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 by accident merged with the ability of historic Keeper know-how, and because of this, has the voice of former protagonist Garrett in her head.
Narratively, you’re tasked with pinching historic artefacts from a ruthless ruler who plans to carry out a dodgy ritual through 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You’ll sneak round outdated manors and pubs repurposed into faction strongholds, nicking nearly all the pieces that isn’t nailed down, while avoiding guards and sticking to the shadows.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 a terrific 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 sort of enjoyable.
Every stage usually 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 significantly 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 choose 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 It by no means will get outdated.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 aspect of buildings, encouraging you to go searching maps and truly work together with them.
The darkness mechanic means you’ll be able to keep on with the shadows unseen, and your visibility is famous by a glowing gem in your proper hand. We’d have liked a brightness slider, although, because it’s by no means fairly darkish sufficient.
And because of that useful Keeper know-how, you should utilize Keeper sight, which is able to spotlight probably hidden pathways or treasures. There are false partitions, mechanically sliding bookshelf doorways, and even footage with gems stuffed behind them. There’s at all times a purpose to have a fast look round a room.
As you delve somewhat deeper into the sport, nonetheless, that’s the place an increasing number of of the problems begin to come up.
For one, enemy AI is horrendously dumb. They’ll take endlessly to note you typically, and have cat-like eyes the subsequent. 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 conceal for a second they usually’ll neglect 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 except there’s one other guard that overlaps with their set path, there is no such thing as a level, as a result of no person will discover them.
Clearly, stealth is the secret in a Thief entry, and we wouldn’t count on full-blown fight right here. However we additionally anticipated somewhat 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 objects or use our truncheon, which required a full restart every time. Different occasions, we randomly grew to become actually brief, the place crouching and standing made zero distinction to our top, making it unimaginable to achieve sure ledges or handles. Once more, that required a full restart.
Having in addition 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 pressured to rewatch an unskippable cutscene and restart the extent from scratch. You may’t simply soar 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 essentially warrant replaying. Most of what its ranges have to supply could be seen in a single playthrough.
Every stage comes with a set of challenges, a few of which is able to give you everlasting perks if accomplished, like beginning every stage with three water arrows or making much less noise if you drop from larger ledges.
All the precise thievery (all the trinkets you gather) is form of tied to this. You are tasked with accumulating half of a stage’s loot, however past that, it is only for the completionists on the market. The collected forex 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 might sneak in an open aspect 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 principally repurposing two of its earlier ranges for the conclusion of the story.
