Most of the time, the player is travelling around the city of London and talking with people via a point-and-click interface like in classical adventure games, while more strategy-like top-down perspective is used for the actual planning of the heists.

It is in this mode, where the player buys and sells cars, tools and other equipment needed for thievery, recruits accomplices and scouts for possible target buildings.

Essential part of the gameplay are skills such as driving, lockpicking or electronics, which affects the time needed to complete specific tasks.

[8] These traits affect things like proportion of share from the loot, how many trails the person leaves on the crime scene or if he/she betrays his/her associates when captured by the police.

Actual historical locations and buildings are used, such as Victoria station and Karl Marx's Tomb at Highgate Cemetery, along with some fictional ones.

The player character is Matt Stuvysant, a young criminal wanna-be getting immersed into the world of London underworld.

Shortly after he is settled in the Ugly Dog hotel on Holland Street, he is contacted by his father's old friend Herbert Briggs, a well-renowned burglar.