Thief Simulator 2 Review – Will Steal Your Time

After the successful release of the thief simulator Thief Simulator in 2018, PlayWay is releasing a sequel that contains even more gameplay features than its predecessor. Is the game worth your attention? We’ll tell you in the review.

• Developer: CookieDev, Ultimate Games SA
• Publisher: PlayWay SA
• Platforms: PC
• Release date: October 4, 2023

Thief Simulator 2 follows the career of a nameless burglar. According to the plot, the protagonist owes a large sum of money, and now he, guided by a mysterious voice from his mobile phone, will have to pull off a series of robberies in order to pay off creditors.

However, the matter is not limited to just collecting everything that is in bad shape: the employer loads his ward with various kinds of assignments – either he needs to follow someone, or he needs to plant a suspicious-looking package in the house, and so on. Ultimately, it all comes down to unnoticed entry into the area (into a house, store, or other object), but along the way, you can wander around the rooms, rummage through the drawers, and take away everything valuable.

Not every item, however, can be stolen in the initial stages of the passage. Locked doors, safes, and alarm systems can become an insurmountable obstacle for a novice thief. To be able to hack advanced security devices, you need to gain experience and learn the relevant skills. At the same time, improve your silent movement skills, master the control of a quadcopter, learn how to spy on victims, and plan your actions based on their routine.

The project is full of game mechanics that are closely intertwined with each other. Here you can drive a car and silently knock out guards, shovel valuables into a backpack and hide from the cops in garbage cans, and in between missions, sit out in a shelter where you can sell the loot, buy burglary tools, acquire information about places of interest to a thief, and take additional tasks to furnish your home.

There are many gameplay systems in Thief Simulator 2, but their implementation is far from ideal. The owner of the house can smell a burglar entering the premises even through the wall. Cops spawn in the most unexpected places and knock out the protagonist with one well-aimed shot. During a chase, a slight push from a police car is enough to be detained and sent to the police station. Lockpicking falls far short of similar mechanics from Skyrim and Fallout, which it is obviously inspired by.

NPCs walking down the street freeze in awkward poses at the slightest alarm. Cars cannot pass the hero’s car parked on the road, although they have enough space to maneuver. The SUV is controlled reluctantly, just like a flying drone, and car customization seems unnecessary. In general, there are quite a few elements that feel unnecessary, like the mini-game of opening sealed boxes. Because of this, the game does not give the impression of a solid product – it seems like it was assembled from different parts, and combined into Frankenstein’s monster.

On top of all of the above, the nights here are incredibly dark. Once you get to work, you will carefully peer at the screen, trying to make out what is happening in the game. The graphics are far from cutting-edge, and performance is unpleasantly surprising with frame rate drops. In some places, the sequel looks worse than the first part. Against this background, we can’t even mention the inconvenient interface and ugly fonts in the Russian localization.

Thief Simulator 2 has one advantage – the game is unique in its own way and has almost no analogues. Of course, there is the Thief series, but its last part was released back in 2014. The Splinter Cell series is also on pause, but it, like the Hitman series, is still a little about something else. Therefore, the project’s high rating on Steam is not surprising, although, frankly, it deserves a less high rating. Thief Simulator 2 will steal your time, but you can either be happy about it or really regret it.