It has been over a decade since the less-than-stellar Thief reboot back in 2014, and ever since, the series has slunk back into the shadows and out of view. At long last, it appears that the series is ready to dip back into the light with a brand new game, Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow, set between the third game, 2004’s Thief: Deadly Shadows, and the reboot.
I had it on good intel that more information could be found in San Francisco, so I hopped on a plane, took off from Detroit, and with a lockpick in hand, snuck into some nondescript offices to check out this new game for myself. This is my report.
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First revealed back in June, the big little twist of this new Thief game isn’t its new protagonist, but the fact that it’s a VR game. This means that only folks who have either a PSVR2, PC VR setup, or Quest headset will get to actually play it. For longtime Thief series fans, all of the series staples are back – water arrows, your trusty blackjack, guards that can easily kill you, and even Garrett, albeit in a different form than we’re used to. Voiced by Stephen Russel, Garrett’s original voice actor, he serves in a sort of mentor role to the new protagonists, Magpie.
Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow brings back all of the series staples fans would expect.
From a story standpoint, outside of knowing that I’m a thief and that Garrett can talk to me in my head, that is about the extent of what I know. I was dropped into the two levels of the demo with very little in the way of explanation or reasoning and sent on my way. Very much like I was an arrow that was knocked and then loosed in the same breath. Then again, as someone who is a fan of stealth games, I was perfectly happy being told to just go steal stuff and break in somewhere, and this part was pretty darn fun.
The tutorial level did a good job explaining how these new virtual controls worked and how I would go about interacting with the world. Opening windows, snuffing out candles, pick-pocketing guards, throwing objects to distract or draw attention somewhere else, all of your standard thief tricks look to be featured. The majority of my time was spent in the demo’s second mission, which was more in line with how a standard level would play out.
It is full of secret paths to uncover, different routes to my objective, and a healthy dose of problem-solving. It always felt good to discover a new shortcut or distract an annoying patrolling guard with a well-timed thrown bottle. Remaining hidden is still the core of what makes Thief, Thief, because much like Garrett before her, Magpie can’t take a hit, and direct confrontation will never end well, and it’s this sort of pure stealth gameplay that garnered so much love for the franchise back in the day.
I only got to try the PSVR2 version of Thief VR, and visually, it is certainly one of the more solid-looking and performing VR titles I’ve played. I never noticed any sort of stuttering or slowdown during my demo, which can be a death sentence for virtual games that require higher and smoother framerates to prevent motion sickness. An issue I am happy to report I didn’t encounter, but everyone’s sensitivity will differ.
Thief has always been a series that relied heavily on the play between light and darkness, requiring you to work in the shadows to remain unseen, removing light sources from the equation, and doing what you need to do as quietly as you can. I was curious to see how well this would carry over into VR, as the lenses can’t really handle super darks or super brights well. However, Thief VR captures the differences in value well enough, while still allowing you to see in the darker areas.
The geometry and models aren’t as detailed as you would see in a non-VR title, but still look good. Paintings, bookshelves, and shiny loot adorned the manor, and more than once, I found myself getting distracted by and more interested in them than the guards on patrol. Whoops. Everything I’ve seen has just made me more intrigued and interested in seeing what the rest of the sitting will have to offer in the final game, and how the other versions, especially the native Quest 3 Version, will compare.
To help navigate around, Magpie has access to a supernatural sort of thief vision that can be turned on by holding one of your hands near your head and pressing a button. This view highlights loot you can take and other important details like wires through walls, helping point you towards areas of interest. Even with this ability, however, I found there were moments where it was hard to tell what I could actually interact with, in particular, what guards I could or couldn’t pick-pocket.
During the tutorial, I was shown how to sneak up on a guard, find a small satchel, and pickpocket its contents. However, I quickly found that during my attempts to infiltrate the manor in the second mission, this wasn’t always possible. Despite all the guards seemingly having these small satchels on their belts, I couldn’t always pick them.
Thief VR’s tutorial seemingly covered everything, but sometimes, perfoming just as the tutorial said to led to failure.
In one particularly frustrating instance, after finding a note that mentioned the nearest posted guard had a key to unlock a door, neither of the nearby guards could be pick-pocketed, which I assume would have given me the key. I ended up just running by them after discovering a small alternate path.
However, it was still aggravating that what I wanted to do, what I had been taught to do during the tutorial, wasn’t actually working or viable. It worked, but it didn’t feel good doing it. I hope that in the final release, either guards that can’t be pick-pocketed simply have these small bags removed, or they are made to look clearly different from those that you can.
As dangerous and one-sided as encounters with the guards were, most of the bumps I came up against were the controls. They were getting in my way more than any overly observant guardsman. Some actions, such as picking up loot or lockpicking, worked fairly consistently. Still, other actions, like trying to pull out my blackjack to club an unsuspecting guard, actually clubbing them, or vaulting over a windowsill, could take multiple attempts before the gestures would work.
This wasn’t as big an issue when I was trying to get through a window, but not being able to draw my meager weapon while sneaking up to a guard led to some unfortunate deaths. Luckily, Thief seems to be rather generous with its checkpoints, so these hiccups never set me back too far.
Speaking to Wiebe van der Werk, the communications and events manager from Vertigo Games, Thief VR’s developer, I was curious what sort of accessibility options would be included when the game releases. All standard VR options will be available to help prevent motion sickness, including snap turns.
When asked about difficulty options, unfortunately, it sounds like Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow will only come with a single option, so folks who are hoping to really up the challenge for themselves, or, inversely, want just to experience the story and role-play being a super thief, may be a bit out of luck. I did bring up the idea of giving the option to make interactable elements stand out more, especially in dark areas, and he seemed receptive to the idea, though he wasn’t sure if anything like that was present.
After successfully infiltrating, grabbing the target, and making my escape, my time with Thief VR came to a close. Veeber from Vertigo shared that the demo I played was a couple of months old and that many of the issues, particularly those with the controls, have been addressed.
Honestly, though, with the pedigree of VR games that both Maze Theory and Vertigo Games have released, including Ancient Dungeon VR from Maze and the Arizona Sunshine series at Vertigo, I have complete faith that when Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow releases this year, it will be another fantastic virtual thrill.
The developer’s pedigree promises another fantastic thrill for Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow.
The one aspect that I am most concerned with for Thief VR is that it lacks a reason to go back to the game once you complete the story. Collecting loot simply gives you money, which serves as a glorified points system. There’s nothing you can spend your hard-thieved money on, and without alternate difficulties to test yourself with.
I would love to see Thief get some sort of update down the road that adds something akin to Hitman’s “World of Assassination” mode that would drop Magpie in and give you randomized mission goals or loot to steal and escape with. I want a reason to keep coming back to this world and replaying the same story missions over and over won’t quite cut it.
Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow marks the return of a beloved series that hasn’t seen the light of day in more than a decade. It may not be in the format some would prefer, but the teams working on it have a pedigree that gives me confidence that it is in safe hands. My time, though brief, gave me a taste that got me excited about jumping back into this world to discover what sort of wild missions it will send me on and how my thieving skills will be tested. I’ve got my water arrows and blackjack ready, and I’m hungry for some loot.
