Eidos Interactive and Looking Glass Studios today announced details about Thief Gold, which is slated for release next month. The Gold version of last year's critically acclaimed first person "stealth" action/adventure game features three all new missions in addition to updated versions of the twelve previous missions, which have undergone additional tuning and playbalancing. The new levels continue the story of Garrett, a cynical, world-weary master thief in an ancient city. The three new levels include:

Thieves Guild
In this level, Garrett has heard that the Downwind thieves guild has pulled off a daring heist, stealing Lord Randall's Sapphire Vase However, they are now squabbling among themselves about how to share the loot. Garrett decides to go in and steal it himself: because of their internal arguments, they won't blame him. He intends to break in through a gambling den they operate, the Overlord's Fancy.

Mage's Guild
In the ruined city of Thief: The Dark Project, the Keeper Chapel revealed that the Mage's Tower was the hiding place for the Talisman of Air. Garrett breaks into the Mages' Tower to steal the Air Talisman. The Talisman is being held in the central Tower of the Mages' Towers, secured by spells. To free the Talisman, one master mage from each of the towers has to stand on a particular pedestal and touch his ring to a symbol. Garrett must find his way to the Central Library, unlock its doors with items found in the Towers, then unlock the door to the Talisman Room to get the Talisman.

Songs of the Caverns
This level chronicles Garrett's search for the Talisman of Water, which has been hidden in an underground cavern deep below the city. However he soon learns that someone else has already stolen the Talisman and his only clues as to who has beaten him to it are the ravings of a lunatic hermit.

Two words: sadistically difficult. A new fence, Blutch, has brought to the table The Rose of Bantry, a job (mission) that will most likely prove too difficult to enjoy for all but the most skilled of thieves. To enjoy this mission, the thief will have to tell him or herself, "don't do it for the money, do it for the challenge," as I found myself midway through the Rose wondering if Garrett should ever have accepted this contract. This can be a good thing for thief who's played all missions, on all difficulties, on all playing styles, looking for an X-treme challenge; as the Rose caters to this niche group of thieves. What makes it so difficult? The priests and novices can not be blackjacked or gassed, the guards have greater strength, tile floor is everywhere, shadow is sparse, and there are several ambushes for the player to trip off by simply opening an unlocked door. Difficulty aside, The Rose of Bantry is a good mission weighed down by a handful of problems.

Sword of Drakul, a good first attempt into the land of fan missions, seems to be held down by object and loot placement, lighting, or lack thereof, and general mediocrity throughout. A good Story raises this slightly above average, and the thrill of outrunning a zombie still remains as an olympic sport.

I think that overall, this level is a good effort by the author and was enjoyable to play. If the mansion wasn't so extremely dark and had a decent story to work from, it would have been a lot more fun and would have been a greater challenge for any thief. I would recommend it for download to anyone looking for a nice, quick robbery, but you should bring your own flashlight!

The mansion which forms your environs is intricately constructed with many features such as spiral staircases, multiple entrances/exits and secret passageways that demonstrate level design confidence and make for an enjoyable romp. Unfortunately the design is let down by naive choices of textures. Sometimes these are poorly aligned but more often they are simply inappropriate. Flowerbed textures being used as carpet is a prime example. Whilst one can suspend one's disbelief and still enjoy this mission, the atmosphere is permanently destroyed.

By Tels:

Default: A small sample default map. You can use this as a base to build other levels. ThiefLoader compatible, Has already a patrol route, a StartinPoint, some light effects (watch the Guard with that Lantern ;) and two objectives as well as a sample map page. "load convict" already used. convict.osm is included so that people without DromEd can play your missions.

Circles: A small sample map showing some things you can do with circles. In the first room it show how you can use multple circles to overcome the limit of 11 sides in one circle. Then there is a room with a "bend" all and finally to circles inside each other, casting interesting shadows.

Bend Around Hell: I always wondered if it would not be possible to create "bend" walls, by using something other then these horrible 10-sides circles. This is just to show you that there is more to DromEd than straight walls and boring right corners. I hope that I can soon generate that stuff with a script, but for now I just copy&pasted that level together from the first wedges. Hope you get some new ideas. Some stuff looks very interestingly like Quake... :)

Reflections: Someone asked about mirrors. Although I could get it completely to work, see for yourself!

I was contacted by a wizened, grey haired gent who asked me to procure a book for him. Not just any book, he said, but a powerful occult tome called the Necronomicon, by one Abdul Alhazred. He says copies are very rare, particulary as the Hammerites reguard it as blasphemous. Rumours are they have a copy in their stronghold of knowledge, Beggingham Keep, and are bent on destroying all others.

Which brings us to an eccentric scholar called Fistral. He reputedly obtained a copy for a high price from a far country, for use in secret experiments. He died along with his wife a while back. No one knows how and locals won't even go near his old place. Recently a party of Hammerities set out to see if they could obtain and destroy the book and raze the house to the ground. They were not heard of again.

Which is where I come in. I just need to go in, get the Book, and come out again. I hope it's that simple...

A local rich man, Bruno, has kidnapped one of the areas X Military heros who recently upset him. He has a history of 'inviting' those who have annoyed him to stay, and you have been contacted to get him out.This is my first try at making a Thief mission. After many problems and infuriating mistakes, its finally ready. It's probably imperfect in many places, but hey, I think its a good first go. If you're bored, you might as well try it.I apologise for the awful name, I hate trying to think things like that up :)