That VR Thief game will slip from the shadows in December, and I’m beginning to think it might be good, actually

I practically heard the monkey’s paw curling a finger when Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow was revealed back in June. Here after more than a decade, was an honest-to-god new Thief game, one that brings back Stephen Russell to lend his gravelly tones to Garrett. “But you don’t get to play as him”, the antique shop owner cackled as he handed over the blackjack. “And by the way, it’s a VR game, mwa-ha-ha-haaa!”

As Fraser Brown explained shortly after the reveal, it felt like being slapped in the face, especially when the Thief community has so brilliantly carried the torch (insofar as a Thief fan would ever carry a torch) in the form of unofficial campaigns like The Black Parade. Yet having watched the most recent trailer for the game, which accompanied an announcement for Legacy of Shadow’s release date, I wonder whether I was a bit too quick to judge.

The trailer shows new protagonist Magpie breaking into a house in New Quarter to retrieve a valuable mask. The moment-to-moment play looks more promising than the brief snippets shown in the original trailer. VR’s inherent tactility seems smartly deployed in how it lets you clamber up walls, drag knocked-out enemies around, pick up loot and search behind picture frames for hidden switches. I also like how guards snore when you knock them out, even if they didn’t do that in the original games.

While the path Magpie takes through the trailer seems fairly linear, developer Maze Theory has already stated that missions will have multiple routes of approach. There’s a particularly neat moment where Garrett, whose spirit is contained in a magical jewel called the Eye which Magpie carries around, warns the younger thief to be careful when a guard approaches. If that’s dynamic, as it seems to be, then it’s a clever way of folding Garrett presence into general play.

hat said, there are a few things I remain unconvinced by. I cannot get on board with the voice actor they’ve chosen for Magpie. I’m sceptical of using British accents in Thief generally—its urban fantasy is heavily rooted in Chandler’s hard-boiled detective fiction, so American accents make a lot more sense. But Magpie’s broad Lancastrian tones are particularly jarring. Nobody in the Thief universe should be capable of saying “Y’alright, love?” and I say that as a fellow Northerner.

The other thing is that the Thief games are weird as shit, at least up until Thief 2014, and I’m not getting sufficient bizarro vibes from Legacy of Shadow’s world and soundscapes. Thief could make you reluctant to go into corners even when you knew there was nothing there, simply because the sound emanating from it was so profoundly unnatural as to make you question your sanity.

Still, I’m more optimistic than I was before. It may not be exactly what I want from a Thief game, but there’s enough I like the look of for me to give it a chance. Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow launches on December 4, which given the quieter release schedule that month, should give it half a chance of attracting some attention.