Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is disappointing. This newest from Vertigo Video games, though developed by Maze Concept, had some actual promise on the lead-up to launch. However having rolled credit, we don’t really feel a lot past reduction that it’s over.
Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is the continuation of a franchise that we final noticed in 2014. Right here, you play as Magpie, a crafty thief who’s unintentionally merged with the facility of historical Keeper know-how, and in consequence, has the voice of former protagonist Garrett in her head.
Narratively, you’re tasked with pinching historical artefacts from a ruthless ruler who plans to carry out a dodgy ritual throughout the blood moon, all to do with stated Keeper know-how. Sounds ominous.
You’ll sneak round outdated manors and pubs repurposed into faction strongholds, nicking nearly every little thing that isn’t nailed down, while avoiding guards and sticking to the shadows.
Upon first impressions, Thief VR is extremely thrilling. Like Vertigo Video games’ earlier PSVR2 titles, Metro Awakening, and Arizona Sunshine 2, Thief VR has an excellent sense of place, with that dour Dishonored-like aesthetic.
We actually loved the vibe of these early ranges, as you scale pipes and attain for goodies in unlocked home windows, and the method of sneaking via hidden passageways or discovering new keys is kind of enjoyable.
Every stage sometimes presents you with a number of methods to get inside, and whereas it’s nowhere close to as expansive as a full-blown AAA launch, it’s enjoyable to find these by yourself.
Thief VR’s controls and interactions are very fluid, too, whether or not you might be climbing, interacting with doorways and drawers, or lining up a shot together with your bow. All of it feels nice.
We notably loved the lock-pick mechanic. The default settings have UI to line up with to unlock doorways, however we turned this off, going for the extra immersive setting the place you flip the decide to really feel the locks lining up with the Sense controller rumble. It by no means will get outdated.
There’s simply sufficient to mess around with, too. Your bow comes geared up with completely different sorts of arrows, from water to rope arrows. This lets you douse fires or scale the facet of buildings, encouraging you to go searching maps and truly work together with them.
The darkness mechanic means you possibly can stick with the shadows unseen, and your visibility is famous by a glowing gem in your proper hand. We’d have cherished a brightness slider, although, because it’s by no means fairly darkish sufficient.
And because of that helpful Keeper know-how, you should utilize Keeper sight, which can spotlight doubtlessly hidden pathways or treasures. There are false partitions, mechanically sliding bookshelf doorways, and even footage with gems stuffed behind them. There’s all the time a cause to have a fast look round a room.
As you delve a little bit deeper into the sport, nevertheless, that’s the place increasingly of the problems begin to come up.
For one, enemy AI is horrendously dumb. They’ll take without end to note you generally, and have cat-like eyes the following. Sticking to inflexible pathways, they won’t chase you down, nor will they notify different guards in the event that they spot you.
They’ll run in direction of you, the place you’ll both disguise for a second and so they’ll overlook about you, otherwise you’ll have interaction in a rudimentary parry interplay earlier than swiftly knocking them out.
You may cope with guards quietly by sneaking up behind and knocking them out together with your truncheon, too, however that actually is the extent of your interplay with them.
You may drag our bodies to cover them within the shadow, however until there’s one other guard that overlaps with their set path, there isn’t a level, as a result of no one will discover them.
Clearly, stealth is the secret in a Thief entry, and we wouldn’t anticipate full-blown fight right here. However we additionally anticipated a little bit bit extra from enemies to maintain us on our toes.
To make issues worse, we additionally got here throughout quite a few glitches throughout our playthrough.
On a number of events, we couldn’t really steal gadgets or use our truncheon, which required a full restart every time. Different occasions, we randomly grew to become actually quick, the place crouching and standing made zero distinction to our peak, making it not possible to succeed in sure ledges or handles. Once more, that required a full restart.
Having besides up the sport on a number of events additionally highlighted a giant flaw within the checkpointing system. Every time we booted up, we had been compelled to rewatch an unskippable cutscene and restart the extent from scratch. You may’t simply leap in the place you left off.
What this did give us the chance to take a look at, although, was the replayability of its ranges. As we talked about, every stage has a number of entrance factors and numerous secrets and techniques to uncover.
Upon nearer inspection, we didn’t discover that the degrees had the density wanted to actually warrant replaying. Most of what its ranges have to supply will be seen in a single playthrough.
Every stage comes with a set of challenges, a few of which can give you everlasting perks if accomplished, like beginning every stage with three water arrows or making much less noise if you drop from greater ledges.
The entire precise thievery (the entire trinkets you accumulate) is kind of tied to this. You are tasked with amassing half of a stage’s loot, however past that, it is only for the completionists on the market. The collected foreign money can’t be spent on something to improve your character or purchase provides if you return to your base.
And whereas, sure, the range in missions means you could possibly sneak in an open facet window as an alternative of the underground sewer pathway, the precise conclusion to every mission solely ever has one answer.
It’s disappointingly skinny, and the sport fizzles out by mainly repurposing two of its earlier ranges for the conclusion of the story.
