Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is disappointing. This newest from Vertigo Video games, though developed by Maze Idea, 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 historic Keeper expertise, and consequently, 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 expertise. Sounds ominous.
You’ll sneak round previous 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 ideal 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 by means of hidden passageways or discovering new keys is kind of enjoyable.
Every degree 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’re climbing, interacting with doorways and drawers, or lining up a shot along 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 choose to really feel the locks lining up with the Sense controller rumble. It by no means will get previous.
There’s simply sufficient to mess around with, too. Your bow comes outfitted 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 really work together with them.
The darkness mechanic means you possibly can follow the shadows unseen, and your visibility is famous by a glowing gem in your proper hand. We might have liked a brightness slider, although, because it’s by no means fairly darkish sufficient.
And due to that useful Keeper expertise, you need to use 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 all the time a motive to have a fast look round a room.
As you delve somewhat deeper into the sport, nevertheless, that’s the place increasingly more of the problems begin to come up.
For one, enemy AI is horrendously dumb. They’ll take ceaselessly 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 disguise for a second they usually’ll overlook about you, otherwise you’ll interact in a rudimentary parry interplay earlier than swiftly knocking them out.
You’ll be able to cope with guards quietly by sneaking up behind and knocking them out along with your truncheon, too, however that actually is the extent of your interplay with them.
You’ll be able to 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 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 gadgets or use our truncheon, which required a full restart every time. Different instances, we randomly turned actually quick, the place crouching and standing made zero distinction to our peak, making it inconceivable to succeed in sure ledges or handles. Once more, that required a full restart.
Having in addition up the sport on a number of events additionally highlighted an enormous flaw within the checkpointing system. Every time we booted up, we have been pressured to rewatch an unskippable cutscene and restart the extent from scratch. You’ll be able to’t simply bounce 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 degree 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 might be seen in a single playthrough.
Every degree comes with a set of challenges, a few of which is able to give you everlasting perks if accomplished, like beginning every degree with three water arrows or making much less noise once you drop from greater ledges.
All the precise thievery (the entire trinkets you acquire) is type of tied to this. You are tasked with gathering half of a degree’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 once you return to your base.
And whereas, sure, the range in missions means you would sneak in an open facet window as a substitute 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.
