Thief 2 - The Metal Age Guide

Thief 2 took what was great with Thief 1 and refined those things. This game is much darker, more tense and has a much greater focus on stealth infiltration missions. The game world has changed since the happenings of the last game, and technology has taken some steps forward. You must now also be weary of security cameras and sentry bots.

This guide will explain how to install the digital edition of the game available on GOG.com

Tips & Specs

To learn more about PlayOnLinux and Wine configuration, see the online manual: PlayOnLinux explained

Arch Linux 64-bit
PlayOnLinux 4.2.5
Wine 1.6.2

Downloading from GOG

GOG games can be downloaded on Linux by using a web browser, just make sure the "GOG.com Downloader mode" is OFF

Make sure that you download the Universal update as well as the installer. The update fixes several issues so don't forget it.

Or you can use the lgogdownloader, which is my personal preferred choice. It is a very useful program for downloading GOG games. There is no graphical interface for it, but it is very fast and provides error free downloads.

For some Linux distros it may be found in community repositories or similar community provided packages. Installation and usage instructions are located here: lgogdownloader

On first use, you must log in by opening a terminal and using the command:

lgogdownloader --login

You will be prompted for your gog.com account email and password, which you must type in correctly before you can use lgogdownloader to download games.

To list all games you own, type:

lgogdownloader --list

If you only want to see specific games you own, for example any games with 'thief' in the name, then type:

lgogdownloader --list | grep thief

To download Thief 2 - The Metal Age with no extras and no cover artwork, just the actual installer:

lgogdownloader --download --game thief_2_the_metal_age --no-extras --no-cover --directory /path/to/folder

Using the lgogdownloader will download the Universal update as well, so you don't need to download that separately if you use this method.

Setup PlayOnLinux

Launch PlayOnLinux and select 'Tools' and 'Manage Wine versions'

In the new window that appears, scroll through the 'Available Wine versions' box to find '1.6.2' and click on the right pointing arrow to install it, now it will be visible under 'Installed Wine versions' on the right side
If you have a 64-bits system, make sure you have selected the 'Wine versions (x86)' tab above, although it is possible to make this game work with 64-bit wine if so desired

Just close the window. Back at the main PlayOnLinux window, select 'Install'

Click on 'Install a non-listed program'

Select 'Install a program in a new virtual drive' and click next

Name the the virtual drive "thief2" and click next

Select "Use another version of Wine", "Configure Wine" and "Install some libraries" before you click next

On the wine selection window, select 1.6.2 and click next. Make sure you select '32-bits window installation' if you are on a 64-bit system as it is normally the best practice, but in my experience this will work well in a 64-bit virtual drive.

When the wine configuration window appear, select the 'Graphics' tab, and click the checkbox for all four options. Make sure that you set the resolution to your desktop resolution. My desktop is at 1920 x 1080, so I set that for the wine virtual desktop resolution.

Note: Even though the language is Norwegian in my screenshot, the layout will look the same for you

When you come to the selection of libraries to install, select two libraries:

• POL_Install_dxfullsetup
• POL_Install_gdiplus

Then click 'Next'

When you are asked for the install file to run, navigate to the GOG installer and select it. Then click 'Next'

Installing the Game

Click on 'Options'. You don't need any desktop icons created by the installer as those are only useful on Windows. Then click to accept the EULA and click 'Install'

When the installation is complete, 'Exit' the installer

When you are asked to create a shortcut, select "Thief2_ND.exe" and click next. You can name the shortcut "Thief 2 - The Metal Age"

Now just select 'I don't want to make another shortcut' and click Next

You should now make sure you have the game shortcut selected in the main PlayOnLinux window, and then click on 'Configure'

Select the 'Display' tab and change "Video memory size" to the memory of your gpu.

Now click on the 'Miscellaneous' tab at the top. Then click on 'Run a .exe file in this virtual drive'

Now navigate to, and select, the Universal update for the game.

The updater is pretty straightforward. Just click on 'Update'

It will finish rather quickly. When it is done, click on 'Exit'

You can now close the PlayOnLinux Configuration window can run the game from PlayOnLinux!

When you start the game, it is likely to run in a small window. What you should do select Options from the game menu, and select Video. Here you should be able to set your desktop resolution if you want the game fullscreen.



The game is very dark, as can be seen in the screenshots below. And in order to play through this game well on higher difficulties you really must learn to love the darkness. This game really rewards patience, waiting silently in the dark until it is the right moment to make a move. Anyone who enjoy stealth games should find this to be a very fun and challenging game.

Screenshots

 

Wow, that is one DARK game!
I have Thief 2: The Metal Age but its the retail version. I hope it runs just as good as the GOG version.
Was GDI plus required to install the game, or do you need it to play the game as well?

 

I think it should work well without. I just use it to get the GOG installer to display properly. If you have the retail version then I would highly suggest getting the NewDark patch for the game. I know the GOG version use it, it let the game run on much higher resolutions.

Without the NewDark patch I think the highest resolution is 800x600.

 

I love it when they patch old games for new high resolution monitors.
Thanks!

 

Wow, that is one DARK game!
I have Thief 2: The Metal Age but its the retail version. I hope it runs just as good as the GOG version.
Was GDI plus required to install the game, or do you need it to play the game as well?

Curious in my case i dont hve problems with GDI, but however i need t2x_v11_full.exe (700mb) patch to run (i have steam version)

 

Yes, the gdiplus library is just for the GOG installer to display properly.

I believe Thief 2 have the same issues as Thief 1 when running in Wine. If you have a widescreen monitor it is likely to crash unless you run with a virtual desktop. The patches that enable higher resolutions probably fix that issue, but running in a virtual desktop will fix it too.

 

I always prefer a virtual desktop. The only side effect I have found with the virtual desktop is sometimes the mouse is too sensitive in a game and you can't adjust it in the game options.
Assassin's Creed Revelations has this problem, but its still totally playable.

 

I always prefer a virtual desktop. The only side effect I have found with the virtual desktop is sometimes the mouse is too sensitive in a game and you can't adjust it in the game options.
Assassin's Creed Revelations has this problem, but its still totally playable.

However in assassins creed works good in my case (single and multiplayer*), * in multiplayer appears other problems but more related with punkbuster

In other games mouse problems still continues like as binary domain and others

Virtual desktop in my case works good with most games tested

 

Mouse problems like not turning all the way around 360 degrees? Or other mouse problems?
I have found a few games that refused to let me turn all the way around no matter what setting I used in Wine. Crysis 2 and Risen... but I found that when the mouse stops turning, I could right-click the screen or even hold right click and it worked perfectly!

 

Mouse problems like not turning all the way around 360 degrees? Or other mouse problems?
I have found a few games that refused to let me turn all the way around no matter what setting I used in Wine. Crysis 2 and Risen... but I found that when the mouse stops turning, I could right-click the screen or even hold right click and it worked perfectly!

In my case thanks to windowed mode many games works (thanks for your tip), when i test in fullscreen and appear problems, i press mouse right and left buttons at same time and turn around and solve problems for few time but windowed mode is more stable

 

I have also seen this problem with several games, that mouse capture just does not work. Playing such games windowed always seem to solve the issue with mouse capture.

 

That is unfortunate because most of us do not want to play "windowed"
Fullscreen is always more Movie-like

I have even gone as far as setting my virtual desktop to the size of my Linux desktop 1680x1050
Or
I would launch the game without virtual desktop and then set the resolution to 1680x1050

But some games still have problems...
I hope Wine can get it worked out because those are minor issues but can be frustrating.

 

Hey when I try to run Thief 2 from GOG on my arch install I get a crash. Here's the backtrace. ix.io/f8f

 

That backtrace doesn't show us any Wine errors. Can you do a "debug" in PlayOnLinux and post it?

 

I don't use playonlinux remember???

 

Ok, so is there a way to output a debug with Wine alone?

 

If you tell me how you've set up Wine then it would be easier to help. Have you set it up like indicated by my guide, or are you using a completely different setup? You are going to have to provide some more information on what you have done so it becomes possible for us to figure out what could be wrong.

If you have not set up Wine according to the steps I use in my guide, then that should be your first step since it the game runs very well by these steps. In other words, emulate a virtual desktop, use WinXP as windows version and install directx through winetricks.

 

I have all the packages selected like I have in my guides, and yes I play all these games in an emulated desktop. I did not think of the Windows mode

 

I have not had the time to look any more into this lately. For all I know it could be a problem running Thief 2 with the latest version of wine, or something else in your config.

My best suggestion at this point is to make sure you have wine configured exactly as my guide says. Install directx using winetricks (adding the library overrides like you do does not actually download and install native directx, you need to use winetricks for that) since that might be needed with the patched version of Thief on GOG.

Also, prior to running it, run the command

export WINEDEBUG=+all

So you get all debug output which can be really helpful in figuring out why it will not run.