Warren Spector and Thief’s game director are making a multiplayer immersive sim called Thick As Thieves

Inside the Looking Glass-style extraction stealth game coming to PC in 2026.

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

A master thief creeps over cobbles in an early modern metropolis that splits the difference between Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool. Lit by gaslamps that can’t quite dispel the industrial haze, they pass for a civilian - a rough one, admittedly, but not shady enough to cause an itch in the swordarm of any passing guard.

Until, that is, they take to the thieves’ highway - following the trajectory of their grappling hook upward to the rooftops, from which they can see the shape of the city, and the moon beyond. Up here, it’s a parallel world - the trees on street level answered by chimney stacks, and the distant hills echoed by the rise and fall of steep gables. “We’re super proud of these rooftops,” says Greg LoPiccolo. “It’s an amazing landscape that we put a lot of thought and effort into, and it’s a lot of fun to traverse.”

Back in 1998, LoPiccolo was the game director who saw Thief: The Dark Project to completion. Today - after an 18 year detour to Harmonix to lead projects like Guitar Hero and Rock Band , among other adventures - he’s the game director of Thick as Thieves. “It really is an opportunity to do something unique and cool and new, on the shoulders of this stuff that is now well-respected,” he says. “Thief has some legs, right? People still talk about it to some degree.”

Thick as Thieves may not belong to the Thief universe, but ably evokes its namesake. Up on the rooftop, a glowing light gem indicates our master thief’s level of cover. A low howling wind provides accompaniment, like a chilling choral bassnote - instantly conjuring memories of The Dark Project. And Thief lives, too, in the mission description, which asks you to infiltrate a library and pilfer a book of family secrets from a hidden room. It’s a tribute heartening in its specificity, and one that readily demonstrates the involvement of Looking Glass developers.

But what’s unique about Thick as Thieves? The answer is right there in the title, which you will have noticed is plural. As our protagonist scopes out a mansion, clocking the guards patrolling the exterior, they notice a movement amid the black tiles of an adjacent roof. Smoke from the chimney, perhaps - until the dark blob fires a dart in the master thief’s direction. A warning shot from a fellow player: this route’s taken, bozo. Try the sewers, and stay outta my way.

The idea of a multiplayer Thief has existed in the shadows since the turn of the millennium. In fact, in the final months before the closure of Looking Glass, its developers were working to reimagine the series as a co-op experience. And when OtherSide Entertainment first started to conceive Thick as Thieves, they were thinking the same way.

“We talked a lot about heist games with each player having a unique role,” says Warren Spector. “And Greg and David [McDonough, lead designer] in particular actually came back and said, ‘No, we could do PvP’. You kind of put your head in your hands and think, wow, that would really surprise people. It would be something utterly unique. And this is me being stupid: I don’t know exactly how to do it, which is the reason to do it.”

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

Ah, yes: Mr Spector. The world’s most famous advocate for the immersive sim genre, and director of core RPS text Deus Ex . After the closure of Epic Mickey studio Junction Point and a spell in academia, Spector joined OtherSide to lead the production of the ill-fated System Shock 3 . There he remains, overseeing not just Thick as Thieves but Argos: Riders of the Storm, another multiplayer immersive sim . He’s now entering his fourth decade in game development.

It’s rare to be able to speak to Spector face-to-face, albeit over Zoom - he’s a literary man , and usually prefers to answer questions in writing. In person, he has a folksy quality, and by his own admittance talks a little more than he means to. His first love - Dungeons & Dragons, which he played as a young man with cyberpunk pioneer Bruce Sterling as his DM - regularly comes up without prompting.

“One of the hallmarks of the immersive sim genre is trying to recreate the feeling of playing Dungeons & Dragons,” he says. “And solo play is great, but telling stories with your friends is even better. So we wanted to see what would happen if a group of players got together and interacted with a deeply simulated world.”

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

This is also Spector’s way into the world of live service. “Tabletop role-playing games have an ongoing life. They don’t just end when you finish a quest. And so we wanted to emulate that approach and make a game that had an ongoing life,” he says. “I played in one D&D campaign for 10 years. I want players to feel like that about Thick as Thieves.”

You might also recognise the influence of the extraction shooter in Thick as Thieves’ DNA. Over the past half a decade, games like Hunt: Showdown have popularised a form of session-based infiltration in which you acquire a package and get out - with the tension provided by other players, who might pounce and wrest the prize from your possession at any time.

Thick as Thieves is structured much the same way. As an agent of the thieves’ guild, you go out every night with the goal of lifting rare treasure from under the noses of NPC guards, while taking care to circumvent or subvert the traps, locks and other security measures in your way. Meanwhile, other players are trying to achieve the same.

Perhaps you’ll stage an ambush and knock a fellow player out cold, stealing their belongings in the process; maybe you’ll avoid their notice and reach an exit without any kind of confrontation at all. Ideally, you’ll get out with the goods the guild was after, or at least enough ill-gotten gold to improve your character’s net worth and reputation in the metagame. In between missions, each player will choose quests and follow the thread of a personal storyline.

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

“We imagine a game where one player could kick in the door, knock everybody out, smash the display case, then jump out the window,” McDonough says. “And another player will hide in the rafters like a ghost, and nobody even knows they’re there. And those two playstyles are equally valid, and will compete with each other.”

This isn’t the first attempt at a stealth-focused extraction game. Notably, Hood: Outlaws & Legends channelled Assassin’s Creed in Sherwood Forest, while the underrated Deceive Inc brought Hitman-style social stealth into the equation. Where OtherSide’s offering stands out - to me, at least - is in its commitment to “classic immersive sim design”.

“The guards, the security, the rules of the environment, the way the characters traverse and the way that their tools work - they’re all systemic, which means that everything you do touches everything else, and the world responds to you in natural ways,” McDonough says.

With each session, the placement of enemies, cameras and locked doors will change, along with the objectives. The only way to guarantee your survival is to improvise. “We feel like this is our strongest conceptual link to how it felt to play classic Thief,” McDonough says. “I don’t know how the mission is going to play out, but I know how my tools work, and I know what to do with them, so I’m going to find my own way through this.”

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

In a way, it’s odd that immersive sims didn’t embrace multiplayer sooner. If the genre is built to bounce variables off each other in unexpected ways, then rival players are a gift - the most mercurial element you could possibly add to the mix. “One of the things that makes Thief games work is that knife’s edge - am I caught, am I not?” Spector says. “The introduction of other live humans makes that even more exciting.”

“The intention of the other player is a mystery to you,” LoPiccolo points out. “It’s not like Team Fortress where you’ve got a very simple agenda. In this case, your agenda is complex, theirs is complex, and you can’t predict how they’re going to respond.” As we’re talking, I imagine using the Thick of Thieves equivalent of a noisemaker arrow to send guards in the direction of a human opponent, leaving them tangled in a high-pressure stealth scenario. Spector claps his hands together with glee: “This is totally convincing me that the game is totally going to work.”

There are reasons to be wary. OtherSide’s only released game to date, Underworld Ascendant, was another spiritual successor to a beloved immersive sim - but ended in buggy disaster, disappointing its Kickstarter backers. “We were focused on building a damn studio,” Spector admits, “and probably didn’t pay enough attention.” This time around, OtherSide has the help of publisher Megabit, who can shoulder much of the business side while the developers focus on making games.

Image credit:OtherSide Entertainment

“It’s a completely different team [working on Thick as Thieves],” Spector says. “A larger team more capable of tackling the incredible challenges of making immersive sims. No one believes me until they work on these games - what we do here is harder than what most people do in game development. And we have people who are talented enough, and enough of them, to pull it off.”

Spector has said that he’s likely the oldest person still involved in active game development. Which begs the question: given the inherent difficulty of making immersive sims, and after the pain of losing System Shock 3, what keeps him coming back to the trenches?

“I am as interested in making people as I am in making games,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud, but there you go. I have no filters. I’m interested in passing the torch so this kind of game continues.”

Seeing the rise of Arkane and the immersive sim elements that have crept into Zelda and Baldur’s Gate 3 has been gratifying for Spector. But he left academia halfway through a three year stint at the University of Texas because he felt there was still work to be done. “We’re in this young art form, and even after 40 or 50 years, anybody who thinks we’re done isn’t paying attention,” he says. “The opportunity to create a new art form or contribute to its growth comes along once or twice a century. How can you not want to be a part of that? I try to surround myself with people who feel that way, who want to advance the state of the art.

“My personal mission is ‘playstyle matters,’” he goes on. “And those are not just words. I’m going to do that until people won’t let me anymore. But when I say I’m going to do it, I’m going to find people who can do it better than me, and will continue it. So 20 years from now, if I’m still around, I get to see what they’ve done to take this to places I never even imagined.”

Thick as Thieves

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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