My Thieves of the Guild,
Here we are with our final major update. We want to be clear about what this update means for Thick As Thieves going forward. This is our final planned technical update, and we do not expect to release further bug fixes or technical improvements after today.
With that said, this update contains the future proofing this game deserves. The team have been working on building a new peer-to-peer system for co-op play, alongside some bug fixes and other smaller improvements. This means that, even as the dedicated servers are eventually switched off, you’ll still be able to head out on heists together with your friends or strike out on your own for some rampant pilfering.
As part of this change, the way you find other thieves to join you will work a little differently. You’ll still be able to recruit help from others in the Guild by hosting a public game directly from the map or joining someone else’s game using a new bust found on the map table. And, of course, #the-hideout in our Discord server (discord.gg/megabit) is always open for finding friends, colleagues, and accomplices for your next venture.
As Jeff said in his last message, our highest priority is making sure that liberating artifacts from the wealthy and magical families of Kilcairn can continue long into the night. With the changes in this update, you’ll be able to keep playing Thick As Thieves much as you have been, well into the future.
We know this is a bittersweet moment, but we’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has played, supported, and believed in Thick As Thieves. From the earliest days in the shadows to the heists still waiting to be pulled, you’ve been a huge part of this game and its story. Thank you for every pilfered artifact, every last-minute escape, and every wonderfully ill-advised plan you’ve shared with us. We’d also like to extend a huge thank you to Jeff and the team at Otherside Entertainment, whose work to reshape the game’s foundations will allow us all to keep enjoying it together.
From all of us at the Guild: never let a locked door stop you.
Megabit and the Otherside Entertainment Team
Changelist:
Added the ability to play in a Peer-to-Peer setting with others. This is chosen from the map table by picking one the two coop options.
Host Coop (Friends only) opens a peer-to-peer server for invite only.
Host Coop (Public) opens a peer-to-peer server that can be joined by anyone looking for a coop game, including strangers.
Once you have started a coop game, enter the mission lobby as usual and you will find an option to invite a friend from there. This will use the standard Steam invite system. Friends who receive an invite simply need to accept it to be added to your game.
If you want to see public Coop games, click the new statue on the Map Table and it will show you if any public Coop servers are available to join. You can join directly from this interface.
With these changes, we have also removed the ability to randomly matchmake for Coop.
We have also removed the wanted posters to adding friends' loop, since it is unnecessary with the new friends coop system.
We have made many fixes for SteamDeck which will make text larger and more readable.
A side benefit of these text changes is that players on non-steam-deck devices can run with the -pretendsteamdeck launch option to opt into larger text sizes.