Among the short list of living legends in the game industry, Warren Spector’s name is right at the top. The godfather of the immersive sim genre, who created Deus Ex and helped bring Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Thief to the world, isn’t ready to rest on his laurels. Spector, along with Thief project lead Greg LoPiccolo and Underworld designer Paul Neurath, are creating what they believe to be the next evolution of the immersive sim.
Just revealed at The Game Awards, Thick as Thieves is a stealth action PvPvE game where players use cunning, teamwork, and the environment to outwit rival thieves and sneak their way to victory.
A City From The Rooftops
Set in 1910s metropolis, Thick as Thieves takes place in an alternative history that combines turn of the century tech and a touch of magic. Studio OtherSide Entertainment describes the world as one of deep and apparent class disparity, where the wealthy and powerful thrive as the lower class struggles to survive. Learning to navigate both worlds is the key to survival and, hopefully, greatness.
Thick as Thieves is a session-based game where players enter an ever-changing map solo or with three friends and set about searching for treasure and completing story missions. The game features a selection of characters to choose from with their own stats, abilities, and storylines that facilitate a variety of gameplays.
Whether you want to be an unseen ghost or smash your way through to each objective like a Mack Truck, you have the ability to approach each mission in a variety of ways.
Thief Versus Thief
Of course, you and your team aren’t the only ones sneaking around. Aside from patrolling guards, you’ll also need to be on the lookout for rival thieves who can lay traps, misdirect you, or sneak up behind and take you out of the match in an instant. While speaking with Spector during a preview, he emphasized that the game is competitive, but not combat-focused. Though you can face off with other players, the most effective strategies will often be more indirect. Thick as Thieves will challenge you to outwit other players rather than outgun them.
The PvP element is just one way OtherSide aims to add variety and replayability to the game. Each time you load into a new session, the city will have changed in a variety of ways. Guards change their routes, new paths become available, and key items move to different locations. This means there’s no optimum route or single strategy for approaching each mission, because they’lll be ever-changing.
The team also promises a world “rich in characters, stories, and mystery,” and is aiming to expand on those stories through ongoing content updates. Spector says he was initially resistant to the idea of a live-service game given his background in single-player, but was convinced when he realized the creative benefits. The immersive sim genre was born out of his love for tabletop RPGs, and the intention is to treat Thick as Thieves’ story like an ongoing D&D campaign.
The most interesting element of Thick as Thieves is discovering how its many overlapping systems react to having multiple players. The appeal of immersive sims is rooted in emergent gameplay and the reactivity of the world – a difficult thing to do even in a single-player game. By adding multiplayer to the equation, there are infinitely more moving parts to consider. This is what the OtherSide team has spent the last few years solving. “It’s going to work,” Spector promises. Given his accomplishments, I’m keen to believe him.
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