Warren Spector’s co-op heist experiment Thick as Thieves is losing official content support barely two months after its late May launch, another live-service project felled by brutal studio cuts. OtherSide Entertainment has shed most of its staff in successive rounds — 17 after an earlier cancellation, then another 18 — leaving fewer than ten employees to maintain the title. Director Jeff Hickman’s July 23 Steam post confirms no more updates, modes, or systems, with the remaining skeleton crew and publisher Megabit now pivoting to peer-to-peer servers to keep co-op functional while solo mode stays untouched.

The leaner Thief successor arrived at a $4.99 price point explicitly pitched as a cross-generational stealth experience rather than a full live-service behemoth, yet it still couldn’t build the player base needed to justify continued investment. Kotaku’s reporting ties the shutdown directly to the post-launch layoffs that gutted the studio, echoing a broader industry pattern where even modest multiplayer ambitions collapse when the numbers don’t materialize. Official servers hang in the balance, but the plan is to retrofit for fan-hosted P2P so the game doesn’t vanish entirely.

This is the predictable endpoint for live-service titles banking on sustained engagement without the scale or marketing muscle to back it up. The pedigree — Spector’s immersive-sim legacy — bought goodwill, not longevity. The receipts are in the layoffs and the abrupt pivot to maintenance mode; the game ships, the team shrinks, the updates stop.