The approach that Looking Glass had to creating games was pretty unique, he says now.

Yet Looking Glass games werent driven by a singular 90s auteur.

There were various individual superheroes, Smith says.

Keyart for the Thief: Gold version of the classic stealth sim game. Garrett, the titular Thief, is standing against a dark city backdrop, holding his bow with a glowing blue arrow nocked.

Terry Brosius, Dan Thron, Doug Church, Mark LeBlanc.

You were measured against the game we all created together.

The games as good as its weakest link.

Cover image for YouTube video

Ego wasnt the focus.

But at the same time I was a rookie at it.

For Smith, the magic of games like the ones Looking Glass made comes partly from immersion.

A screenshot of first person stealth sim Thief: The Dark Project. The player has been spotted by a Hammerite, a religious soldier wearing read and silver armour

Its just totally incompatible with ego.

If somebody is trying to put themselves in the game, then necessarily theyre creating a contrivance.

Thief is often credited, alongside the likes ofMetal Gearand Tenchu, with inventing the stealth game.

Garrett in 2014’s Thief reboot, climbing a wall on a rope. He’s wearing all black leather and is hooded.

But many of its traits have proven to be recessive.

And that deliberate obfuscation carried over to its storytelling, too, which was subtle and oblique.

I love it when games take that approach, Smith says.

A screenshot of the mobile game Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor. It appears to be an old fashioned home office, with a desk, and framed photographs on the walls against off-green wallpaper. There are butterflies and other insects in the foreground of the screen

And in a lot of ways, its just common sense.

After Thiefs sequel,The Metal Age, Looking Glass went out of business.

And we paid for it.

Action gardening in Waking Mars: the player, in a side on platformer, jumps on a giant green leaf and wrangles two spikey, dangerous looking venus flytrap-esque plants hanging from the ceiling

In this sense, he is the Jamie Lee Curtis of games.

I watch horror movies in part to coax myself out of being worried about that stuff.

In retrospect, Smith is most proud of the open world segments that connected Thief 3s missions.

A spacefarer walks beside their jett ship in Jett: The Far Shore

The latter challenge alone has bested talented teams since.

I did not play it, because it sounded like I was going to be disappointed, Smith says.

I actually met with that team, and they asked if I had any suggestions, Smith says.

I was like, Why dont you guys just make your own character?

Just give him a different name.

That would have been interesting to me, to explore more of the world.

Smith himself has spent many of the years since Thief: Deadly Shadows applying its lessons in unexpected places.

And as the subtitle suggests, Spiders setting is stuffed with environmental storytelling in the immersive sim vein.

I think Spider was my haiku, he adds.

And thats actually what Waking Mars is about, its a space gardening game.

Besides: Smith got to play a great, modern successor whenDishonoredcame out.

That was the first time I played a Thief game, he says.

And then it was like, Im playing Thief, Smith says.

This is the experience other people have.

And theyre right, it is really good.

Because I know Id get that contract in a heartbeat.

But to do that would, surely, make ego the focus.

And that’s not how you make a good immersive game.