At today’s Day of the Devs showcase, immersive sim luminary Warren Spector presented the latest on Thick as Thieves, the upcoming multiplayer Thief successor from Spector’s studio, Otherside Entertainment. Spector calls Thick as Thieves a “player-powered” immersive sim, where the flow of a match is determined by how your rival thieves are manipulating the game’s systems to their own ends.
Revealed back in 2024, Thick as Thieves is a PvPvE first-person stealth game pitting you against rival Thieves Guild members as you race through a dense, intricate turn-of-the-century city to be the first to pilfer a prized item. Otherside says it’s got “all the bells and whistles” of its immersive sim forebears, like hiding in shadows and timing your movements with internalized NPC pathing and vision cones.
The “x-factor,” Otherside says, is multiplayer. No matter how much you memorize NPC behavior and level geometry, your heist plans can only be so perfect when another player might sprint by and club you senseless.
According to Otherside, a core design pillar for Thick as Thieves is “play with your ears,” meaning audio design is a crucial component of providing players with information for pulling off their skulduggery. And those sounds won’t just tell you when a guard’s walking down the corridor or rival thieves are tussling outside. Audio is a tool for you to use, too: Otherside says you can use loud sounds like thunderstorms and passing trains to cover the noises of your lockpicking, glass-breaking, and general cutpursery.
That changing audio landscape is just one way that each Thick as Thieves match will differ from the next. Weather conditions will vary from game to game; shops that were closed in your last game might be open in the next. And each thief is pursuing their own quest objectives, seeding interconnecting webs of chaos across each other’s schemes.
We’ve been eagerly waiting for a chance to try it out since our lengthy Thick as Thieves preview last year. If you’re just as eager to play, you might have a chance soon: Otherside is taking playtest sign-ups now.
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