Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is for all intents and purposes a revival of the Thief series after the…less than favourable Thief 4, I mean Thi4f that came out over a decade ago. It’s not just a nostalgia piece trying to reheat the old magic; it’s a full-bodied reimagining that understands why Thief mattered in the first place. Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow isn’t perfect, and its story stumbles more than it should, but as an interactive stealth experience, it’s probably the closest we’ve come to actually being in Garrett’s boots, well, in this case, Magpie’s boots, who is guided by Garrett.
The first few minutes of Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow sell the fantasy immediately. You’re standing in the gloom of a cramped room, treasure chest in front of you, as you lift the lid and snatch the treasure inside, you can hear guards mumbling about. VR has always been good at immersion, but Legacy of Shadow handles scale and presence with a kind of restraint that sells the world better than showier titles.
Instead of pushing particle effects in your face or forcing setpieces to introduce the scope, it makes you appreciate the sound of boots on wet cobblestone or the way a guard mutters to himself as he passes by. You can almost smell the mildew clinging to the walls. This quieter approach gives everything weight, grounding the experience in the same lived-in atmosphere the series built its reputation on.
The biggest win here is the interactivity, and really, that is something a Thief game absolutely lives or dies by. Playing on the PSVR 2, the motion controls let you manipulate the world in a way that feels natural. Everything, down to picking pockets, has a physicality to it. You have to sneak up to a guard and actually reach out and steal their pouch, all while trying not to brush up against them to alert them.
Lockpicking is wonderfully tactile, while pretty simple, it does require some attention as you turn your picks. Even handling the bow demands a sense of presence. Drawing an arrow, steadying your shot, and firing into a light source to plunge an entire hall into darkness brings a rush that flat-screen gaming can’t replicate.
“The first few minutes of Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow sell the fantasy immediately.”
Movement in Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is handled pretty well, using the joysticks on the controllers for movement, but giving you the usual snap or smooth turn, with the additional option of adding a vignette to the movement to help ease motion sickness. Movement is everything in Thief as it always has been; this is an immersive, creeping stealth sim that rewards your patience. Leaning out of the shadows, peeking through cracked doors, and physically ducking behind crates make the stealth feel earned. When you pull off a clean infiltration route, it’s because you actually did the work.
The game’s physics-driven approach sometimes leads to unpredictable moments that really lead to some of the most exciting moments. You might accidentally knock over a bottle while trying to reach for a coin, or a poorly thrown bottle might end up alerting the guards to your location instead of distracting them somewhere else. These hiccups were less annoyances and more that they added to the tension that fits Thief’s ethos.
Whenever I messed up my stealth, it always felt like it was my fault and not the game’s, and when things went wrong, the scramble to hide or redirect attention was frantic in the best way. Hearing a guard mutter “Thought I heard something…” while you press against a wall trying to control your breathing is the exact kind of sweaty-palmed immersion VR was made for. Oh, I should note that you can play Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow with your mic turned on. Being able to blow candles out is a touch of immersion that goes miles, and the opposite end is that the guard can hear you, so you really feel like you are Magpie.
Where Legacy of Shadow wavers is in its storytelling, the plot follows a very similar rhythm to earlier Thief entries with conspiracies, relics, backstabbing, and the perpetual tug-of-war between the City’s factions. But it feels like the pacing is all over the place. Some missions nail the tone the world builds, weaving environmental storytelling with sharp dialogue and moody setpieces. Others feel like they were written more to justify gameplay scenarios than to build on the lore of the Thief universe. A few key moments hit hard, especially when the writers tap into the more supernatural elements, but the narrative never quite rises to the atmosphere that the rest of the game painstakingly created.
Performance on PSVR 2 is solid, with crisp visuals and excellent use of lighting. This is a game that relies heavily on contrast, and the OLED display does a lot of heavy lifting when you’re lurking in pitch-black corners watching guards pass by. Hand tracking and haptic feedback add layers of subtlety. Feeling the slight vibration while drawing the bowstring or the clunk of a picked lock gives the game a physicality that elevates its core loop, and it always feels good to pull out the blackjack and knock someone out.
On the audio side, the directional sound in Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow is outstanding; you really feel every rustle and whisper, having to hold your breath and just hope they can’t hear you. It’s also one of the few VR games where turning your head to track a noise isn’t just immersive, it’s a gameplay necessity.
There are some interesting environmental moments with a game that is hyper-focused on taking the stealthy approach, especially with object interaction. The game’s ambition means you’ll occasionally drop something because your virtual hand didn’t quite line up with your actual one. Guards also sometimes feel smart enough to track sounds convincingly, while other times they’ll give up a search far too quickly. It’s nothing game-breaking, but it does keep the stealth experience from feeling completely airtight.
If you grew up playing the original Thief games, there’s a familiar rhythm to how you navigate rooms, gauge danger, and weigh your options. But in VR, that rhythm becomes almost like a second instinct, and everything comes down to pulling off that stealth. It’s less about memorizing guard patterns and more about actually being in the space, listening, planning, and acting in ways that feel tactile instead of abstract.
Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow may stumble narratively, but as a translation of everything that made Thief special, and everything VR does best, it’s a remarkably strong showing. Even with its shortcomings, it delivers the kind of immersive stealth fantasy fans have been waiting years for. Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow feels like the next step for the immersive sim thieving series.
