About
Thief II: The Metal Age is a stealth game developed by Looking Glass Studios in 2000 — the sequel to Thief: The Dark Project, shifting the setting to a more industrialised city and introducing high-tech enemies. It is widely considered one of the finest stealth games ever made, emphasising shadow, sound and patience over combat. Available on Steam (AppID 211740) and GOG, and playable on Steam Deck via GE-Proton with the community T2Fix patch.
Identity
Launch
- Binary
- thief2.exe
- Needs files
- none beyond the binary
Proton
- Version
- GE-Proton
- Winetricks
- —
- ProtonDB
- ProtonDB Gold runs perfectly after tweaks
⚙ Setup notes
Game: Thief II: The Metal Age (2000, Looking Glass Studios / Eidos) — stealth masterpiece. Sold on Steam (AppID 211740) and on GOG (~$7 on sale).
Install: The simplest route on Deck is the Steam version run through GE-Proton. The GOG copy works too via Heroic Launcher with GE-Proton.
Patch: Install T2Fix (the community comprehensive patch by Xanfre, current ~v1.27d on ModDB / GitHub). It bundles NewDark plus the official 1.19 patch, adding bug fixes and widescreen/high-res support. If the Inno-Setup installer EXE misbehaves under Proton, extract its files manually instead. Do not install Thief 2 inside a protected folder (Program Files) and do not set any Windows compatibility modes on the executable.
Overlay: Disable the Steam overlay for Thief II — the DarkEngine renderer causes flickering with the overlay enabled. Right-click the game in Steam → Properties → uncheck "Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game."
Controller: No native gamepad support — use a Steam Input keyboard/mouse mapping layout. Community profiles exist for the Deck.
The one thing to know
Paid game: on Steam (AppID 211740) and ~$7 on GOG.
ProtonDB: Gold trending (Platinum best-reported, ~53 reports) — runs well with GE-Proton once patched.
Patch required: Install T2Fix (Xanfre, ~v1.27d on ModDB / GitHub). It bundles NewDark + the official 1.19 patch, adding widescreen, bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. If the installer EXE misbehaves under Proton, extract its files manually instead.
Overlay: Disable the Steam overlay — causes flickering on DarkEngine games.
Controller: No native gamepad support. Apply a community Steam Input layout for keyboard/mouse emulation.
Install location: Install outside Program Files to avoid permission issues.
Community guides
Write-ups and threads from people who got this (or a similar) game running. deckport links to them — it doesn't reproduce them.
Get the artwork
deckport never hosts game images. Open this game on SteamGridDB, pick
the cover / hero / logo / icon you like, and drop them into the
game folder under .deckport-art/ before you push it to the
Deck. The importer files them under the right names automatically.
Run it on your Deck
Two files: the one-time importer (deckport.py) in your
Deck's home folder, and this game's install helper. Copy the game
into ~/Games and run the helper with Steam closed — it
writes the recipe (binary, launch options, Proton version)
and registers the shortcut with artwork.