowing away all the official Thief games.

It has astronomical scale, incredible audio, terrifying enemies, and awe-inspiring architecture. It is not merely Mod of the Year 2023... its craftsmanship is so deliriously good that I wish it could have been eligible for GOTY.

Mission 1: Return to the City

From the get-go, The Black Parade tells its players that it’s not just going through the motions. In what becomes a trend across nearly the entire game, the first mission doesn't drop you into a contained area, but an entire city district with multiple large buildings to explore. It throws in a fully animated horse too, because why not. It's a pretty great, not quite spectacular mission, but it does signal that the campaign ahead is going to be extraordinarily worthwhile.

Mission 2: Where Old Faces Fade

Okay then! Here's where the game sets its bar early. GOD DANG, this level is one for the Thief history books. The design of the central manor is outstanding, with nothing else from the main series even coming close to comparing in scale. It's large, but it justifies the vastness by packing it so densely with detail. It amazed me how much I could get lost in it, not just from its size but from the complexity. Even the “normal areas” were easy to lose yourself in... and the growing weirdness of it was such a treat. Once it got into the surreal fantastical stuff, I was grinning like a madman. This mission is a tribute to TDP's The Sword, but it does so, so much more. Simply phenomenal. Nothing else reaches its level in The Black Parade… at least, for a while.

Mission 3: Trial of Iron

I loved this one. It feels the most straightforward and "normal" out of the whole game, but extremely well done. Not a whole lot to say about it, it's just a really really good Hammerite heist. It’s exactly the palate cleanser the game needed between the previous and next level…

Mission 4: Death's Dominion

Holy shit. A flawed masterpiece. What a breathtakingly massive catacomb, with such overwhelming variety of environments. It's only brought down by the sense of tedium that eventually sets in from the sheer sense of scale going on here. Even though I've never been a really big fan of undead-heavy levels in the Thief series, this one had such a great hook to it that gripped me from beginning to end. I love that you're following a failed expedition, using the information they've left behind about where it's safe to go. And oh god, that horrific sprinting monster! What the hell?!

Mission 5: The Brand

One of my least favorite parts of The Black Parade... but “least favorite” still means pretty damn great in this campaign. It's another undead-heavy level but with a totally different vibe than Mission 4's subterranean adventure feel, where this time you're tasked with entering an abandoned district to reach a horrific haunted manor. The crushing dread is effective, and toward the end of this level, I was so stressed and ready to be done with it. I think if there was a little bit more of a buffer (without undead) between Mission 4 and 5 I'd have enjoyed it more, but it's still a very admirable mission.

Mission 6: Kept Away From View

OH MY GOD. I wasn't fully vibing with this one at first, and I (foolishly) didn't tail the Keeper in the beginning, which led to me aimlessly wandering the city district for ages until I finally stumbled upon the hidden entrance. But when the whole Keeper compound opened up, my jaw was just about on the floor. Thief: Deadly Shadows is my favorite of the original trilogy, so to see so many loving homages to it in this mission was a pure delight. I was utterly astounded at the scale of the compound and the fact that it all seamlessly existed within the same map as the (fairly expansive) section of city above.

The big, big reveal in this level (Gamall's here! Oh god no!) and the return of one of the most terrifying Deadly Shadows enemies (Gamall's "FIND AND KILL AND CRUSH AND KILL" living statues) was sublime, and the fact that running into them is totally optional if you do a good enough job evading Gamall? Flat out amazing effort from the devs here. Absolutely bloody amazing. I'm floored, and in love.

Mission 7: The Long Shadow Falls

So. So. Satisfying. It's one of the best manors in the series, right up there with Mission 2’s, except more straightforward rather than esoteric, trading navigation challenges for blisteringly difficult guard encounters. I noticed a lot of people complaining about the sheer amount of marble floor in this level, but it added so much to the experience.

The challenge of pickpocketing the key off the un-blackjackable chief guard (while he patrols with his dog) was one of the tensest thefts I can recall in a stealth game, and the overall atmosphere here is just terrific. After all the craziness from the last few missions, it's the perfect time for a "straightforward" level, which I didn't fully realize until...

Mission 8: Jaws of Darkness

Ohhhhhhhh. My. God. Where do I begin with this.

There's levels in Thief where you feel like you've wandered into something deceptively normal that gets more and more weird as you go, in a "hey, the natural laws of physics aren't quite applying correctly here” sort of way, but nothing has remotely touched the level of cosmic, trans-dimensional fuckery of Jaws of Darkness — a literal trip to the underworld that feels like there's no coming back from. My heart was pounding so hard throughout this experiential masterwork.

This was the highlight of The Black Parade for me. From the onset, with the spooky intro in the forest, there's a sense that something is soon going to go very, very wrong. The pacing is magnificent in building up a palpable dread, with the ruined encampment and then the long descent into the giant pit giving me the willies long before any real danger arrives. The way the surroundings get less natural and more otherworldly was such a good buildup to the horrors that eventually followed.

And oh my days, when those horrors finally get started, it goes all-in. Nothing has made my heart sink with a sense of doom quite as much as the encounter with the first enemies, who sprint at light speed the moment they detect you but freeze like Weeping Angels when you look at them. Hearing their footsteps closing in from several rooms away because I clicked my boot on a tile too loud was just such a legendarily scary moment that nearly gave me a heart attack. Seeing how spectacularly effective they were made me wonder why an enemy like those had never shown up in the Thief canon... and then Jaws of Darkness swiftly dispenses with them to dig deeper into its seemingly never-ending bag of tricks.

The heebie jeebies don't get weaker after that either, with a hair-rising Kaiju-sized mega spider you have to sneak past, bizarre snake people guarding a water-based area, a shockingly speedy rock monster, traumatically terrifying skeletal goat demon guys, the magic-shooting spider with a massive statue on its back... the creativity on display here is truly inspired.

It's also fascinating how linear this level is, considering how well it works with the standard Thief gameplay mechanics. I loved this change of pace after so many open-ended levels — the whole thing feels like Thief by way of Tomb Raider and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, with a surprising amount of platforming, and it works very well (especially in novel sections like the low-grav air elemental tower).

As long as this level was (I clocked about 2.5 hours on my save, not counting reloads), it never got old to me. Not even a little bit… I just truly didn't want this one to end! Maybe it's from the sheer novelty on offer, in how it keeps changing up what it throws at you on a minute-to-minute basis, but this level was a total joy despite being an altogether horrific nightmare. Someone else said if this level was a standalone indie horror game, it'd win awards. They're right.

Mission 9: Arcane Sanctum

At this point, I wasn't expecting The Black Parade to have much left. How could it? I knew there were still a couple levels, but wouldn't it be running on fumes after giving its all for Jaws of Darkness?

A resounding "no" is its triumphant answer. This is maybe the largest open-ended level in a campaign known for large, open-ended levels — with not just one castle... but TWO! — and it's a total home run. After the laser-focused linearity of Mission 8, it's perfect for the last major chapter to be a massive robbery sandbox.

I adored the backdrop of this one. Wandering the festival in the streets during a beautiful dusky sunset was such a unique and enjoyable setting for a Thief mission... doubly so after the horrors I just had to go through. The pink clouds, the multicolored fireworks, the various bands and street performers (a juggler! A fire breather!) were all such "extra mile" touches that really spoke to the passion the devs have, and the glowing orange windows of the castle look so beautiful against the dark blue sky.

Once inside the castle grounds, I loved how the objectives essentially force you to ghost the mission at first, which is not the usual way I approach Thief levels (I love to put that blackjack to use, so again, The Black Parade is diversifying my gameplay experience). Then things all get turned upside down, you snag a master key to unlock the other 50% of the map, and the level truly gets going. And uh... let's just say that I was not expecting this chapter to have one of the scariest encounters of the entire game. Thank goodness a glitch in the Dark Engine allowed me to blow that two-headed abomination into the river through sheer fluke with a hail Mary mine toss... I was NOT looking forward to sneaking through its lair while it prowled!

When I finally completed the main objectives, and all that stopped me from victory was securing a paltry 10 additional loot, I realized that I hadn't even set foot in the entire OTHER castle yet... I just couldn't believe how large this area was!

Mission 10: The Black Parade

Woah! From everything I'd read about this one, I was expecting "not a real mission," and more of a tiny epilogue. I don't know what led people to this conclusion because The Black Parade is still plenty massive, with my save file clocking a full hour. It's like a mini Jaws of Darkness, full of horror and innovation, in a mostly linear fashion.

Despite being the last part of the game, it's STILL throwing multiple brand new types of monsters at you, which was insane to me. The lumbering enemies with the massive bludgeoning arms, the terrifying purple Dune worms that lunge at you at high speeds while rotating... and maybe my favorite, the semi-invisible giant tentacle slug beasts. Ugh! All of them creeped me out so good.

I appreciated the variety this mission brought to the fold, with a more combat-centric (though not totally forced upon you) approach to things. Was it a highlight of the game? No, pretty much everything that came before overshadows it, but it's still a great experience that concluded the game on a super satisfying note for me. The ending of the final cutscene, while a bit of a downer, is still pretty awesome and made me feel jazzed to immediately start a replay of The Dark Project.

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Overall... wow. I can't say enough good things about this game, but I should probably shut my taffin' trap by this point. And it really deserves to be called "a game" and not merely "a mod" or "a fan campaign." It outdoes the original Thief games in scope and polish, and its long, long time in the oven really shows. The effort behind it is truly astounding... I don't think we could ever ask for a better "lost Thief prequel."

My Mission Rankings:

Jaws of Darkness - 10/10
Where Old Faces Fade - 9.5/10
Arcane Sanctum - 9.5/10
The Long Shadow Falls - 9.5/10
Death's Dominion - 9/10
Kept Away From View - 9/10
Trial of Iron - 8.5/10
Return to the City - 8/10
The Black Parade - 8/10
The Brand - 7.5/10

Thank you for your review :)