izigame.me

Very good remaster.
I've been waiting for this for years, but honestly as the date to release got closer my hype slowly turned into "eh what's the point?" and even as I played the first few levels that line of thinking remained.
On a surface level it just looks like modded SS2 with some extra enhancements like better animations, real weapon animations, faithfully remodeled enemies/ weapons, and post processing like AO, bloom, and specular lighting.
And visually yeah, that's exactly what you get.
What you get on top of that though really makes the difference for me.
Audio/Visual:
This game felt smooth, like ridiculously so.
The older New Dark engine updates for Thief and SS2 do support high framerates and whatnot, but physics always has to be locked, and the responsiveness never feels *quite* good enough. This remaster has support for unlimited refresh rate as far as I can tell, up to 4k(8k?) (no clue, who uses 8k?), and comes with Vulkan and DX11 support both so you have your options. Only thing it's missing is an FOV slider but I THINK that was removed because of a bug with the new models when you increase it.
Aside from that, the game has native OpenAL and HRTF support, and it sounds awesome.
You could emulate EAX to OpenAL in the original, but they clearly did some extra work here. It's great.
Extra modeling/ texture enhancements... I technically mentioned this above, but I really want to point it out. Even with SHTUP and SCP, etc. in the original game, many models still remained technically flat albeit with higher res textures. Instead they've gone the whole nine yards here and fully remodeled pretty much every world object from doors to panels, kiosks, and furniture, and given it real depth. If you've never played the original or barely played it you might not notice, but with the amount I've played it, it was always something I wish was rectified in some of the original HD texture/model mods, and I LOVE seeing it here.
Something else you get that isn't really a possibility of the old engine is that addition of extra animation support.
Every character's animations have been improved and those that physically talk now have a bit of lip syncing which is pretty cool. Aside from that, all weapon models now have both hands and reload animations! If you're familiar with the old game you'll now that you held every weapon (even shotguns and grenade launchers) with one hand, and reloading was handled by lower the gun off screen. Again, a change many wouldn't REALLY notice, but it's awesome to have, and another thing I had always wished for.
The rest of the honorable mentions are stuff like light balance changes, though I'm not sure what was implemented from mods and what is new. There's also the QOL of key items not requiring being dragged which I thought was great. Achievements are cool. Multiplayer now actually works, though saves are bugged, but from what I've seen of it, it looks really fun.
Already implied, but you also get all of these enhancements WITHOUT having to download like 20 different mod packages, which I think is dope.
I just finished the game on Impossible - Navy and it was an insanely good time. As I said it started out kind of eh but I soon found myself thinking about the game when I was working or doing chores and just HAD to come back and beat it.
All time game right here, one of if not my favorite FPS of all time still.
My hopes are that some of my favorite mods like Secmod 3 get ported, and that some new tools come out to help reignite the modding community for this game as Thief has in recent years.
11/10 type game.