Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
People really showing their ignorance in this thread.
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Thick as Thieves is the next game from Deus Ex and Thief leads' studio OtherSide.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
More information about the game...
The Game Awards 2024 aired tonight, and per usual that meant we saw quite a few World Premieres, with studios showing off their upcoming games for the first time ever. One of those studios was OtherSide Entertainment, founded in 2016 by Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Thief: Deadly Shadows) and Paul Neurath (Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age).
And the game they came to show off? Thick As Thieves, set in an alt-history version of the 1910s, where the city streets feature as much magic as technology.
Even more interesting than the setting is the breadth of genres being explored. OtherSide is pushing for an ambitious mix of stealth, action, and immersive sim elements in Thick As Thieves—and also multiplayer, an unexpected twist on the traditional immersive sim genre.
The goal is to create a multiplayer experience that rewards inventiveness rather than blunt force, and OtherSide's pulled together a who's who of industry vets to make it happen, including Greg LoPiccolo (Thief: Deadly Shadows) and David McDonough (Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass and XCOM: Chimera Squad), to name a few.
Specifically, the team wanted to evoke the feeling of a tabletop role-playing game—particularly the emphasis on collaboration and improvisation.
"We thought, 'Let's see what happens when a group of players gets together to interact with a deeply simulated world and solve problems the way they want, together, and deal with emergent possibilities, together," said Chief Creative Officer Warren Spector.
That tabletop role-playing influence was then paired up with the team's existing experience with stealth- and narrative-centric games. Even though multiplayer was at the core of the project, OtherSide was adamant about creating a story-driven experience, giving players different objectives to pursue each session and even introducing characters with their own stories. Think of it like a group of people getting together for a years-long tabletop campaign.
Looking at the stealth genre, OtherSide realized the genre lends itself to a unique type of pacing—see a challenge, stop to assess the risks, think about your tools and how they might interact with the world, and then execute a plan to see what happens.
"It's kind of a slow, staccato pace," said Spector. "Most other game genres go for a kind of flow—a smooth, fast pace—and we thought, 'Let's challenge a team to address that and do what we call stealth-action.'"
Thick As Thieves thrusts players into a number of neighborhoods, each brimming with interconnected systems: NPCs with their own habits, alarms to disarm, key-and-lock security devices, guards to avoid, and more. There will be several objectives to tackle, from character-specific storylines and other smaller missions up to the larger primary objective, which usually involves a prized treasure. The catch: This primary objective is also shared by other players, meaning you're ultimately competing to hunt down (and escape with) the same goods.
Collision between thieves is expected. Encounters can turn violent, as it's possible to fight and knock other players out. But there's always a risk involved, as characters aren't exactly built for head-on combat.
That's by design, of course. "It's a stealth game, you're not necessarily built for surviving combat," said Lead Designer David McDonough, "so you really have to decide, 'Is this the right choice? Do I want to try to smash the window open and punch everybody and see if I can make it out that way or do I want to stay in the shadows and stay silent?'"
Once you finish one of these 20-to-30 minute excursions in Thick As Thieves, you'll return to the meta-layer with whatever rewards you managed to extract. There, you can change your loadout, advance your skills, continue pursuing a specific character's story, and so on.
Then you'll pop back into another match—maybe with a different strategy, maybe doubling down on the tools you used before and hoping for a better outcome. The heart of the Thick As Thieves experience, according to McDonough, is having players match clever ideas together and see who can make the best of the ever-changing situations that result.
To provide players with the necessary flexibility, Thick As Thieves is being built to support multiple playstyles. It's possible to play as a thief who constantly goes after other players and attempts to steal their loot, for example, or play a ghost that's always hidden in plain sight.
Thick As Thieves also includes various character archetypes that encourage certain strategies. Today's debut at The Game Awards, for instance, showed off the Hood, the Spider, and the Chameleon. Each thief has their own story (which is explored while playing) as well as unique abilities.
"A lot of PVP games don't even try to insert narrative at all," said Spector, "I originally thought we were going to make a heist game, but the team came up with this idea and it felt very innovative."
Spector pointed out another challenge, which is that PVP games typically involve a lot of interaction, letting players test their skill against one another, while stealth games are usually about not interacting and not being seen. The team at OtherSide has been hard at work balancing this aspect, supporting multiple playstyles while also pitting players against each other when necessary.
During one playtest, for example, McDonough arrived at an escape route before his target, who was carrying valuable loot that he wanted to get his hands on. While McDonough tailed his target successfully, he'd also run out of ammunition. He turned instead to a character ability. Using the Disguise tool—which allows players to mimic an NPC in the world, including their walk and their talk—McDonough knocked a guard down and began to impersonate the patrol.
"I just deliberately walked up and down the street looking very ordinary, hiding in plain sight," said McDonough. "He ran right past me, and as he was going to escape, I whipped around and managed to get a backstab shot on him. It's so incredibly satisfying when you pull that off—knowing that I totally out-bamboozled that player not just because of the tool, which made it possible, but because I kept my nerve and I played the part."
For Spector, the potential of Thick As Thieves lies in players devising these creative solutions, playing and experimenting with the various systems and then seeing what emerges from the chaos.
"In a [traditional singleplayer] immersive sim, you want events to emerge from the interaction of the small systems working together and an AI that can respond to unpredictable events," said Spector. "In Thick As Thieves, I can screw over another player. I don't have to beat that other player up. I can make noise and attract the guard to them. I can break the glass and set off an alarm and then run off. Those are not pre-planned events. There's no scripting going on there!"
With random people applying real-world logic to Thick As Thieves and its systems, unpredictable events and interactions are bound to happen. "It's something we have to tune and something we're gonna have to be working with until we ship, but I think it's gonna set the game apart," said Spector.
The thief motif also helped OtherSide think creatively about what players might be able to do in Thick As Thieves. "If you want to make a game about player inventiveness, you need to think beyond the gun at the end of the day," said McDonough. "A shooter has just one verb and you don't actually have much thought or choice beyond 'Which gun do I use?'"
Game Director Greg LoPiccolo concurred, pointing out that in shooters, the goal largely revolves around putting the cursor on an opponent with the highest caliber weapon in your possession. In games like Thick As Thieves, the complexity of the interconnecting systems tends to result in doing one thing, then two other things happen in sequence, and then the payoff comes.
"You can sort-of come up with more complex little strategies, and that ends up being really engaging and really satisfying," LoPiccolo said. "You know, not to throw shade at conventional shooters—they will probably still outsell us—but we feel like there's room in the world for a set of players who want to get a little bit more narratively involved."
In Thick As Thieves, players are constantly making micro-decisions both before and during a match—and OtherSide expects players will have a lot to reflect on after as well. What items did they bring into the map? Were they better than what others had—and if so, was it the items themselves or how they were used?
The opportunities in each mission, how things changed and how players adapted, are all important pieces to dissect if you want to be a better Thick As Thieves player. "Only the smart survive—not the strongest or the best-equipped," said McDonough.
Thick As Thieves is set for release in 2026 on the Epic Games Store.
TLDR: This is shaping up to be the best Immersive Sim ever made.
The Game Awards 2024 aired tonight, and per usual that meant we saw quite a few World Premieres, with studios showing off their upcoming games for the first time ever. One of those studios was OtherSide Entertainment, founded in 2016 by Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Thief: Deadly Shadows) and Paul Neurath (Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age).
And the game they came to show off? Thick As Thieves, set in an alt-history version of the 1910s, where the city streets feature as much magic as technology.
Even more interesting than the setting is the breadth of genres being explored. OtherSide is pushing for an ambitious mix of stealth, action, and immersive sim elements in Thick As Thieves—and also multiplayer, an unexpected twist on the traditional immersive sim genre.
The goal is to create a multiplayer experience that rewards inventiveness rather than blunt force, and OtherSide's pulled together a who's who of industry vets to make it happen, including Greg LoPiccolo (Thief: Deadly Shadows) and David McDonough (Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass and XCOM: Chimera Squad), to name a few.
Specifically, the team wanted to evoke the feeling of a tabletop role-playing game—particularly the emphasis on collaboration and improvisation.
"We thought, 'Let's see what happens when a group of players gets together to interact with a deeply simulated world and solve problems the way they want, together, and deal with emergent possibilities, together," said Chief Creative Officer Warren Spector.
That tabletop role-playing influence was then paired up with the team's existing experience with stealth- and narrative-centric games. Even though multiplayer was at the core of the project, OtherSide was adamant about creating a story-driven experience, giving players different objectives to pursue each session and even introducing characters with their own stories. Think of it like a group of people getting together for a years-long tabletop campaign.
Looking at the stealth genre, OtherSide realized the genre lends itself to a unique type of pacing—see a challenge, stop to assess the risks, think about your tools and how they might interact with the world, and then execute a plan to see what happens.
"It's kind of a slow, staccato pace," said Spector. "Most other game genres go for a kind of flow—a smooth, fast pace—and we thought, 'Let's challenge a team to address that and do what we call stealth-action.'"
Thick As Thieves thrusts players into a number of neighborhoods, each brimming with interconnected systems: NPCs with their own habits, alarms to disarm, key-and-lock security devices, guards to avoid, and more. There will be several objectives to tackle, from character-specific storylines and other smaller missions up to the larger primary objective, which usually involves a prized treasure. The catch: This primary objective is also shared by other players, meaning you're ultimately competing to hunt down (and escape with) the same goods.
Collision between thieves is expected. Encounters can turn violent, as it's possible to fight and knock other players out. But there's always a risk involved, as characters aren't exactly built for head-on combat.
That's by design, of course. "It's a stealth game, you're not necessarily built for surviving combat," said Lead Designer David McDonough, "so you really have to decide, 'Is this the right choice? Do I want to try to smash the window open and punch everybody and see if I can make it out that way or do I want to stay in the shadows and stay silent?'"
Once you finish one of these 20-to-30 minute excursions in Thick As Thieves, you'll return to the meta-layer with whatever rewards you managed to extract. There, you can change your loadout, advance your skills, continue pursuing a specific character's story, and so on.
Then you'll pop back into another match—maybe with a different strategy, maybe doubling down on the tools you used before and hoping for a better outcome. The heart of the Thick As Thieves experience, according to McDonough, is having players match clever ideas together and see who can make the best of the ever-changing situations that result.
To provide players with the necessary flexibility, Thick As Thieves is being built to support multiple playstyles. It's possible to play as a thief who constantly goes after other players and attempts to steal their loot, for example, or play a ghost that's always hidden in plain sight.
Thick As Thieves also includes various character archetypes that encourage certain strategies. Today's debut at The Game Awards, for instance, showed off the Hood, the Spider, and the Chameleon. Each thief has their own story (which is explored while playing) as well as unique abilities.
"A lot of PVP games don't even try to insert narrative at all," said Spector, "I originally thought we were going to make a heist game, but the team came up with this idea and it felt very innovative."
Spector pointed out another challenge, which is that PVP games typically involve a lot of interaction, letting players test their skill against one another, while stealth games are usually about not interacting and not being seen. The team at OtherSide has been hard at work balancing this aspect, supporting multiple playstyles while also pitting players against each other when necessary.
During one playtest, for example, McDonough arrived at an escape route before his target, who was carrying valuable loot that he wanted to get his hands on. While McDonough tailed his target successfully, he'd also run out of ammunition. He turned instead to a character ability. Using the Disguise tool—which allows players to mimic an NPC in the world, including their walk and their talk—McDonough knocked a guard down and began to impersonate the patrol.
"I just deliberately walked up and down the street looking very ordinary, hiding in plain sight," said McDonough. "He ran right past me, and as he was going to escape, I whipped around and managed to get a backstab shot on him. It's so incredibly satisfying when you pull that off—knowing that I totally out-bamboozled that player not just because of the tool, which made it possible, but because I kept my nerve and I played the part."
For Spector, the potential of Thick As Thieves lies in players devising these creative solutions, playing and experimenting with the various systems and then seeing what emerges from the chaos.
"In a [traditional singleplayer] immersive sim, you want events to emerge from the interaction of the small systems working together and an AI that can respond to unpredictable events," said Spector. "In Thick As Thieves, I can screw over another player. I don't have to beat that other player up. I can make noise and attract the guard to them. I can break the glass and set off an alarm and then run off. Those are not pre-planned events. There's no scripting going on there!"
With random people applying real-world logic to Thick As Thieves and its systems, unpredictable events and interactions are bound to happen. "It's something we have to tune and something we're gonna have to be working with until we ship, but I think it's gonna set the game apart," said Spector.
The thief motif also helped OtherSide think creatively about what players might be able to do in Thick As Thieves. "If you want to make a game about player inventiveness, you need to think beyond the gun at the end of the day," said McDonough. "A shooter has just one verb and you don't actually have much thought or choice beyond 'Which gun do I use?'"
Game Director Greg LoPiccolo concurred, pointing out that in shooters, the goal largely revolves around putting the cursor on an opponent with the highest caliber weapon in your possession. In games like Thick As Thieves, the complexity of the interconnecting systems tends to result in doing one thing, then two other things happen in sequence, and then the payoff comes.
"You can sort-of come up with more complex little strategies, and that ends up being really engaging and really satisfying," LoPiccolo said. "You know, not to throw shade at conventional shooters—they will probably still outsell us—but we feel like there's room in the world for a set of players who want to get a little bit more narratively involved."
In Thick As Thieves, players are constantly making micro-decisions both before and during a match—and OtherSide expects players will have a lot to reflect on after as well. What items did they bring into the map? Were they better than what others had—and if so, was it the items themselves or how they were used?
The opportunities in each mission, how things changed and how players adapted, are all important pieces to dissect if you want to be a better Thick As Thieves player. "Only the smart survive—not the strongest or the best-equipped," said McDonough.
Thick As Thieves is set for release in 2026 on the Epic Games Store.
TLDR: This is shaping up to be the best Immersive Sim ever made.
Jinzo Prime
Member
I forgot this game got announced! It's a cool idea, but I don't see it having the broad market appeal a multiplayer game needs to survive. You have to think and plan ahead too much, which doesn't suit MP games as well as it does single player.
And if it's going to be EGS exclusive it better be free to play, no one is buying a multiplayer game on that store. Should be single player first with a multiplayer mode second, if at all.
And if it's going to be EGS exclusive it better be free to play, no one is buying a multiplayer game on that store. Should be single player first with a multiplayer mode second, if at all.
Tertullian
Member
I definitely think it sounds like an interesting idea for a game. A game with a pretty damn unique way of engaging in PvP, very different from other shooters.
But I have a ton of trouble believing it will reach a mass audience or be fun for noobs. Hardcore players are going to perfect the meta so fast and get so good at nabbing all the rewards with speedrunner-like precision that it's just gonna be depressing for everyone else to get smoked and humiliated over and over again. It would take some truly masterful game design to prevent this.
And yeah, going with an art style that's not repulsive would’ve helped.
But I have a ton of trouble believing it will reach a mass audience or be fun for noobs. Hardcore players are going to perfect the meta so fast and get so good at nabbing all the rewards with speedrunner-like precision that it's just gonna be depressing for everyone else to get smoked and humiliated over and over again. It would take some truly masterful game design to prevent this.
And yeah, going with an art style that's not repulsive would’ve helped.
Rocky_Balboa
Member
When I saw the trailer, my first thought was "I'm just so tired of this" (Artstyle, characters, writing etc.)
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Warren Specter approached with the silly "saturated market" question regarding Thick as Thieves... (timestamped)
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