Recent reviews by WAZ

Hopefully this follows Hitman's publishing model, with the gameplay of old-school Thief.

There are some good bones here, something to really build a modern-day Thief successor on. It's not as dark and moody as the old Thief games, but it's never pretended to be -- the stylized, Sea of Thieves/Dishonored-vibe art direction has been clear since the game was revealed. So much of the game feels like a throwback to retro stealth games, from the pathfinding, sticking to shadows, pickpocketing, guard chatter, and even the "visibility" gem on the HUD. If you're looking for a super next-gen, modernized evolution of the stealth genre, this isn't it. But again, that isn't the intent here; the game feels intentionally old-school, and honestly that's its charm and one of its biggest strengths.

For $5, you need to understand that you are getting basically an introductory chapter of (what is planned to be) a full, more fleshed-out game. It's more than a demo, but it is fairly barebones. The patches a few weeks after release address some missing features like keybinds, sensitivity, and FOV, so you can safely ignore all the early ranting negative reviews that immediately dismissed the game and requested refunds. Yeah, those settings probably should have been in before launch, but if you've waited a few weeks then you can check that off and move on.

There are areas for improvement. Bugs to be fixed (which the developers DO seem to be aware of, reading and responding to). I'd love to see the ability to pick up and move/hide bodies -- a staple of stealth games that feels like it's missing. I have yet to try the harder difficulty levels, but the guard AI feels like it needs to be less predictable and a little more aggressive with searching before fooling into going back to their original paths. It does play into the "intentionally old-school" vibe I mentioned, but for longevity and replayability, hopefully it will be expanded and improved in future updates.

Which leads to the biggest hurdle I see -- supporting this game and its developers so we continue to GET future updates. The $5 price tag is 100% worth it, but I can see how it threw customers for a loop, and does give off the vibe that it was released unfinished. By all accounts, it was, whether due to finances, publishing pressure, or wanting to effectively release an Early Access game for community feedback while not technically "officially" being in Early Access.

Either way, it seems clear the developers need more time to continue developing Thick as Thieves, so I'm hoping they are following IO Interactive's "Hitman" publishing model. When IO first went independent (when Square Enix stopped their funding and they went out on their own to publish), Hitman was released in a demo-type state. The gameplay was mostly there, but it only consisted of a few levels and was light on features, which was disappointing at the time. You paid a small price for access to these couple of introductory maps, and that funding (and time) allowed IO to keep building the full game. Luckily it did well enough that they were able to fund more development, more maps and improvements, and eventually Hitman 2 and 3. Since then, they've gone on to combine it all into World of Assassination and continue to support it with more and more levels and events for years. I hope the same happens here.

If paying $5 now helps continue development of this game, then I'm in. If it needs the same kind of time, Early Access-style dev cycle, and episodic release schedule that Hitman had, then anyone who appreciates old-school Thief should be willing to wait. There really are some legitimately good bones and fun gameplay here; it just needs some more time to bake. It may be a small sample of the game now, but if they can keep building, fixing, improving, and adding new maps and missions, this game can be a legitimate Thief spiritual successor -- and for that, and the pedigree of the team behind it, it's worth it.