Thief's re-entrance into the world of PC heralds the return of true stealth. Sure there are other stealth games, but they're all prefixed stealth: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is "Action Espionage" and Metal Gear Solid is "Stealth Action". The Thief series is the only series to put itself in the tip of the blade by being Stealth. There's no prefix because there's no contradiction in terms, or play for that matter. In a Thief game, stealth is king. Garret, unlike the heroes of the other "stealth" games, is far from an Army of One. When a guard comes at you with a sword or bow, your best bet is always avoiding him.

Thief: Deadly Shadows continues the story of Garret, a master thief living by his trade as a denizen of The City. Garret is an infamous thief, striking fear into the hearts of nobles and high-class denizens of his stalking ground. At his disposal are enough gadgets to make him a medieval James Bond minus the looks and charm. There are six types of arrows, gloves to scale walls, two types of bombs, and potions enough to make an alchemists' blood boil. All of these tools are not only useful, but necessary in order to successfully complete Garret's missions. These tools aren't just given to Garret, however; you must find or buy all the tools of your trade. The only gear Garret has managed to hang on to from times past are his faithful lock picks.

The ability to buy mass amounts of tools is one of several heated debates dividing the veteran Thief players from those new to the series. In previous Thief games, Garret was automatically refilled with a set amount of each item, allowing for a set difficulty on certain missions. Deadly Shadows has done away with this, going for a more realistic set of shops in which Garret can purchase his illegal necessities. Another debate is related to the wall-scaling gloves. Thief games of Christmas past put an arrow titled the rope arrow, allowing for the creation of rope ladders in obscure places and often leading to a hidden area. Ion Storm has "gone another way" with Deadly Shadows, giving Garret a pair of gloves to scale many walls with. While enhancing realism, this greatly decreases the fun factor, and even brings about some control problems.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is set up a bit differently than its predecessors. Yes, Deadly Shadows is still about stealth, and you're still stealing wondrous and often "priceless" items. However, in Deadly Shadows, The City is now a navigable place in which you trade loot for gold and tools, meet other Black Market traders and trade info about missions. The City guard is on your tail anytime you're in The City, possibly because many neighbors' homes are prey for you. The missions are still based around getting a specific highly valued (and equally guarded) item, and loot is still attainable in these missions, but the addition of The City as a playable location throws things a bit askew from previous Thief games.

Despite this being the third entry into the series, new players will have about the same learning time as veteran thieves. The first mission is a guided tutorial which runs you through the general rules of stealth and thievery, bringing new players to a state of possible survival and serving as a reminder for those who haven't played since the 2000 release of Thief II: The Metal Age. The difficulty settings are pretty straightforward: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme; and once the 1.1 patch is applied the game will even stay on the setting you choose.

The graphics of Thief: Deadly Shadows are surprisingly mixed. The environments: City, numerous forts and castles, a museum, even Garret's own apartment (which seems rather drab for someone so great at acquiring things) look almost photo-realistic. The narrow hallways you must creep down, the walls you shimmy up, and the roofs you leap across are all nearly perfect in form. However, it seems this polish and shine was all applied to the environments and the inhabitants of these lands were left as simple, untreated wax. Even their movements seem to betray their true identities: escaped wax museum exhibits. This theory also explains the mass number of duplicate guards, and the random death and unconsciousness animations that betray enemies' lack of spine. These beautiful environments are a double-edged sword: load times. Missions seem to have a fair sized area per load time, often requiring only one load mid-mission. Yet the City seems to have been made by a much smaller template, as loads are possible within seconds of each other.

Thief: Deadly Shadows comes down to one issue: is pure stealth your cup of tea? In Thief games there is no melee combat (at least, none you will be happy about) and even less ranged combat. Garret cannot survive but a couple hits from most enemies. The entire idea is to outwit your enemies and make sure once you've left a location the only evidence of your entrance is the lack of evidence against it. If a night in the life of a shadow-dweller sounds like a night on the town to you, there is no choice. There is only Deadly Shadows.