Every stealth game you love learned its tricks from one game — and that game is finally getting the homecoming it deserves. Nightdive Studios, Eidos-Montréal and Atari announced today that Thief: The Dark Project Remastered launches on December 3 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC, with PlayStation 4 and the original Nintendo Switch versions also in the package. The standard digital edition is $29.99, pre-orders are live, and the remaster is not just the 1998 original in a fresh coat of paint.
For anyone who missed it the first time around: Thief: The Dark Project, from the late, great Looking Glass Studios, basically invented the modern stealth genre in 1998. While every other first-person game of the era was about shooting everything that moved, Thief asked you to do the opposite — stay in the shadows, watch the light gem, listen for footsteps on tile versus carpet, and get out with the loot without anyone knowing you were there. It was the first stealth game to build hiding around light and sound as real mechanics, and everything from Dishonored to modern immersive sims is standing on its shoulders.
Nightdive has rebuilt the game in its KEX Engine, the same tech behind its well-regarded System Shock, Turok and Dark Forces revivals. The package includes the complete original game — 12 huge missions — plus everything from the 1999 Thief Gold re-release, which adds three more missions and five new enemy types. On top of that come the modern upgrades: up to 4K resolution at 120 frames per second, enhanced textures, models and animations, a weapon and item wheel built for controllers, rumble and motion/gyro control support, trophies/achievements, a mission selector so you can replay any completed level, a behind-the-scenes Vault, and built-in support for custom campaigns and player mods — including, remarkably, The Black Parade, the fan-made expansion widely considered one of the best Thief campaigns ever made.
You play as Garrett, a former street orphan taken in by the secretive Keepers and trained into a master thief, then turned loose on a steampunk city of corruption, undead and worse. Across three difficulty settings per mission — each with different objectives, so replaying on the hardest setting is practically a different game — you will blackjack guards, douse torches with water arrows, and learn why veteran players still argue this is the greatest stealth game ever made.
The headline surprise, though, is The Tarnished Mirror. This is an entirely new, self-contained campaign launching with the remaster, made by the creators of The Black Parade and now treated as official canon. Set as a bridge between The Dark Project and Thief II: The Metal Age, it begins with a seemingly straightforward theft that spirals into imprisonment, uneasy alliances and a descent into a drowned, Lovecraftian necropolis, with new factions, environments and an expanded enemy roster. A fan team being handed the keys to write official Thief story is almost unheard of — and if anyone had earned it, it is that team. The Steam listing describes it as a four-mission campaign set after the Trickster’s defeat, with Garrett shortchanged and back to small-time jobs as The City tears itself apart politically.
Pricing is refreshingly sane. The Standard Digital Edition is $29.99. The Digital Deluxe Edition is $34.99 and adds a digital art book (described as a remaster diary), the official soundtrack and an excerpt of an upcoming novelization of The Dark Project. Physical collectors are covered too, for PS5 and Switch 2: a Standard Physical Edition at $29.99, a Steelbook Edition at $39.99 with a printed manual, and a Deluxe Trapezoid Edition at $69.99 that recreates the iconic trapezoid big-box packaging of the 1998 PC release, with the game, manual, Steelbook and a Remaster Diary inside. All Switch 2 physical versions are also playable on the original Switch, and Switch owners get a free upgrade to the Switch 2 edition.
December 3 puts Thief right in the middle of a stacked late-year Switch 2 calendar (New Nintendo Switch Games This Week), and it joins a busy season for big comebacks on PS5 as well (New PS5 Games This Week). If you have never played Thief, this is the most accessible version ever made. If you have, you already know: keep to the shadows, taffer.
Source: Nightdive Studios, Eidos-Montréal and Atari announcement via Games Press (November 2, 2026).
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