I’m standing over a desk in the Unity offices in Copenhagen with a fellow member of the press and two of the 10 Chambers team. Laid across the table is a building blueprint strewn with photos of key POIs. We’re deliberating over how to proceed with our upcoming heist. Should we split up or stick together? Move around the building in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction? Work up the floors or down? It feels like I could be part of a real heist, and this is the essence of Den of Wolves.
Set in the fictional, cyberpunk Midway City, Den of Wolves tells the story of a dystopian future where technological advancements resulted in all-out corporate warfare. Tech and biology combine to create the most secure data protection of all time: the human brain, which cannot be infiltrated or replicated by AI and is accessible via dreamlike ‘dives.’ Corporations now hire career criminals like yourself to break into opposing businesses, carry out dives, and steal valuable information. It’s a novel setup and a striking vision of what could be a realistic future, but it’s not the only thing that makes Den of Wolves stand out in the heist FPS genre.
There’s a well-known Dane Cook joke that goes, “If they had the choice between sex or this other thing, any guy would rather be part of a heist.” Guy, girl, or otherwise, I think this is a valid claim. And so does the team behind Den of Wolves. In a December 2024 interview with 10 Chambers co-founder and narrative director Simon Viklund, he told me this joke partly inspired him and other ex-Overkill, ex-Starbreeze devs to enter the heist genre starting with Payday 1 and 2.
More than Payday, however, Den of Wolves aims to give you a fuller experience of planning and carrying out a heist. That’s why I’m here, looking over these plans, scrawling arrows and crosses on the page with a red marker. In other heist games, you start in front of your main target with everything you need already at your disposal. In contrast, Den of Wolves tasks you to complete dedicated prep missions that decide the equipment you’ll have access to and how you’ll ultimately approach the heist.
For our prep mission, my team and I work to collect an assault drone. This in itself is a mini heist. We break into a heavily guarded building and start stealthily until security inevitably spots one of our crew. Then it’s a full-on firefight until we reach the vault containing our bounty. Utter chaos ensues as enemies descend from every angle, but, thanks to our futuristic tech, vast arsenal, and my expert prox mine placement, we make it out alive. This takes just ten minutes, and all prep missions are similarly snappy.
Other prep missions include obtaining explosives, tools, building blueprints, or intel. While I only got to see one prep example, Den of Wolves seems to put key decisions in your hands all the way from the ideation of a heist to its conclusion.
While you can choose your path, you’re also participating in a set storyline that unfolds across a series of city districts. The story is somewhat foretold, the key heist targets are preordained, but how you get there is up to you.
For our main heist, we infiltrate the target building under the guise of delivery people dropping off valuable blueprints. This allows us to walk right in the front door. We placed the drone we collected in our prep mission inside the bag and used it to attack security. If you wanted to do things differently – for example, blast your way through the walls – you would instead choose prep missions to gather explosives and blueprints of the building you’re invading.
Aside from the immersion of being involved in every aspect of the heist, this process has another added benefit. “In Payday, you would spawn without a plan,” 10 Chambers comms manager Robin Bjorkell explains. “Someone would approach the entrance guns blazing while someone is climbing the fire escape to go via the roof. The third is looking for an entrance through the back alley, and you’ve got the fourth joining mid-game asking, ‘how are we doing this?’” Whether with friends or randoms, this is not an issue in Den of Wolves. “If you choose to go via the roof, for example, only that approach is available.”
Thanks to our IRL prep, we work seamlessly as a team, moving clockwise between vaults as we search for three passkeys. This prep stage of poring over a blueprint isn’t currently in the game’s pre-alpha version, but I’m told something similar will be added before release.
The passkeys unlock a chamber containing our target. Each key is tucked away in any one of seven locked vaults. There’s a chance that we’ll need to access most of them, which is why we planned our path in advance. Naturally, putting our plans into action is trickier when the bullets start flying.
Among our tools are proximity mines and advanced electronic shields that let bullets out but not in. Somehow, they work from both directions, but let’s not question it. These shields are indispensable when breaking into vaults, preventing us from being sitting ducks.
We also have two spider drills, but, as with most things in Den of Wolves, we could have amassed more by prioritizing them during prep missions. This means we can only unlock two vaults at a time; again, something we planned for during prep. With two of the team hacking into the nearest vaults, the other pair head to the window to plant explosives for our escape – as planned.
The whole time, a fifth AI team member feeds us intel remotely. Being on comms can be chaotic, but effective communication is essential. There’s no minimap, so instead the comrade in your ear drops waypoints to guide you. They also tell you, for example, when a spider drill stops working and requires a restart. This direction is vital when matchmaking with randoms, and the combined elements of planning and intel make Den of Wolves accessible to those without a dedicated squad to team up with.
Finally, there’s the dive itself. Once we’ve collected the keys – and any valuable loot we can get our hands on – we head to the third floor to unlock the main vault. Again, we planned for all of this. However, unlocking the central vault reveals a miniboss we couldn’t have accounted for, who also attracts a new wave of enemies. After an intense gunfight, we make it back downstairs.
Our target is suspended in a glowing, red container, and when we lock in for the dive, we’re transported to another dimension. Dives vary depending on the target, but this one takes us on a distorted, mixed-gravity parkour run. Fortunately, only one of your team needs to make it out for the dive to be a success. Upon completing a series of dives, and surviving an onslaught of enemies, it’s time to extract. A manic 30-40 minutes of chaos is over, and you’re all set to rake in the big bucks before moving on to your next job.
Despite seeing just a fragment of Den of Wolves in a pre-alpha build, I came away feeling like this could be a proper contender for the heist game crown. Much like our thorough prep work, every detail has been thought out, and I’m looking forward to seeing what other stories and dives await me in the full release.