Gloomwood – Spotlight

Gloomwood, a first-person stealth game that skulks in the shadow of Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998), is a masterful thief, stealing systems and mechanics from dozens of games over the past two decades.

Although the term “immersive sim” is difficult to pin down, it is most often applied to action-adventure games like Deus Ex, BioShock, and Dishonored that feature a wide variety of methods for completing missions, push players to experiment with the game’s simulation in novel ways, and anticipate players searching every nook and cranny for hidden secrets and valuables.

Perhaps the games in this genre have a common denominator that can be traced back to the first System Shock, which has helped to keep the subgenre together over the years (Looking Glass, 1994). The first locked door in every new virtual reality experience always opens with the four-digit passcode “0451.”

When I found a safe in Gloomwood’s first level that required a numerical combination, I knew exactly what I had to do. There was already a 3, 5, and 1 in the tumblers. The programmers winked at me and I gave them a wry smile. To open the safe, I simply rotated the top tumbler through one notch. After turning the tumbler to align 451, I proudly grabbed the handle, but the safe exploded, killing me. My 451 was busted. At least in this early scene, it’s clear that Gloomwood has fun trolling its audience.

However, it does not appear that shattering expectations is a top priority for Gloomwood in other contexts. Gloomwood, now available on Steam Early Access, features roughly three levels of lean, unadorned stealth that feels, in a good way, like a fan-made mission for Thief II: The Metal Age. I spent about six hours sneaking around in these levels.

The world is drawn using a style that is an homage to late 1990s computer graphics. You’ll be sneaking through a shipyard, a mining complex, and a lighthouse; all three are constructed from chunky polygons and decorated with crude textures, but they’re detailed just enough to evoke their function and hint at deeper mysteries. Lighting is critical, as complete darkness will hide your presence from a patrolling guard and the glint of your ring will be the only giveaway.

This area is like a well-designed immersive video game; it begs to be discovered and mastered. It’s inherent in the layout, as most spots offer several different ways to get somewhere and the underlying network is a complex web of tiny fibres that constantly branch and intertwine. It’s in the way you have to physically move around the world, having to stoop and climb and mantle over obstacles, all the while poking your head and body into tiny spaces. You can peek around corners to see what’s coming up, and you can lean into doors to hear what’s going on inside, or to gauge when the guard has left by the sound of his footsteps.

The immersive simulation’s hand reaches in to check out other details as well. To slightly tip the scales in favour of preparation over improvisation, your inventory is stored in a briefcase that must be placed on the ground and opened whenever an item is retrieved. In addition, you can’t see how many bullets you have left in any of the guns until you open the chamber and check. Experiencing the world through your body is enhanced by the crunch of such details.

The suspense of sneaking around comes from the paradox that you are strong when unnoticed but weak when exposed. Any of the available firearms, or a well-placed backstab, can kill an opponent instantly. But if you get into a physical altercation, your chances of survival drastically decrease. One Gloomwood area nods to modern design by scattering Souls-styled secret passages throughout. When combined with the game’s savepoint system (you record your progress at phonographs strewn about the world, much like Resident Evil’s typewriters), this style of level design eliminates the need for a quicksave, which could detract from the game’s carefully crafted tension.

For this long-time Thief fan, Gloomwood is like a treasure trove, but it does not come without its share of caveats. The Early Access version does not feature any burglary equipment. You have a variety of weapons, a lantern, and some healing supplies, but other than that, you’re stuck with throwing bottles to distract guards. You take on the role of a doctor and will presumably have opportunities to investigate various objects you come across in the course of missions, but the arsenal you start with is disappointingly small.

To a similar extent, the narrative presentation lacks substance. It’s not made clear right away who you are, what your purpose is, or why you’re starting the game in the location you do. The story is only hinted at by the few notes you find or the fragments of conversation you overhear. The available missions were completed, but I had no idea what the game’s overarching story was supposed to be about.

The evaluation of an unfinished Early Access game focused on a linear, single-player campaign is especially difficult. What we have seen so far suggests that Gloomwood is aware of its roots as an immersive sim and can appreciate why Thief is still so adored as a pure stealth game even twenty-odd years after its release. The question of whether it can find its own identity apart from Thief remains open.