From the outset it’s not at all clear who you are, why you’re where you start the game, nor what you’re meant to be doing other than getting through the next area. The narrative presentation feels similarly undernourished at this stage. You play as a doctor, and apparently there’ll be later opportunities to use those skills to research certain objects you find during a mission, but for now the toolkit is disappointingly slight. You have several weapons, a lantern and healing items, but otherwise you’re limited to throwing bottles to distract guards. There are no thieves’ tools in the Early Access build. This kind of looping level design works in tandem with the savepoint system (you record your progress at phonographs found in the world, similar to Resident Evil’s typewriters), obviating any need for a quicksave that would undermine the carefully calibrated tension.Īs much as Gloomwood picks all the right pockets for this long-time Thief fan, there are caveats. In a nod to more contemporary design, a Gloomwood level is permeated with revelatory shortcuts patterned in the Souls-like vein. But find yourself in a fight and you’re unlikely to survive. Backstabbing enemies takes them down in one hit, as does a headshot with one of the several firearms. Sneaking around is suspenseful because you are powerful when undetected, fragile when spotted. Such aspects add a crunchy textural layer to the feeling of being bodily present in the world. And there’s no on-screen ammo count for any of the guns you can carry instead you have to open the chamber and count the bullets inside. Your inventory is a briefcase that you have to set down on the floor and open whenever you want to retrieve an item, tipping the balance slightly in favour of preparation rather than improvisation.
The hand of the immersive sim reaches in to pat down other aspects, too. You can lean around corners to spy what’s ahead and even lean into doors to eavesdrop on a conversation or simply to better judge when the guard has passed by the sound of his footsteps. And it’s in the physicality of your movement, the need to crouch and climb and mantle over objects as you poke your head and squeeze your body into every nook and cranny of the environment. It’s in the architectural design as each area is riddled with multiple paths to take, myriad little network fibres branching and intertwining. Like a good immersive sim, these are places ripe for exploration, for becoming intimately familiar with. Lighting is crucial, with pitch shadows disguising your presence and the glint of the ring on your finger the only indication you might be visible to a patrolling guard. The shipyard, mining complex and lighthouse through which you’ll sneak are built from chunky polygons and decorated with crude textures, each location etched in just enough detail to evoke its purpose and hint at deeper mysteries. The world is rendered in a loving approximation of late ’90s technology. Released into Steam Early Access, Gloomwood at this stage delivers roughly three levels, in which I skulked for about six hours, of lean, unadorned stealth that feels – in a good way – akin to a fan-made mission for Thief II: The Metal Age. Gloomwood knows its audience and, at least in this early scene, takes great pleasure in trolling them.Įlsewhere, however, upending expectations does not appear to be high on Gloomwood’s agenda.
Feeling pleased with myself for being in on the joke, I rotated the tumbler to line up 451, grabbed the handle and… the safe exploded and killed me.
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I had only to turn the top tumbler through a single notch to crack the safe. The tumblers were already set to 3, 5 and 1. So when, perhaps half an hour into Gloomwood’s opening level, I encountered a safe locked by a number combination, I immediately knew what I had to do.
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