Thick as Thieves preview — taffers, traps, blackjacks and blackmail

When I think back to the games that made me fall in love with stealth, there’s one game that immediately comes to mind – Thief: The Dark Project. Looking Glass was one of those companies that had the right people at the right time coming together to make something completely unique and genre defining. What are the odds that this incredible team could come together to do it all over again? I met with Otherside Entertainment Co-Founder Warren Spector, and Greg LoPiccolo (both of whom worked on Thief and other games like System Shock, multiple Rock Band titles, and Ultima: Underworld) and David McDonough (XCOM: Chimera Squad, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, multiple Sid Meier’s Civilization titles, and the unreleased Bioshock 4) to talk about their just-announced game, Thick as Thieves.

Let’s start with the setting. Thick as Thieves is set in an alt-history early-modern metropolis inspired by the Northern UK. In it, we see the combination of gaslamp, period-accurate electricity, some early automobiles…oh, and magic, of course. We have multiple factions locked into a power struggle, employing thieves as the foil to even the fight. Technology, magic, stealth, and a recognizable world – if you’re thinking Thief 2: The Metal Age, you aren’t alone. There’s one huge difference between them, however – “friends”.

At its core, Thick as Thieves is a multiplayer game. You play a thief charged with various tasks assigned by your guild. The example we got to see for ourselves involved breaking into a massive estate in an area of the city known as Broadshores. The Blumes and the Gatelys are fed up with the owners and would like us to break into the place and get some dirt on them. They’re willing to pay for that dirt, the more scandalous, the better. They want us to not just dig up rumors either – they know there’s a checkered past underneath, and we’ve gotta find it.

As this is multiplayer (a true PvPvE stealth duel game), each thief will have to use their skills and class advantages to achieve their goal. The other thieves might have the same goals as each mission is a mix of challenges from the world as well as other rival thieves. You can tackle it however you wish, with a potential perfect run being one where you’re never detected and never touched another soul. Let’s see how this might unfold.

Walking through the streets, you’ll find the usual trappings of any city. Lamps, vehicles, people walking, and yes – guards. As long as you keep your weapons concealed, they don’t much care to bother you. The second you start climbing the vines and clambering over the roof edges they might pay attention. Much of the action ahead of reaching the target takes place on the roof, and it’s here we see our fellow felonious friends.

With a nod to prior work, there is a “light gem” at the bottom of the screen – one of the only HUD elements present. This gem works well against the AI, telling the player how concealed they are, but other players will have to use their eyes. It’s telling you that you’re concealed, but it’s not saying you’re invisible. It creates this tension of “Oh man…can they see me? Maybe they can’t see me…wait, did they see me? Oh crap! They saw me!” moments – fear can be fun.

Finally reaching the mansion via the rooftops, we switched to another thief to see how they might tackle the same approach. Instead of heading to the rooftops via vines and trellis opportunities, our would-be spy has taken the low road. Dipping into the shadows and opening a sewer grate reveals an area where there are no guards. You can go high, low, and everywhere in between. At the end of the sewer approach is a lock on the gate – little resistance for our thief as lockpicks popped the four-pin lock with little effort.

Back to our first thief, he was ready to get into an office space using a key. Sure, sneaking up and lifting it from the roaming patrol is completely possible, but a blackjack gives the guard a concussion nap and us a shiny brass key. It’s when these two thieves collide that things get interesting.

Thick as Thieves doesn’t tell you how to play. Using the shadows, one of our thieves deploys a booby trap to stun the other thief. They blindly stepped onto the trap, stunning them. The second thief dispatched them with a blackjack, scattering the now-unconscious thief’s loot all over the floor. Picking it up, our pockets are full. We’ll need to dump our loot and come back.

Exiting the mansion, we head back out to the street and find a dead drop. Opening a secret stash, we leave our loot for later – we’ll recover it when we leave, ensuring we’ve got cash for equipment to prepare for our next outing.

The game has up to four thieves in motion at all times, so our first thief has to rush to get back on track. That’s where they get themselves in trouble. Yes, their boots are making enough noise to wake the dead, but that hard running also leaves visible footprints that other thieves can use to track us. I immediately thought of how I might run to leave tracks only to perch on the nearby bookshelves in wait to ambush anyone foolish enough to investigate.

Back on the job our sewer-approach thief turns off the lights and makes their way into the library. Sure, an enemy can turn the lights back on (or another thief, of course) but that’d tell them exactly where they are. Slinking along the sides, they’ve located a safe. A clue found earlier told them what they needed to open it, and inside they found a not-so-subtly-named “Book of Truth” – all the dirty little secrets they’d been sent to recover. Retracing their steps through the sewer, they’ve made it out with their haul – mission complete.

Remember how I said this can be played with four players? At any point, Player 4 could have decided to not engage with any of the city, instead stationing themselves at the exit, waiting with weapon in hand for any one of the other three to simply take their stuff and walk across the finish line. It’s a risk as they’re not finding any other loot, and any slip up leaves them with empty pockets as they’ve not hunted down anything other than what they could potentially recover from another thief. An interesting approach, albeit one that Specter speculates wouldn’t be a very profitable one.

Having escaped successfully, the player is then greeted with a synopsis of the mission. Total haul, guild reputation (yep – we’ll be growing our guild’s reach with our hard work as well), money taken directly (rather than from another player), renown multiplier (no clue on this stat), how many guards we knocked out, how many civilians rendered unconscious, stealth takedowns, locks picked, objects thrown, objects broken, alarms disabled, keys acquired, stashes used, and “Frogmen encountered”. The latter one sounds ominous as we’re seeing a single type of enemy singled out among a cast of other foes – something you’d only do for somebody who’d earned it. All of this is subject to change, of course, but it goes to show that the team is tracking every moving piece in the game at all times.

Unlike our adventures with Garrett from Thief, our thieves in Thick as Thieves are specialists. We see The Spider, who seems to be able to lift things from belts more easily and seemingly able to manipulate levers to open hard-to-reach places. We also see The Chameleon who uses a gas grenade to stun another player, then rendering themselves practically invisible through use of a clever disguise. We also see another character tripping a thief with a bolo whipped around their ankles. Undoubtedly these are how the team is enabling players the ability to go about the mission however they see fit. One player could go in loud, smash the door, gas everyone, smash the case to the objective rather than pick the lock, take the loot, leap out the window with a crash, and race to the exit. Another player could use cleverly-placed traps to disable other players, take their stuff, and make their hasty escape. Still another might go in completely invisibly, lifting things quietly and leaving the scene without ever being heard or seen by another living being. The point is that the choice is entirely yours.

One of the most important aspects of a multiplayer game is that it is supported by ongoing play and regular content updates. Specter was quick to point out that this is a core tenet of Thick as Thieves, with a deeply simulated world and ongoing long-term progression with a long tail. To that end, each character has their own “personal story”, which sounds like a single player story unique to them, as well as the immersive living world where multiplayer exists. The concept is short gameplay sessions where you get in, get the goods, and then get out, but one that rewards long-term investment and replayability. Since there is no “golden path”, each play should be different, with compelling play experiences you can share with your friends. No word on teaming up, but here’s hoping I can play with my friends, not just against them.

It’s rare to see a game that rewards players who study up and take their time on finding and exploiting a situation. The player who charges in might be successful in the short term with a shock and awe campaign, but players who approach the world with a methodical approach might find themselves with far fuller pockets. Time will tell just how many loops are available for each heist.

While we did just get our first taste of the game, we’ll have a bit of a wait for this 4-player free-for-all stealth action title – it’s slated for a release sometime in 2026 on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC, with full cross-play support. Me? I’ve already got my traps ready to go – step into the dark, taffer, that’s where I live.

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