Instead of pressing Q and E to lean you can just, well, lean.
You’d think a genre with the word “immersive” in its name would obviously be a good match for virtual reality, but there haven’t been that many VR immersive sims. There was Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice and the Espire series, but mostly we’ve seen immersive sim-adjacent stuff like The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners—games that take inspiration from immsim classics to spice up a regular shooter. (0452 games, basically.)
Sure, you could use vorpX to play games like System Shock or Dishonored in your VR headset. But if you want something new, your options are limited. Thief VR aims to fill that gap.
“VR is a natural fit for an immersive sim because it allows players to physically engage with the world around them”, says Eugenio Aguilar Oriani, lead publishing producer at Vertigo Games. “In Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow, classic elements from the series—like stealth-based gameplay, exploration, and the thrill of thieving—come to life through physical actions. Players must crouch, hide, and move through shadows to avoid detection, pick pockets with their own hands, and interact with the environment in tactile ways, from lockpicking to uncovering hidden switches behind picture frames or solving puzzles built into bookshelves.”
I’m intrigued by the lockpicking. While I don’t love the floating disembodied hands Thief VR has gone with, which are more jarring than fully modeled arms even when they turn into tangled spaghetti, I do like the idea of picking a lock with virtual lockpicks.
“The lockpicking mechanic has been fully designed for VR controls”, Oriani says. “Using both hands, you’ll need to carefully manipulate the pins to find the sweet spot. For maximum immersion, it’s possible to rely entirely on haptic feedback—but for those who prefer guidance, a UI-assisted option is also available.
