Thief: The Dark Project

Thief: The Dark Project is a 1998 stealth game developed for Windows by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Set in a medieval steampunk metropolis called the City, the game follows Garrett, a master thief trained by a secret society.

Thief was the first stealth game to use both light and sound as gameplay mechanics, and the first to always feature a first-person perspective. Its use of this perspective for non-confrontational gameplay challenged the first-person shooter market; Eidos Interactive even officially described the game as a strategy-action hybrid. The game's design combines complex artificial intelligence with simulation systems to allow for emergent gameplay. Thief's influence can be seen in later stealth games, such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Hitman series.

The game received critical acclaim and has been placed on numerous hall-of-fame lists. With sales of near two million units by the year 2000, it is Looking Glass Studios' most commercially successful game. Thief was followed by three sequels—Thief II: The Metal Age (2000), Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004) and an upcoming Thief 4—developed by Looking Glass Studios, ION Storm and Eidos Montreal, respectively.