Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Thief is an absolutely classic, and the series lives on thanks to The Dark Mod which is a standalone free and open source first-person stealth game. Calling it a game isn't entirely correct though. Well, it is, sort-of. The Dark Mod is really a platform for others to create with, it's a big beautiful toolkit for developers to make stealth games and missions with and it's quite fantastic actually.

The Dark Mod 2.09 was announced today bringing in a big overhaul to the graphics rendering, thanks to it using more modern OpenGL. The team mentioned that all their changes "gives TDM some of the performance advantages of rendering using a low level API like Vulkan".

It's a huge release with lots of performance improvements, experimental gamepad support, a new Sharpening Filter they say can "make 70% Render Scale look almost like native resolution (more performance)", particle physics have been substantially improved for both accuracy and performance, a bunch of new assets for map makers, improved background texture loading with faster loading times and much more.

You can see their older trailer below:

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

The Dark Mod does include a tutorial mission, along with two introduction missions that's suggested to play through before you begin to look into the many missions available from others. The tutorial setup is absolutely superb too, there's a lot of really cleverly created game mechanics it teaches you in some fun settings.

I had a blast through it earlier and it really is incredibly well made and graphically it looks great too. The work they've done over the years really shows.

Check it out on the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
20 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
3 comments

d10sfan Feb 15, 2021
Is there any news as to if it's still coming to Steam in the future? I remember it got on Greenlight many years ago when that was a thing.
Botonoski Feb 15, 2021
Seems I just can't get away from Thief, any time it even slightly fades from memory some Youtuber I watch mentions it, or does a review of it, or maybe some indie game inspired by it pops up, or maybe I see an article discussing something tangentially related to Thief.
At this rate I'm surprised the franchise hasn't been picked up by some big studio and relentlessly milked for profit, certainly seems beloved enough for that, all the studio would need is one good reboot or sequel that really understood the core elements that made those early games so good, then that studio could coast on mediocre sequels and spinoffs for decades. You know, kinda like Fallout.
Using Fallout as further comparison, I'd say that 2014 reboot was more like 4 than 3 if you catch my drift.
Al3s Feb 16, 2021
Nice. The biggest problem with The Dark Mod always was performance. We'll see, I remember it like the kind of engine that no matter what you do, never feels smooth.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.