Istanbul. The heist sequence that establishes Among Thieves' more confident register — Nate older, more capable, the game's visual and mechanical language more assured. The lamp as the MacGuffin that leads to the Cintamani Stone, the object that organizes the game's second act in the way the El Dorado idol organized the first. Breaking into a museum is the series' morally ambiguous baseline — the crime committed in service of the adventure that the game then asks you to root for.

The lamp found is the beginning of the sequence that will eventually take Nate to Shambhala, through war zones and train sequences and the Himalayan snow. The museum is the last normal space the game will occupy. Everything after the lamp is accelerating.