Is this game a steal?
Thief Simulator 2 will transport you to a world full of valuables, expensive cars, and rustling banknotes. As long as you find a way to steal them. Know that a thief’s trade is not a piece of cake. In order to get some practice, you’ll start with petty theft. This is how you’ll gain the experience required to access more and more risky – and most importantly, more profitable – jobs. Gain levels and unlock new possibilities.
I’ve played a good few thieving games over the years from Sly Cooper all the way to Payday and GTA. So I know what to expect, but also what should be expected of the game itself. Thief Simulator 2 has both a story mode and a free mode in which you learn people’s routines, break into their houses and loot their stuff.
You’ll get more tools as you level up like drones to disable security cameras and so on, while you can buy hints using in-game money to find out what weaknesses the house has in terms of security, such as a window being left open a lot or a weakened fence and so on. The scale of stealing does increase as you play, but so too does the risk.
The gameplay itself feels rewarding and easy enough to pick up. It does suffer from a few technical problem such as a bad draw distance when driving, plus the character models look a bit ugly but it does run at a decent enough framerate and load times aren’t too bad. Voice-acting gets the job done, while there’s a nice bunch of radio stations to listen to as you are driving. There are no differences in performance between the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions that I noticed.
The Verdict
Thief Simulator 2 has quite a bit of content. It may feel a bit rough around the edges in parts, plus the visuals aren’t the most eye-pleasing…but yet, this is an impressive game overall and one that is literally a steal at the price it’s going at.