Thief Gold has gotten a full (unofficial) expansion in time for its 25th anniversary. The Black Parade has been in development for seven years by Feuillade Industries and is now free to play:

10 huge, open-ended and meticulously crafted missions with varied themes packed with content.
– A brand new protagonist thrown into a dark, intricately woven story of crime and conspiracies.
– 4 new tools happily supplied by the undermarket, at a price.
– Many tweaks to the AI to make the game a bit more challenging but still fair.
– A brand new “banter” system where AIs greet each other during their rounds and nightly life.
– 28 voiced characters totaling roughly 1,800 new lines of dialogue.
– 30 minutes of gorgeous hand-drawn briefings and cutscenes.
– Brand new AI motions making the denizens of The City look more alive.
– Full English subtitles.

In The Black Parade you play the character of Hume, a hardened criminal who was sent into exile as a punishment for his crimes. The year is 833, you are now back in The City, a sprawling metropolis of soot-caked brick, greasy fumes and noisy machinery, with many a sinister conspiracy whispered behind closed doors. Lost and without a penny to your name, you are back to your life of thievery and must find your old associate Dahlquist. Shadows and silence are your allies. Light is your enemy. Stealth and cunning are your tools. And the riches of others are yours for the taking.

Of course, it’s recommended that you play through Thief Gold before jumping into The Black Parade to familiarize yourself with the world and the game’s mechanics. The Thief games are old, but extremely important to the stealth genre back when first-person games were still new and all about guns and blowing stuff up.

[TTLG]