Thick As Thieves was provided by Megabit Publishing for review. Thank you!
When Thick As Thieves was first announced, it was due to be a PvPvE extraction heist game, where multiple thieves were after an artifact, and you had to steal it for yourself while foiling the plans of others.
Shortly before release, however (as soon as April 2026), the plans changed, and Thick As Thieves became a 1-2 player co-op heist game, with the removal of all PvP, many previously promised features, such as a "living world", as well as areas and characters that are present on the Steam store page no longer being available.
Because of these last-minute changes, Thick As Thieves comes across as a very bare-bones game, more of a proof of concept, really. There are just 2 maps available, each with various contracts, which are essentially different sets of objectives that change certain things about the map, such as guard patrol patterns. Each time you play, the locations of certain key items will also be different, so there is a little variety going on, but not enough to really hold your attention for more than a couple of hours.
While the maps are quite nicely detailed and presented, and the variety is appreciated, you will become familiar with them fairly quickly, and that causes them to lose their ability to surprise you. Having the key item be located in the Library as opposed to the Bullpen is hardly a way to increase replayability; it just merely means you might turn left down the corridor instead of right, somewhere you probably had to go at some point anyway.
Progression, likewise, is limited. You'll earn points/pounds through completing contracts and objectives, which can then be spent on unlockables, which are mostly cosmetics, aside from the 2nd map, higher difficulties, and the game's 2nd character. There are a couple of pieces of equipment to unlock, as well as 2 available from the start. These are pretty nifty and helpful tools to have, such as a smoke bomb to distract and blind guards, which is almost essential.
A key part of Thick as Thieves is navigation. This was simultaneously the coolest and most frustrating part of the game for me. Cool because you have to get out and analyze an actual map while the game still plays out, as well as use clues you find around the map to find the location of your target. Frustrating because when you're on a time limit and trying to find a specific room while figuring out where you are and planning a route, it can be a little stressful, but maybe that's the point.
Once you've got your route planned, you then have to bypass the security. Guards, Magic Eyes, Turrets, and Pressure Plates. Guards are the trickiest, moving on set patrol patterns. You either have the option to avoid them entirely, distract them, or take them out from behind, which was my preferred tactic. I did encounter a couple of issues with guards. After being knocked out, they would sometimes remain constantly "alerted" and run around the map like headless chickens, which should not have happened, as it made the rest of the mission very difficult.
Magic Eyes are best avoided, or you can use a smoke bomb to temporarily blind them. Not much to say here, get caught, and you'll likely be trapped in the area you're in for a little while and take damage-over-time unless you can hide again, but they don't seem to alert the guards, and ultimately they feel a little useless.
Turrets and Pressure Plates I largely found to also be non-issues; one is just a timed avoidance as it rotates, and the other is so easily perceptible that you should never end up touching one. Again, I did encounter a bug here, sadly, where a turret was able to perceive me through a wall, as well as fire and kill me through said wall, quite the issue in a game based around stealth.
The stealth mechanics work reasonably well (aside from the above-mentioned issues). The game has a "light/dark" system that detects whether you are in shadow and makes you more or less visible from a distance accordingly. While the idea is neat, the game can never truly take advantage of it due to its limited scope. There aren't too many light/dark areas in the game, and you're probably just going to stay completely out of the line of sight of the guards anyway. It's most noticeable in outdoor areas, where, for example, if you're under a street lamp, you can be spotted from very far away.
Given the troubled development of the game, Thick As Thieves feels like you might imagine, a game with plenty of neat ideas, but poorly executed. I have no doubt that in the months before release, game mechanics were reworked to align with the new direction the game was taking. Some things feel like they don't belong in the game or were quickly thrown in, while there are big swathes of content seemingly absent. You also cannot pause the game, even in solo missions, no doubt a leftover from when the game was meant to be an online-only extraction title. You can play without an internet connection, however.
The saving grace here is that Thick As Thieves is launching at just $5, likely a far cry from the originally intended price, with the idea that the developers will expand the game in the future, most likely through paid DLC for additional maps. I do worry whether the game will garner enough of a player base for this to come to fruition, though.
I did need to install the VCRun 2022 Redistributable to get the game to run, as the developers don't seem to have included it with the installer. If your game doesn't run, go into Desktop Mode, boot/install ProtonTricks, select Thick As Thieves, then Default Wine Prefix, then Install a Windows DLL or Component, then scroll down and find VCRun2022 and install it. The game should now work.
Thick As Thieves works great on a controller, and thus controls well on the Steam Deck; it also supports the 1280x800 native resolution of the Deck.
The game defaults to Low settings, and I would keep them there. While you can hit 60 FPS in certain areas, the game tends to hold around high 40s and low 50s, so I'd recommend that you use SteamOS to cap the framerate to 40 FPS for a more stable experience. The game still looks decent on Low settings, and 40 FPS works well given that it isn't very fast-paced.
Your power draw will be around 18-20W, depending on the area, but it's relatively stable throughout. Expect a battery life of around 2.5 Hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 1.5 Hours on a Steam Deck LCD.
Some UI is rather small and difficult to read on the Steam Deck's screen.
Thick As Thieves contains no accessibility options, but all dialogue is subtitled.
Thick As Thieves' troubled development has unfortunately resulted in a game full of half-baked ideas and limited replayability. While there are a couple of hours of enjoyment to be had, as well as a modest price tag, bugs and a lifeless world are a far cry from what was promised.
Once you've got the Visual C Redist installed, the game runs well on the Steam Deck and is perfectly playable at 40 FPS.
このレビューはPC版に基づいています。
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Thick As Thieves feels like a heavily scaled back version of what we were hoping for, but for $5, your expectations may be met. The game runs perfectly well on the Steam Deck once you install the Visual C Redist.
