Nearly a decade on, acclaimed heist caper Monaco is getting a sequel

eurogamer.net:

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, the acclaimed heist caper from developer Pocketwatch Games, is getting a long-awaited sequel on PC.

The original Monaco debuted almost a decade ago, back in 2013, challenging players — either alone or with three co-op friends in tow — to orchestrate the perfect heist. As in the movies, that required assembling a crew of uniquely able criminals (from locksmiths and tunnellers to a pickpocket with a monkey in this case) before attempting to navigate each labyrinthine map's security and patrols in order to claim the prize. Chaos usually ensues.

«As Austin Wintory's music-hall piano struggles gloriously to keep pace with your moment-to-moment decisions,» wrote Eurogamer's Christian Donlan in his 9/10 review, «as fountains and fireplaces are captured beautifully with a few shimmering squares of colour, as the best-laid plans are confounded by inept teamwork, it's hard not to marvel at the economy, the wholeness, the underlying confidence of Monaco.»

Monaco 2 — Animated Teaser Trailer.

So well-received was Monaco that it's perhaps surprising it didn't receive a follow-up sooner. That's all about to change, however, with the news Pocketwatch Games and original creator Andy Schatz are working on a sequel for eventual release on PC (and possibly other unannounced platforms). The developer is yet to offer more than a whiff of a tease of how Monaco 2, which is still in the «early stages» of development, will expand on its predecessor, but at least one major change should be immediately noticeable from the concept art below.

The original game's appealing, if rather lo-fi, top-down blueprint-inspired visual style has now been jettisoned in favour of fully 3D, isometric levels with considerably more