where are all the heist games?

There are a lot of video games out there, but there's one genre that seems to have slipped us by. Where are all the heist games?
Flashing lights between 10:30 and 13:31
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I'm on a podcast mom, go check it out: anchor.fm/videogems
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This video is not monetised (but this one is 100% getting claimed lmao).
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G̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ Pieces of Media in order:
-Great Pretender
-Grand Theft Auto V
-Oceans Eleven
-Monaco
-Hitman and Hitman 2
-Persona 5
-Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2
-Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
-One Hand (please don't play it, it sucks)
-Overboard
-The Witcher 3
-Far Cry 3
Music
-Honestly some back to back bangers on this one
-Confidence Man from Great Pretender
-Intro to Great Pretender
-Piano Black from Cowboy Bebop
-Too Good Too Bad from Cowboy Bebop
-Rush from Cowboy Bebop
-Car 24 from Cowboy Beef Bowl
-Life will Change (Instrumental) from Persona 5
-Galaxy Map from Mass Effect
-Cornered from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
-The Great Cross Examination (Allegro) from The Great Ace Attorney
-Cleanse from Great Pretender
-Flight of the Bumblebee
-Piano Bar I from Cowboy Bebop
Views are my own.

[@SparksV]

Great video, wanted to suggest The Swindle and the duo of Gravity Bone and Quadrilateral Cowboy if you're interested in more heist and heist-adjacent games.

The Swindle is great. And it also shows that heist games can benefit from a rogue-lite structure.

[@CHAOZmaster1]

I'm here to suggest Teardown! Not very dramatic in the aspects you're looking for here, but very enjoyable nevertheless.

[@hinth4322]

My thoughts exactly, definitely worth a shot

[@gamingbenplys4243]

A game that I know that may fit this description is Entry Point on Roblox. It's a game where one not only robs banks but also steals intel and eliminates targets. Before each mission theplayer gets a short breif on what the objective is and what will be done. Then throughout the mission the player gets small objectives that bring the player closer to completing the mission. One can either go steath and knock out people to take their outfits or go loud and survive through waves of police. It's not perfectly in line with what is being asked of in this video, but it is a good starting point.

[@BisectedBrioche]

I've actually been thinking about this myself. Namely because I've been thinking about how a Blades in the Dark style video game might look. It's a narrative TTRPG set in a supernatural steampunk setting where the players take the role of crooks planning elaborate heists; instead of planning more than the broad strokes, the players can use a "flashback" mechanic to describe how they already set something up in advanced in the moment, to get the same feel as a heist movie.

[@Renwzy]

I feel like this discussion about heist games is incomplete without discussion of Invisible,Inc which does the 'heist' part of the game really well, where things can go wrong during the heist, there's the stealth sneaking around etc.

[@ebiyasha6743]

A little late to the party but I think you overlook some pretty great games that have heists, Thief and Dishonored. They miss the style aspect that you are looking for (debately dishonored 2 has it for a few levels), but many of the other aspects are there. You're the one planning the heist, you get to choose how to break in somewhere, how to get the item/kill the person and get out scot free. Deathloop as well fits part of this, definitely has the style but the 'heists' would be underwhelming. But I agree, give us more heist games!

[@Zoltiboi]

Dear Mr. Harry! I know you are swamped with work, so I'll be brief. I used to love Payday 2 when it was released, playing that game at my friend's in 2013 is the closest experience I've ever had to a heist game. When I bought my first gaming PC 2 years ago, it was the first game I purchased and installed. I was absolutely shocked about how "wrong" my memories were about the quality of that game LOL. (also, thanks for the shoutout!

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

Dear Zolti, Thank you for your email. It is very interesting to hear about your experience with Payday 2. I would agree with you. I think it's an okay co-op game but also feel like the novelty wears off rather quickly and time could be spent playing other great co-op games such as Left 4 Dead. Kind regards, Harry

[@basska0]

Skyrim and portal 2 are two big examples of games that occasionally fit the heist feel for me

[@renaigh]

Payday 2 with emergent level design akin to Dishonoured and the social stealth from Hitman... Shadows of Doubt has the potential here I think.

[@BlazeMakesGames]

Hitman really does have all the right mechanics for a heist game, save for the fact that you are killing someone at the end of the day instead of stealing something. I could see a really interesting game being born from Hitman's mechanics, but then the heist item is something big you can't conceal, so getting in is only half the battle. In a normal hitman mission once you kill your target, getting out is usually a lot easier than getting in, but in this getting out would be just as hard, if not harder, than actually getting in to steal the item. You'd have to figure out ways to smuggle the item out so that nobody sees you with it. Maybe you do something as simple as stealing a bag of some kind of hide it in, or maybe you have to do things like slide it into a vent then go to the basement to retrieve it again. Or planting it on someone else to carry it out for you. There's lots of interesting ways this could work with minimal changes from the hitman formula, and now I kinda wish that they would make that game lol.

[@user-gc2lx1pf6x]

You've forgotten a key part of heist movie tropes. The audience can know how it all works, only if things are going to go terribly wrong. Awesome video. Lots of style.

[@enlyre1184]

Went through comments to look if anybody mentioned Invisible, Inc.

[@HappyGoCrazee]

The intro to this video is so high effort, i love it

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

Great video. I hope there are some proper heist games in the future. I'm going to have to play Overboard.

[@Galgamos]

I know that this video has been out for a while now. Still, for heist games, I can seriously recommend the "Shadowrun" games by Harebrained studios, as well as the bigger mods that exist for them. Especially the mods "The Caldecot Caper", the middle one of the three larger modifications, is specifically a heist story.

[@00101001000000110011]

i wish i could send Lethal Company back in time to when you were writing the video, as it strikes some of the con heist game marks in ways that are not so common.

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

Wow. Those opening credits are fantastic.

[@xxGravitonxx]

The closest I can think of is the Sly Cooper series on the PS2.

[@cytochrome1629]

Excellent video. great points, well made. I rarely comment but this really deserves some love from the algorithm

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

Thanks! As someone who doesn't comment that much either, it really does mean a lot to see kind words like these.

[@unproxv]

It's not quite a heist game, but certainly con-related: Card Shark. You learn and perform card tricks to swindle others of money while staying not making them too suspicious, and it feels great when you do them right.

[@mikeymoughtin6573]

tarkor and dark and darker are kinda heists mechanically

[@compacta_d]

So a game that's somewhere between Phoenix Wright, P5, and hitman? What about something like you have a team. You give them orders to stake out, play roles etc to prepare. Maybe you even play them during those moments. They give you information Once you do all those parts, you then make the heist rules yourself and the NPCs carry them out according to your instructions, but you kinda find out what happens like phoenix Wright. Then of course things go wrong, and you have to answer their questions and tell them what to do. You probably ALSO have a role to play out here similar to the prep parts. Then you get an ending based on how well you did. The different combos etc can maybe have different smaller outcomes like hitman as well.

[@jmh8817]

Yo, that intro slaps.

[@vallraffs]

The in-development premise for the next Dragon Age game that Bioware was working on sounded great. Structuring the plot around going on heists sounds intrigueing as hell. So damn sad when Bioware scrapped the project and restarted work on DA4 by another team.

[@ThePrimordialChronicles]

Well you fucking got me with that opening 🤣

[@ejgoldlust]

This is great food for thought. I'm two minutes in and I'm already building a game in my head where you have an arsenal of tools to purchase (or not) and an open world full of places worth stealing from. You might start off as a pickpocket but once you can afford items to help you get past security measures, you can try more complex heists. You can find partners to work with, in exchange for a cut of the action, but also with the risk that they'll take the money and run, or worse, turn you in. The more you work with them, the more trust you build. You can set them up to be lookouts, gunmen, getaway drivers, moles, etc And things can go wrong, perhaps by design; perhaps some guards will NEVER fall for your tricks or someone will tip off the cops, etc. So you better have gear good enough to succeed at your impromptu Plan B. And this could work as a simple 2D metroidvania style game with an overhead view, or an immersive city like Hitman. This could even be a Hitman mod, I think. I'll take 10% of the gross, please, more if you want to hire me as a consultant.

Try Thief Gold or Invisible Inc, perhaps.

[@sevret313]

I really love heist movies, it's just too bad that the only two I really enjoyed were Ocean 11 and 13. Sure there are some others that do part of the things right, but lacks the punch or where all the characters just come off as unlikeable. Perhaps the next best is "Money Heist", which sadly turned sour for me at a point in the later seasons. But this also seems like something you could make a good game out of. Three stages, breaking in, survive the siege and collect the loop and breaking out. You need to manage conflict within the team and making sure that the hostages don't mess things up. All while also dealing with public relation as you do somehow want to come out as the good guy. It plays well into the idea that the player do not know what will happen because anyone can get killed and the heist go forward just with a greater difficulty and you might make it your goal to have the least amount of blood be spilt.

[@Puerco-Potter]

Play Monaco, is a great heist game.

[@grahamwalker2168]

You can never have enough hbomberguy channels 👍

[@grassypond4996]

so would you say... it's all in the presentation?

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

Yeah pretty much. It's why I didn't talk too much about the actual mechanics of what a heist game would be. I think the style and feel of the game would be more important. :)

[@NHOrus]

Is Metal Gear Solid V a Heist Game?

[@godofsquirrels494]

Fuck it. Been debating on whether or not to type this out given that this video is a year old, I'm nobody to you, this opinion of mine is irrelevant to the content of the video as a whole, but here I am. This is a question about the artistic merit of the video and I mean no harm nor offence. Does putting your pronouns into the intro of your videos benefit the message, content, presentation of the video. It feels out of place. Like a apple in the drain of a soda fountain. Irrespective of their own greatness, I want nothing to do with either of the soda nor the apple. The pronouns taints the art, and the art gives credence to a morality I personally have qualms with. I don't think the inclusion gives anything to the soda fountain that is your video. It's absence wouldn't detract from the videos' beauty. The only thing their inclusion would do is make those who have a moral qualm/opinion different to you click off, and not be included in experiencing your talent and dedication. I might be a hypocrite for effectively doing to your comment section that I have expressed with your video. Sorry for tainting it .

[@Arcadology]

I think you need to take a long hard look at yourself and really figure out why this bothers you, rather than ask those around you why they aren’t catering to you. Hopefully you comeback with a little consideration or empathy. Good luck.

[@rasr0u]

With all respct - your "search" is extremely recent/relevant and hype AAA games. From the top of my head: The Sting!

[@Mr56bob56]

will have to check out overboard. inspirational video mate, you deserve more views subs, keep the content coming :D curious what other genre's you think have potential but are underexplored?

[@VideoGamesAreBad]

Thanks for the kind words. You might want to stay tuned for my next video, also about a certain genre! 👀