The Thief Simulator 2023 – From Crook to Boss

Genre: First-Person Stealth

Players: 1

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Review:

Thief Simulator 2023 is a First-Person Stealth game released on Nintendo Switch in 2023. I see other games bearing the title of Thief Simulator, but as far as I can tell, those games are not connected to this one. Anyway, as the game’s title suggests, this game has you playing as a thief breaking into various homes and businesses to steal items of value and sell them off, gradually upgrading your own gear and capabilities.

That may sound enticing, committing ever bigger and bolder heists, but in practice, it’s a slog. The game makes use of both a skill tree and equipment you need to purchase in-game, and your progress on both is slow. Just starting the game, you will be given a selection of just over a half-dozen locations to steal from, but only one is viable – all others require better lockpicking abilities, or better transportation to deliver heavier loot. And because it takes so long to upgrade, you will be heading back to steal from the same unlocked trailer over and over again, each time only taking a few items before your inventory fills up.

As yes, your inventory. It’s slot-based rather than size- or weight-based, meaning that a laptop takes up just as much room as a stick of chewing gum. What’s more, there’s no indication what an item is worth, so you’ll just have to guess at which items to bother with and which are just taking up valuable space.

Oh, and don’t expect to have any hide-and-seek moments where you evade or run from your mark or guards – you simply have a limited time to take what you want, and must get out before that time… but there’s no penalty for leaving without snagging some target item, and you can always come back ad nauseum – yes, the unlocked trailer in the first level will always be unlocked, and always have some random assortment of items you can sell. I suppose, with this being the case, this is really only a Stealth game in concept, but not execution.

The presentation isn’t very compelling here, either. While the game makes use of a few high-resolution photos for its characters, this is otherwise a highly-unimpressive first-person game with 3D visuals that range from passable to outright amateurish (the pawn shop you use to sell off goods is particularly embarrassing). These visuals are backed mostly by environmental noises. Nothing at all compelling here.

I absolutely love the idea of a First-Person Stealth game where you take the role of a thief grabbing items of value out from under the nose of its rightful owner, but Thief Simulator 2023 does an exceedingly poor job delivering that experience. It’s frustratingly grindy and repetitive, there’s no nuance to the gameplay, and the presentation is abysmal. Skip this game.

tl;dr – Thief Simulator 2023 is a First-Person Stealth game that has you breaking into homes and shops to steal items of value. Unfortunately, much of what you can do is locked behind extremely slow progression, necessitating a tedious, grindy experience without any sort of nuance, rendered with a terrible presentation. The only thing even remotely resembling skillful thievery here is the way this game steals your money. Don’t let it.

Grade: D

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