The studio associated with Warren Spector released the game with great fanfare, but it quickly lost traction.
OtherSide Entertainment’s stealth game, Thick as Thieves, was released in May but perhaps it should have been released in early access. Although the objectives changed throughout the campaign as the game switched between the two maps in co-op or single-player mode, the content felt sparse with only two levels. Annoying issues, such as the intricacies of the time-limit system and the lack of key remapping at launch, didn’t help the situation. The first post-launch content update provided the option to customize key bindings, but it wasn’t enough to turn Thick as Thieves‘ fortunes around completely. This posed a problem because OtherSide’s other game, which was still in development, was canceled. The company has now gone through two rounds of layoffs and has fewer than 10 employees.
Jeff Hickman, the game’s director, wrote that working in the gaming industry can be joyful and heartbreaking. He confirmed that only a very small team remains, so Thick as Thieves will not receive any further content updates. It’s not the outcome they’d hoped for, but they must face the fact that developing additional content, game modes, and systems is no longer viable. However, OtherSide and the publisher, Megabit, are working together to ensure that Thick as Thieves remains playable.
"This mainly involves creating a new version of the game that uses peer-to-peer servers for cooperative play. The gameplay and flow of your experience will remain virtually identical, but you won’t need dedicated servers in the cloud. This will allow you to play with your friends whenever you want, and, importantly, solo play will be completely unaffected. Once this work is complete, Megabit will take over maintenance of the game and respond to bugs and other issues as needed," Hickman added.
We’re curious to know how much it hurt Thick as Thieves to be available for just $5, as it gave off a desperate and cheap impression. Even a slightly higher price would have mitigated this impression, as well as the idea that the game wasn’t released as a standalone title, but rather as an unfinished product launched for fundraising purposes. This idea has dogged the game since its release.
However, it’s possible that Thick as Thieves would have had only a small audience regardless of its price or whether it stayed true to its original vision as a PvPvE game.
