< Thief (series)

Thief (series)/Nightmare Fuel


Your sacrifice is not yet complete...

In this game series, you normally start off on your normal routine of robbing some fat nobleman's manor of his prized possession(s). But then you get caught in the middle of conflict between order and chaos, and Nightmare Fuel ensues in all three of those games.

  • The Shalebridge Cradle from Thief: Deadly Shadows is a non-stop ride through this trope, being filled to the brim with ghostly whispers, flickering electrical systems, tortured and mindless inmates that won't stay dead and so much more. Oh yes, and the building itself is alive and it hates you, and your only ally defines Creepy Child.
    • Say the words "Shalebridge Cradle" to any Thief veteran and you'll probably get a deer-in-the-headlights look and a hiss of fright. The level, set in an orphanage which had been converted into an insane asylum, yet still kept the functions of both. It had developed a malevolent sentience after being burnt down by a pyromaniac inmate. There were several moments in the level which were nothing short of viscerally terrifying, including:
      • A section where you hear a quiet knocking on a door upstairs, which gets progressively louder and more frantic the closer you get to it. When you open it, nothing's there. Even creepier: The sound is quite likely the Cradle's memory of Lauryl's frantic attempts at escape as the Hag came for her.
      • The entire first half of the level for the simple reason that there is not a single enemy (or sentient being save Laurel) before you reach the Inner Cradle. This means that, thanks to your less-than-comforting briefing, and the bone-chilling discoveries you make in the first area, you'll at least spend the entirety of the Outer Cradle creeping around corners and jumping at every single damn shadow, but never having his fears validated. Of course, if you played before or read about it, the edge is taken off. The first time is hell though.
  • Speaking of bone-chilling discoveries in the first half, how about the fact that you're not entirely told the Cradle's true nature. It's up to you to put the pieces together using a scrawled page from a child's notebook and realise that the Shalebridge Cradle was not just an orphanage and then an asylum, but in its later years both things at once...
  • Most of the first area is the attic covered in metallic floor. Nothing like being scared shitless and cursing the game for not allowing you to sneak.
  • A section where you enter the inner area of the asylum. As you walk up to the front desk, the sound of clocks gets louder and louder, and a shadowy figure runs right in front of a window. That was as far as this troper got before quitting out of pure terror. I've never played it since.
  • A section where you need to travel into the past using artifacts left by the asylum's insane inmates. These include a birdhouse, a gramophone which plays ghostly music and the ashes of a cremated baby.
  • Jacob's Ladder-esque zombies which twitch in a deeply unsettling manner and cause the lights nearby to flicker. Bring lots of Fire Arrows, and don't be afraid to use them.
  • Deeply distressing reports of various "treatments" used on inmates.
  • The fact that Garrett, usually completely unfazed by all the bizarre and horrible things he encounters, sounds deeply unnerved in the opening briefing before he even enters the damn place.
    • Garrett speaks once during the entire Cradle. Once. A simple, matter-of-fact observation that the way he came in is locked, and it just makes it all the more chilling.
    • Twice. When you get Lauryl's blood. "This must be Hers. It's still warm. Great..." The fact that Garrett sounds positively squeamish does not help.
    • He laughs because there's no down button for the elavator at the top.
    • There is also the subtle, unspoken possibility that you never actually escape, and that the Cradle is toying with you - forever.
    • Her nightie is locked inside ONE OF THE PAITENTS ROOMS! Oh, God...
  • The Statues of the later levels are also rather disconcerting, in the way that they move and speak.
    • "FIND AND KILL AND FIND AND KILL AND FIND..."
  • Another terrifying moment is right before the cutscene where The Hag brings the statues to life. Beforehand, you enter a room that has 4 gargoyle statues. After you watch that cutscene and go back, One of the statues is missing. And then you realize that it's too late.
  • The previous game, "Thief: The Metal Age" has plenty of nightmare fuel afoot as well. The masked servants, for example, and Karras's recorded message to Garrett: "I would have had thee under my command, else dead! Indeed...I'd have had both..." SHUDDER.
  • Although he was without a doubt harmless, most players will agree that the Golden child that appears out of thin air after reading the scripture and turning back into a small room that you just went through to get to the scripture gave them a huge jump and unnerved them. What's even worse, it makes highly odd noises, is invincible, tries to attract the guards and acts very oddly. Then you're wondering for the rest of the level whether it is just a robot or if there is something living inside.
    • Karras is an incredibly effective source of nightmare fuel, maybe because of his amusing speech impediment making him seem quite laughable early in the game. But as you play on, you come across documents, and overhear conversations, that slowly reveal just how broken Karras is. He has the power of a dominant church, ambition unrestrained by empathy, and he hates everyone. He doesn't even care for his followers.
    • The fact that he correctly guessed you'd crash his party at the tower on his own hunch, refused to attend despite all his followers around and set up a trap is a disturbing indication of his huge intellect and paranoia.
  • The Thief games are filled with moments specifically designed to make you jump out of your skin. The worst (excluding Shalebridge, obviously) is probably, as mentioned previously, that goddamn mechanical baby in the Mechanist tower.
  • Traveling through haunted tunnels, groping around pitch darkness, trying to find the elevator...the zombies who can't be killed except with the all-too-rare holy water, shambling about somewhere nearby, groaning...you never know quite where they are until they're RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. At which point you realize that no matter how many times you frantically flail at them with your sword, they'll just keep getting up. If you make the mistake of going down to the bottom level of the mine, you'll be assualted by giant spiders that have some sort of quality that made even this troper, normally immune to arachnophobia, shudder and turn the game off.
  • In the later levels of the first game, the player will often come in contact with the various demons summoned by Constantine...the rat/monkey ones were only marginally scary, but the praying mantis-like creatures were incredible nightmare fuel. They moved about in a hideous, jerky parody of a human walking, and made cooing noises that sounded disturbingly like a human baby. Plus, they'll spit clouds of flies into your face, which does really awful things to your health bar.
  • There are a lot of horrific fan missions for all the thief games, particularly 1 & 2.
    • Calendra's Legacy not only had a minor recreation of the Tomb of Horrors but also had you running through an entire city filled with undead of all sorts, including a cemetery boss-lair.
    • One particular Thief Fan Mission caused a heart attack (Phantasmagoria. Strongly recommend you play the remake, which doesn't have the potential to kill you). Yes, the game is this scary.
    • A level called "Rowena's Curse" achieves an excellant creepy atmosphere. To begin with, you are sent on a mission to retrieve a woman who has disappeared under unknown circumstances. Then, you find the mission is based in a mansion with a HUGE guard contingent, and A LOT of marble flooring, which makes your footsteps very audible to them, setting you up for an anxious investigation. But the mission only gets creepier as you delve into it's recent fatal misfortunes, and then in to it's grisly history, all the while hearing about a mysterious previous resident named "Lady Rowena." The jump moment comes when you discover a note left on the ground, addressed to you, personally (nobody was expecting you to be there), and signed by Rowena, who supposededly met her gruesome end more than a century beforehand! And the scares just keep coming. Special props to the author (who also goes by the name "Lady Rowena") for the eerie "breathing-like" background audio the surrounds the focal bedrooms, and the tribal drum music behind the iron gate. You can't help bu be on edge from start to finish in this one.
  • Haunts. The fact that the corporeal Hammer Haunts are, from the rear, entirely indistinguishable from normal Hammerites - in some cases right up until you attempt to blackjack them - makes it infinitely worse.
  • Pretty much anything to do with the the Eye qualifies, from the way it speaks menacingly to you to the way it ends up being permanently integrated with one of your EYES!.
  • Return to the Haunted Cathedral. Hot damn. That game is 10 years old, the graphics are very old and that level is still such a mindscrew...
  • "Down in the Bonehoard" can be pretty harrowing unless you don't mind being constantly chased by 6 or 7 zombies all the time, but the one positively terrifying thing was the flaming spectre that appears only in a puzzle room exclusive to Thief Gold. He's ostensibly there to provide extra fire arrows and not allow the player to become permanently stuck, but he is also completely batshit terrifying. After being doused with water arrows, he'll drop some fire crystals, go apeshit, speed up drastically, and start sprinting around the room in the most unnatural way possible, bouncing off the walls like a nightmare pinball before finding the door and disappearing into the bowels of the level. The worst part? He's not dead, can't die, and will come back to get you later, somewhere else, ANYWHERE else, now that you've shooed him out of his little hidey-hole. And since the Bonehorde is a long, long, looooong level, especially if you've selected the difficulty setting that requires you to meet him in the first place, he'll have plenty of time to do it. Brrrrr.
  • Many players found the whispering Haunts from the first game extraordinarily creepy. The mission called "The Cradle" found in the third game is considered to be among the scariest game levels of all time. A detailed writeup can be found here.
    • In the first game, "Return to the Cathedral", and the cutscene after that. Most effective at night and despite the fact that the Hammer Haunts can be harmed.
    • The Mechanist robots in Thief II are very intimidating to the inexperienced player. Also, the invincible but harmless Mechanist 'Cherub' that appears out of thin air and follows you around everywhere in one level making weird noises seriously scared a lot of players who weren't unhinged by the scarier elements of the first game.
    • The Mechanist servants, when you realize that they are free willed humans with their actions controlled by robotic implants. They often have conversations with themselves in which the human bemoans their fate or the robot tells the human off. A specific few are known to utter 'thank you' with their final breath if you kill them.
    • The Haunts are cute fuzzy bunny rabbits by comparison to the "Puppets" and their environment in the Cradle.
  • And just for shits and giggles, take a look at the ominous intro of the first game... If you dare...
  • Definitely not the worst part of the third game, but what about that haunted ship level? On your first playthough, it's definitely the worst part of the game up to that point.
    • While we're on that topic, the room with the mad, rambling captain's widow as also quite unnerving. Of course, she just sits there rambling away while you go through the room, but you stay on edge, not knowing if she will do something, or how dangerous she will be. Which pretty much sums up in a nutshell why there's so much stigmata against crazy people in real life.
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