Deus Ex Director Warren Spector says the next logical step for immersive sims is multiplayer - shares their first title “Thick As Thieves”

[deadasdisco]

At a Glance

• The immersive sim genre is beloved for how it lets players explore open-ended solutions to problems.
• Creative Director Warren Spector and OtherSide Entertainment are making a multiplayer immersive sim called Thick as Thieves.
• Spector says long-running tabletop roleplaying campaigns were an inspiration for this "thief versus thief" multiplayer game.

Famed creative director Warren Spector still wants to break new game design ground in the world of immersive sims. He and his colleagues at Otherside Entertainment are finally revealing details about the post-System Shock 3 games they've been working on, backed by funding from Aonic Group and its new publishing arm Megabit.

The first is Thick as Thieves, a "thief versus thief" or "TvT" immersive simulator where players compete to steal treasure in open environments. Players sneak or brawl their way through a fantasy world as they would in...well, Thief: The Dark Project (directed by OtherSide vice president of product Greg LoPiccolo). They find the loot, they get the loot, they bring the loot back to their base—but all the while, another player is lurking around the same back alleys and crawlspaces, trying to get the treasure for themselves

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"The next area of innovation is to take immersive sims into the live ops world. For most people, it's just a business model. For us, it's a creative choice." He expressed amazement at the fact that the creative and business sides of this idea came together in a way that "wouldn't have been possible a few years ago."

LoPiccolo said the studio is also experimenting with what he calls "behavioral immersive simulation." The classic design logic of immersive sims focuses on the interaction of physical objects in the game world. "What we're pursuing here is a little bit more social," he said, describing how NPCs in the game will be scripted to respond to a wide range of interactions. "There's guards you can bribe, or fences you can get information from. A lot of the gameplay is about collecting information and using it to your advantage in this social world where there are a lot of NPCs and a lot of information flying around."

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Full Article - https://www.gamedeveloper.com/desig...ogical-step-for-immersive-sims-is-multiplayer

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

Thick ass thieves

There I made the joke

 

[Smartlord]

This sounds like an absolutely awful fit for the genre, and I'm a huge fan. I hope it goes well for them, but their recent work doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

 

[deepFlaw]

That could be interesting, though… honestly this is the kind of game where I feel like I'd quick save/load a lot to make up for my lack of skill at it. So multiplayer making that impossible would mean I'd probably be pretty bad at it.

 

[Starlatine]

love warren spector but all the flags are raised for this one

 

[ArchedThunder]

When I think of Immersive Sim multiplayer is the absolute last thing to come to mind.

 

[Yoshi88]

Reminds me of the invasion aspect in Deathloop. Not a fan, a key component of imsims for me is being able to take my time, plan my approach, soak in atmosphere and level layout etc. - the pressure of other players racing towards the same goals is just so different to that.

The behavioral stuff sounds neat, but equally if not more suited to singleplayer concepts, so i don't see the USP in taking imsims multiplayer.

 

[Smartlord]

That could be interesting, though… honestly this is the kind of game where I feel like I'd quick save/load a lot to make up for my lack of skill at it. So multiplayer making that impossible would mean I'd probably be pretty bad at it.

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I feel as if that's part of the appeal of immersive sims though. The trial and error experimentation is a feature, not a bug, and I'm not sure it could ever make the leap to multiplayer. Let alone competitive multiplayer.

 

[Lamiafusion]

I'm into it although I wonder how progression will be handled

 

[Firewithin]

multiplayer? no thanks

it will be griefed probably within seconds

 

[zombiejames]

"The next area of innovation is to take immersive sims into the live ops world. For most people, it's just a business model. For us, it's a creative choice."

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Nope, no thanks.

 

[Arkanim94]

it could be interesting, but not for me

 

[Patitoloco]

Warren Spector nooooooooo

(except if it's something fun like Deathloop)

 

[Slim Action]

Don't agree whatsoever but I wish him luck.

 

[masizzai]

Era just dropped down to their knees in the middle of microcenter. Man said multiplayer would take a single player genre to the next level.

We need more innovative ideas. Gaming on a AAA level has been as cookie cutter as it's ever been. Most iterative generation ever.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Imagine a co-op game where a group of thieves work together or have their own objectives to meet certain personal and group goals to further what they do, but aren't always reliant on each other. Almost like have a 4 player central base where you can sprawl out, do different tasks and so on, but upgrade yourself, go on your own little journeys and whatnot.

 

[ket]

The immersive sim genre is basically dead so why not? It's not like we have a new Deus Ex or whatever on the horizon lol

 

[Yerffej]

"The next area of innovation is to take immersive sims into the live ops world. For most people, it's just a business model. For us, it's a creative choice."

It's a business choice don't front.

 

[Darryl M R]

I'm down.

 

[SnazzyNaz]

That could be interesting, though… honestly this is the kind of game where I feel like I'd quick save/load a lot to make up for my lack of skill at it. So multiplayer making that impossible would mean I'd probably be pretty bad at it.

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This actually makes it more intriguing to me - I'm really bad at constantly falling back on quick-loads in ImSims so a setting wherein that's not possible and you're forced to adapt to any mistake sounds kinda cool.

 

[Dyno]

That just sounds like spy vs spy in 3d tbh

 

[Exist 2 Inspire]

Yeah, no. Immersive Sims are probably my favorite genre ever but i have zero interest in any kind of MP related game. I'd rather play Spectors "One City block" dream game lol.

 

[Billfisto]

I don't like that direction, but as long as he's not talking about NFTs or AI or SBI or whatever, he's good.

 

[Doskoi Panda]

Reminds me of the invasion aspect in Deathloop. Not a fan, a key component of imsims for me is being able to take my time, plan my approach, soak in atmosphere and level layout etc. - the pressure of other players racing towards the same goals is just so different to that.

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I mean, yeah. That was the point.

 

[Philippo]

That's funny, I've been reading about Spector's (and all studios/people that were inspired by him) misadventures in jschreier 's books literally these past few weeks.

 

[Patapuf]

BG3 shows how immersive sim elements work just fine in MP.

Games like lethal company do this as well.

I don't think this is a "Next Step" as this is already happening

 

[flyinj]

A multiplayer focused immersive sim by the developers of Underworld Ascendant. Yeah, I'm going to pass on this one

 

[snausages]

Quick save/quick load being such a hallmark of imsim is ironic cause it's the most immersion shattering thing in the world

Like, I do it but I wish there was a better incentive to not do it.

 

[ArcticWolf]

Sounds tangently similar to Thievery UT which was a great amount of fun.

 

[WhateverItTakes]

I can see why people are allergic to this, since savescumming, getting powerful enough to break a game's balance to a degree, and you playing chess against the computer is a lot of what appeals in immersive sims. Let alone the narrative constraints you put yourself under in a multiplayer environment.

But I do think there's something cool about a race to steal a gem, or that you're all pursuing objectives in a shared space. Maybe rat out your rivals to guards and such. But the balancing for that while keeping things fun is really hard, let alone all the griefing. I'd like to see it work but the more I think about it the less I see how it can.

 

[julia crawford]

this seems kind of lopsided, just reading that i'm assuming that what they're really doing is not taking immersive sims and adding multiplayer to them, but taking the things that naturally occur in multiplayer games and using immersive sim tools to make a multiplayer setting more interesting, which would be closer to saying that they are making a multiplayer game more like immersive sim than making an immersive sim a multiplayer game

 

[GrrImAFridge]

The cynic in me feels he's saying this because it's the pitch Aonic/Megabit ultimately accepted, but I'm more than happy to be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Hrodulf]

Multiplayer inherently makes things less immersive, but go for it, I guess.

 

[Sabretooth]

Spector is on the right track, but it sounds like such a difficult thing to pull off, especially given that Spector hasn't come out with an imsim game in more than 20 years.

Multiplayer inherently makes things less immersive, but go for it, I guess.

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This is what I always told my mum when she told me to get out of the house more.

 

[Goddo Hando]

mulitplayer Wow cool so get griefed and pray the servers stay supported

 

[Khanimus]

I disagree Warren

 

[Thrill_house]

Uhhhhh that is actually the LAST thing I want to see in immersive sims for a myriad of reasons. Can't agree

 

[Jakenbakin]

It sounds cool. A multiplayer game taking cues from the genre is a fun idea, and even if it doesn't appeal to fans of the original genre I think it's an exciting development and direction for online play, if executed well.

 

[AstralSphere]

I applaud the attempt and wish them well, but it sounding like it being multiplayer only pretty much means I'm not going to be interested.

 

[Ryszard]

The answer is never multiplayer... Less for an extremely single player focused genre... Losing all hope.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

Doesn't seem like a genre whose fans probably want competitive multiplayer...

 

[I KILL PXLS]

I could be interested in this as a co-op game. Multiplayer heist type shit could be fun. Competing against another player or players I'm not so interested in though. Maybe they'll have a mode that doesn't include that.

 

[CandySTX]

Excited until I read the word multiplayer

 

[zma1013]

BG3 shows how immersive sim elements work just fine in MP.

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It works, as in, it's playable but I don't think it works well.

Issues with it where the NPCs treat players as the same entity, problems where one person can miss out on entire dialogs and decisions, etc.

I stopped playing it multiplayer because stuff was just happening unbenownst to me because of other players that was counter to what I wanted to do. "Why is the entire town trying to kill me now? I didn't do anything."

BG3 absolutely feels like a single player game with multiplayer "hacked" in.

 

[Mr Evil 37]

There's absolutely no reason why immersive sim design philosophies can't be successfully applied to multiplayer. Just because it hasn't really been done before (even then, there are examples) doesn't mean it can't be done.

 

[NCR Ranger]

I wish them the best, but it doesn't sound like something I would be interested in.

 

[Patapuf]

It works, as in, it's playable but I don't think it works well.

Issues with it where the NPCs treat players as the same entity, problems where one person can miss out on entire dialogs and decisions, etc.

I stopped playing it multiplayer because stuff was just happening unbenownst to me because of other players that was couner to what I wanted to do. "Why is the entire town trying to kill me now? I didn't do anything."

BG3 absolutely feels like a single player game with multiplayer "hacked" in.

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I mean, it's janky but it's certainly not an afterthought.

Of course, MP means the other Players are signifikant actors that also do things in the game - sometimes even things i don't like. That doesn't diminisch the simulation or mean it's not working.

 

[Mivey]

If it's something Warren Spector helped with or worked on, then I will give it a good look. I don't think he has made an uninteresting game yet.

 

[Spoit]

I could be interested in this as a co-op game. Multiplayer heist type shit could be fun. Competing against another player or players I'm not so interested in though. Maybe they'll have a mode that doesn't include that.

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Yeah, I could maybe see it working in a extraction shooter, but man I'm really tired of all these heist games being PVP focused.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

The thread title really made me think of co-op multiplayer....