Thick As Thieves

I’ve been hankering for a proper stealth game lately, a genuinely sneaky stealth game, not another strange hybrid. It’s been over 12 years since the revival and death of Thief, and sadly, it doesn’t look like Styx: Master of Shadows or its sequel are coming back anytime soon. But good news: we finally have a brand-new stealth game about thieves from the studio led by legendary developer Warren Spector, known for Deus Ex and Epic Mickey.

Thick As Thieves is a game about stealing, sneaking, and pulling off heists with a buddy, all at a surprisingly low price point. So, is this one a steal?

Thicker Than a Bag of Coins!

Thick As Thieves takes players into the fictional city of Kilkarn, an industrial meat grinder where extreme wealth and crushing poverty collide beneath layers of thick steampunk atmosphere. Imagine a fusion of Thief and Dishonored, but delivered with a thick Scottish accent.

You play as a newly recruited thief entering the Guild, tasked with proving yourself through a series of heists tied to a sinister central mystery. Across the city, you’ll rob vaults, haunted manors, and industrial complexes either solo or with a partner. It’s a simple setup, but an effective one, because it gives the player plenty of opportunities to immerse themselves in Kilkarn’s grimy industrial-punk world while enjoying some genuinely fun thievery.

The game spans 16 contracts across a handful of major locations, though these maps are revisited multiple times. Thankfully, each environment is large and intricately designed enough that replaying them feels closer to revisiting a modern Hitman 3 level than retreading old ground. There are multiple layers, hidden routes, secret paths, and tactical opportunities throughout each map. On repeat visits, small changes help keep things fresh, including blocked pathways, altered patrols, and new enemy placements that constantly force you to adapt.

This is where Thick As Thieves shines brightest, with its commitment to stealth gameplay and excellent level design. Even though there are only a few core locations, the sheer density of detail, verticality, and evolving layouts helps them remain engaging. The randomised loot placement can occasionally be frustrating, but it also adds unpredictability that benefits replayability, especially when playing cooperatively.

My biggest gripe is the map system itself. The levels are impressively layered, but the in-game map often struggles to communicate that complexity clearly. Your icon can appear across multiple floors at once, points of interest are difficult to read, and important details are poorly highlighted. Whether it’s an unfinished design or simply a poorly implemented one, the map can become genuinely frustrating to use.

Still, the levels themselves are gorgeous. They ooze atmosphere, mood, and personality, all supported by an excellent sense of layout and environmental storytelling. The world design genuinely steals the show.

Sleep by Day, Thieve by Night

One thing I deeply respect about Thick As Thieves is that it knows exactly what it wants to be. This is a stealth game through and through. There’s no forced action-heavy pivot halfway through, no awkward hybridisation, and no attempt to dilute its identity. You’re a thief, so act like one.

The core gameplay framework is beautifully straightforward:

1. Darkness is your ally.
2. Running creates noise.
3. You are vulnerable.
4. Your greatest weapon is your ability to remain unseen.

That’s it.

As someone who loves stealth games, I’ve been disappointed by how rare pure stealth experiences have become over the past decade. Most modern games lean toward action titles with “optional stealth,” and those mechanics are usually watered down compared to classics like Manhunt, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, or Metal Gear Solid.

Thankfully, Thick As Thieves handles its foundations well. There’s a great variety of threats, from automated turrets and police patrols to laser tripwires, ghost detectives, and eerie floating eyes that act like living spotlights. Even on lower difficulties, sneaking through these environments can feel tense and rewarding.

You also gain access to a handful of gadgets, including smoke bombs, magical fairies that interact with distant objects, and a grappling hook useful for scaling buildings like Molloy the Cat Burglar from The Simpsons. Noise management and light exposure become central mechanics, and the game does a solid job of reinforcing those systems.

The issue is that the simplicity never really evolves into anything, especially dynamically. You can throw bottles, disable lights, and create distractions, but there was rarely a moment when I stopped and thought, “That’s an incredible stealth mechanic.”

Older stealth games often pushed these ideas much further. Thief experimented with dynamic lighting and various sound effects in the late 1990s. Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu used sound in clever, reactive ways. Compared to those classics, Thick As Thieves feels slightly too safe.

The gadget selection is also disappointingly limited. Nothing feels especially inventive or game-changing. A few more tools, creative traps, or even supernatural abilities similar to Dishonored could have elevated the experience significantly. There isn’t even a quick evasive dash ability, something many stealth games use as a tense last-second escape tool, and I genuinely felt its absence throughout the game.

Diamonds, Magic Books, and Scary Orbs… All Mine

Mission structure strongly resembles modern Hitman. You’re dropped into a large sandbox environment and tasked with locating a valuable target, stealing it, and escaping undetected before time runs out.

The objectives themselves are fairly standard: steal a relic, retrieve important documents, rob valuables, and so on. Side objectives occasionally appear, too, though they’re similarly straightforward. The real appeal lies in learning the maps, studying their routes, and carefully planning your movements.

At times, this loops back to my frustrations with the map system, but actually finding the objectives remained enjoyable thanks to the game’s pacing changes and optional difficulty modifiers that introduce extra traps and enemies. Playing cooperatively with random players was surprisingly fun as well, especially because the maps are large enough to encourage splitting up and covering different areas.

There’s also additional loot scattered throughout levels that contributes to your earnings, allowing you to unlock new contracts, equipment, and cosmetic customisation options. Strangely, the game prioritises cosmetic unlocks far more heavily than gameplay gear. There are vastly more clothing and appearance options than actual tools or gadgets, which feels slightly backwards for a stealth-focused game.

It also doesn’t help that harder difficulties are locked behind contract completion, and by the later hours, the repeated use of locations begins to wear thin. The first several contracts already cycle through the same two maps repeatedly, which can make replaying them feel stale sooner than expected.

This Game Is a Steal Though…

Thick As Thieves earns a surprising amount of goodwill simply because the asking price is incredibly low. At roughly the cost of a cheap DLC pack, you’re getting a surprisingly substantial stealth experience. Honestly, plenty of far worse games cost significantly more.

And what you do get is genuinely enjoyable: a focused stealth game with strong level design, satisfying sneaking mechanics, and optional co-op play. That alone makes it refreshing in today’s gaming landscape.

At the same time, it’s hard not to notice the limitations. The smaller pool of maps, limited gadget variety, repeated environments, and emphasis on cosmetics all suggest a project constrained by budget and development scope.

Overall?

Despite its shortcomings, there’s no denying the value on offer here. Thick As Thieves delivers a lot of genuinely enjoyable stealth gameplay for a very small asking price, especially if you have a friend to play with.

While I wish there were more variety in its content and mechanics, I greatly appreciated the game’s creativity, replayability, commitment to stealth, and exceptional level design. Rather than feeling like a failed AAA blockbuster, this feels more like an ambitious indie project that simply wants players to have fun sneaking around and stealing things.

And honestly? We need more games like that.

++ Excellent level design
+ Solid core stealth gameplay loop
+ Great for solo or co-op play
+ Creative and interesting world
+ Bargain price

- Stealth mechanics lack meaningful evolution
- Certain elements are repeated too often
- Lack of gear and limited content

A PC review code of Thick As Thieves was kindly provided by the publisher