Return to the Cathedral is probably my favourite mission of T1. With all the Talismans acquired, Garrett goes back to the haunted Hammer cathedral to make a second attempt at stealing the Eye.

As soon as you enter, you feel that things are badly wrong, even compared to the ruined zombie-infested streets or the perplexing Bonehoard. You hear disembodied voices, distant door slams, and slightly creepy ambient noises. The cathedral itself looks big enough to be oppressive and tight enough that you feel like you have nowhere to run- it's a masterpiece of environmental storytelling. And looming over it all is the Eye, a sentient artifact with inscrutable motivations and unknown powers.

Once you've swiped your prize and escape to the cathedral grounds you're faced with, for all intents and purposes, another scavenger hunt. Unlike the previous mission, however, there's nothing really obscure about it. With the possible exception of the candle, you can easily see where you have to go and what you have to grab, it's just that getting there while avoiding the many, many undead is difficult. This mission, after the opera house and Hammer temple, is quite a spike in difficulty.

The environments are nicely varied too, about as much as dark, zombie-infested environments can be. You'll be descending to the murky, waterlogged depths of the cathedral basement, braving tight and unmaneuverable corridors in St Yora's, and stalking through haunted graveyards, among numerous others. You even get to craft items- if you experimented with the hammer moulds at Cragscleft you already know what you're doing. If not, you'll at least remember the machinery and work it out easily enough. All this provides good gameplay variety within the mission.

The only downsides for me were the forced killing objective on Expert difficulty- I've always preferred the pure ghost playstyle- and sometimes haunts and zombies can end up walking into each other at the door of St Tennor's, blocking the doorway long term and making it hard to get in there.

It's almost a shame that the best mission of T1 is also the last good one, but Return to the Cathedral is a true highlight.

Good to see you're still doing your mission marathon, and also play the original missions. 🙂

And, I agree, this is one of my absolute favorites in Thief Gold, aside of the Bonehoard and Cragscleft Prison missions.

I play quite a few fan missions at the moment (I'm addicted really), but, also looking forward to play the original campaigns soon for the 4th or 5th time as well.