American Theft 80s Reviews

Very glitchy.

The official successor to Thief Simulator. But while TS1 is still getting free and paid updates 6 years after its release, American Theft 80s is basically dead. Because it didn't sell. Because, apparently, due to the different name, people have no idea that this is Thief Simulator 2. "But TS2 exists!" It does, and it sold as well as TS1. But it was actually developed from the ground up by a completely unrelated team, whereas TS1 and AT80 have the same developers and are built on the same foundation. This means that AT80 is also much closer to TS1 than TS2 is. It's less pretty because the devs went for the bleak 80s VHS aesthetic, but the gameplay is, for the most part, the same. There's less fancy technology and all the annoying tedious minigames where you disassemble cars or whatever are gone. The progression system works slightly better and doesn't always force you to progress in the story to unlock new gadgets. It's a little sandboxier with different NPCs having different requests and side quests for you, rather than pulling all your assignments and intel from the internet. However, there are 2 things that almost kill the game for me. And this is connected to how stealth and the schedules work in this game. In TS1, tenants often leave their homes in the afternoon, making it safer to break in during the day. This makes sense - people need to work, after all - and it gives you a nice balance between day break-ins and night break-ins, completely shaping your plans according to the tenants' schedules. In AT80, people always never leave their homes, and if they do, it's merely for a few hours at most and they usually leave a different tenant behind. So how do you actually rob houses if they are never empty? Well, you basically become invisible in the shadows now. You can sneak past everyone during the night. I've never even seen most of the map in broad daylight because there is simply no incentive to ever play during the day. This is much more akin to traditional stealth games than to Thief Simulator. And as a result, the gameplay grows stale a lot faster. The anxiety when you're inside someone's home and they return? Gone. The whole planning and scheduling mechanics that made TS1 interesting? Gone. Ironically, there is even less of that in the new heists: The new main missions where you don't just break into a house to steal a special item, but actually have to follow a big fancy plan. Except that game just gives you this plan and you do a regular break-in, the main difference being that it's practically impossible to fail because it's completely linear and you only follow waypointers. It is infinitely more fun to clear out random houses and hunt down unique items than playing the dumb main quest. I am happy that the devs tried to innovate and add new features, but it didn't work. Compared with the OG, American Theft 80s just feels clunkier, more repetitive, and unfinished. It somehow even has less character despite the whole 80s schtick and weird NPCs. Nevertheless... I mostly enjoyed it and it was worth the money on sale. Some people call it a level pack for TS1, and I guess I agree. It's a big level pack, considering that it took me 13 hours to 100% clear the story mode. This should be approximately the same playtime that TS1 has, excluding DLC. And if you liked that one, you'll probably like AT80 too. But for the love of God, play Thief Simulator first.

A captivating gameplay loop, where despite being pretty basic and done better elsewhere, was still very satisfactory to do over and over. The early game may be a bit challenging, but progression eventually becomes steady enough afterwards which makes you still feel challenged enough to want to continue to the next unlock to make you an even better and silent thief.