Outta Dunwall: Thief Remake The Dark Mod Updates

With Dishonored reactivating long-dormant stealth glands the world over, now seems a fine time to revisit perhaps its primary ancestor, the Thief games. Doom 3 total conversion The Dark Mod is a mightily ambitious attempt to recreate Thief - its mechanics if not its actual missions - in a more modern, and very much darkness-orientated, engine. It's just had a major update and a promising new mission added too.

I'm going to insert a 'Read the rest of this entry' link now, if that's okay.

The changelog is enormous, but I suggest you have a gander to get a sense of the scale of this update. If you're not sure what to do with yourself now you've completed Dishonored four different ways, this is quite likely the most sensible next port of call (well, other than fresh air and exercise).

As well as 'dozens' of new art assets and bugfixes, headline new stuff is:

Richer audio: TDM 1.08 should provide a much more immersive sound experience. We’ve added over 200 new impact sounds, as well as two new vocal sets. Many things that used to be silent now make appropriate noises. Falling bodies now make impact sounds, arrows have sound as they whiz past you, and AI make rustling noises as they move based on what they’re wearing.

AI Improvements: The lightning-fast reactions of AI have been toned down, so that they don’t leap immediately to combat after a half-second glimpse of you down the street. AI now react to things getting thrown at them, and can be knocked out by heavy things
being dropped on their head. AI are smarter about using elevators and will use them while searching now. Several new AI character models have been added, including the Builder Acolyte and the Elite Citywatch.

Additionally: The Training Mission has been revamped by Bikerdude for 1.08, with a few new sections and beautiful improvements to the visuals. The team’s second demo mission, The Tears of St. Lucia, has also been updated for 1.08 and is now included with the mod by default.

Bikerdude!

Of course, out of the box the mod doesn't last too long, but fan-made missions are the key to extending that. So, also new on the Dark Mod scene is a new user mission that the mod's team reckon could rapidly become the community's favourite. FInd out about and download grayman's In The North right here.

I must play this. I will play this. But first, I need to go put on a mask and kill some dogs.

Download the Dark Mod here - though be aware you need a working Doom 3 installation too. Alas, it appears the 'new' Doom 3 BFG edition won't do the trick - but with the Doom 3 source code due to be released for free soon, hopefully a standalone version of TDM is on the cards.