OtherSide Entertainment’s next game is a four-player PvPvE immersive sim, delivering an experience that looks like a multiplayer take on the Thief or Dishonored games. The game is called Thick As Thieves, and the first trailer for it debuted during The Game Awards, showcasing the tense-looking competitive heist game in action and the four different playable characters.
In Thick As Thieves, you play as one of four different characters, each of whom specializes in a different playstyle and has their own story. These thieves go on missions in a city set in an alternative history of early modern northern UK where technology and magic coexist. Different factions control different parts of the city, and you decide which your thief aligns themselves with–despite being a multiplayer game, Thick As Thieves is still a living world that narratively responds to your choices.
“No two missions are ever the same,” lead designer David McDonough said during a preview event prior to The Game Awards. Otherside co-founder Warren Spector added that Thick As Thieves is designed to emulate the feeling of playing D&D, subverting the “slow” experience typical of the genre. He commented on how games like Dishonored or Deus Ex typically see players respond to problems with methodical precision–Thick As Thieves is designed to push players to make those kinds of plans and decisions at breakneck speeds.
As a quick note, Otherside Entertainment was working on a D&D game (Underworld Ascendant) prior to Wizards of the Coast canceling it in January 2023, but Spector didn’t say whether Thick As Thieves’ D&D inspirations were born from that project.
“This is not a game you play and finish,” Spector said at the preview event. “We’re capturing the feeling of an ongoing [D&D] campaign.” He added that, unlike D&D (which is very much a war game), Thick As Thieves is “fundamentally not about fighting” despite combat and takedowns being a part of it. Fighting off guards or other players is a part of the gameplay loop, but a truly talented player can get through an entire mission without being noticed or making any sort of commotion.
During the preview event, the press saw an exclusive video of Thick As Thieves in action, showcasing a mission nearly from start to finish. The gameplay’s mixture of technology and magic looks a whole lot like Dishonored, and the cat-and-mouse dance between players all fighting over the same mission objective matches the intensity of Deathloop during a Julianna invasion or Hood: Outlaws & Legends. During the mission, we followed a thief attempting to steal an artifact from a mansion. Their initial attempts to get in through the roof were waylaid by another player, so they took to the sewers instead, leaving behind a trap to take down a third player who was following them.
Once inside the mansion, I saw the thief go through all the steps I normally would playing an immersive sim like Dishonored or Prey: find the safe, discover the safe is locked, track down the combination by following environmental clues and dodging patrolling guards, get into the safe, and get out of dodge. However, in addition to all that, the thief took extra steps to dissuade other players, like re-locking the safe after it had been opened to make it seem like the prize was still there and double-checking behind desks or up in the rafters to ensure no one was hiding. Once the prize was secured, the thief had to make a mad dash for the exit–the presenter mentioned that this is a moment that some players inevitably wait for, ambushing others who did the legwork for them.
I’m a scaredy-cat who could hardly handle a player-controlled Julianna in Deathloop, so I’m not sure how well I’ll deal with something like Thick As Thieves, which features three other players all trying to mess with my carefully laid plans, but I’m still eager to see more of the game. I’m especially intrigued by the narrative elements. How does this world react and evolve if it’s a multiplayer game? How does the story work?
There’s plenty of time for Otherside Entertainment to answer those questions, as Thick As Thieves won’t hit the Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC until 2026. The game will feature cross-play support at launch.