The developer of 10 Second Ninja has unveiled a new project called Abermore, a first-person stealth game about a notorious thief named The Unhanged Man who's aiming to commit the heist of the century by busting into the Royal Palace and stealing everything that isn't nailed down.
The Abermore trailer initially caught my eye because of the clear Thief-style aesthetic—Thief being the game that, more than 20 years ago, really defined the stealth genre—with a dash of Dishonored thrown in by way of supernatural abilities. There are also shades of Dishonored seen in the way it supports a more assertive sort of problem-solving: As a thief, stealth is your number one asset, but violence in Abermore appears to be a very viable way to make a living too.
There are a few notable differences from those games, though. For one thing, you won't be working alone: Abermore begins 18 days before the big B&E, a window of time in which you'll be able to take on smaller jobs in order to earn money, impress people with your skills, and convince the city's shadier elements that you're up to the task of ripping off the king. Building up your rep will also enable you to assemble a crew from the local collective of ne'er-do-wells, which will make the big job a lot (or at least a little) easier to pull off.
The one aspect of Abermore that puts me off is that it uses procedural generation to keep things interesting across multiple playthroughs. "Every campaign is unique, daisy chaining together robberies, across countless level variations," the Steam listing says. "There are countless characters with quests, people to help and unique robberies to be carried out. Every mission level is procedurally generated so you will always have to be on your guard and hope Lady Luck is on your side."
It's not clear how exactly that system is going to work, and I hope that it's effective, but randomly generated levels simply cannot match up to bespoke design. It's a little bit of a pre-disappointment, but even so Abermore looks like it could be good fun, and I am very eager to dive back into a game that really captures the feeling of playing as Garrett or Corvo. It's set to come out on March 29.
Disclaimer: Former PC Gamer deputy editor Philippa Warr is working on Abermore.
