Wartales Crime Update: Medieval GTA Just Got a Fence
Wartales now supports a genuinely deep criminal playstyle. Community Update 7 does not suddenly transform the entire tactical RPG into medieval GTA, but The Lair finally connects systems that were already scattered across the game into something resembling an actual outlaw career: steal, build Suspicion, evade the Guard, fence your loot, take criminal contracts, buy specialised gear, manage the heat and go straight back out to commit further administrative atrocities against the merchant class.
And that distinction matters. Lots of RPGs let you steal a cheese wheel and call yourself a criminal. Wartales now gives you infrastructure.
Want more games where crime is a career choice rather than a regrettable Tuesday? Head to CRIMENET’s Crime Games hub and find somewhere else to make society worse.
You could already be a complete bastard
The surprising thing about The Lair is how much groundwork Wartales had already done.
Crime has its own progression through the Crime and Chaos path. You can steal goods, develop a Thief, attack merchants, fence stolen property, take assassination contracts, accumulate Suspicion and become Wanted badly enough for the Guard to become professionally interested in your whereabouts.
There is even burglary progression.
So the criminal fantasy was already more substantial than choosing STEAL from a menu and discovering that apparently medieval society responds to grand larceny by becoming mildly disappointed in you.
Suspicion is particularly important because it gives crime consequences. Theft is not simply the game's secret discount button. Criminal activity increases the heat, stolen property remains a problem that needs dealing with and sufficiently enthusiastic lawbreaking attracts the Guard.
Even better, Crime and Chaos progression can reward maintaining Wanted status through combat bonuses. That changes the psychology completely.
Normally a wanted meter says: "Stop doing crimes until this goes away."
Wartales can effectively say: "The authorities know who you are. Excellent. Have you considered becoming even worse?"
At that point you are no longer occasionally stealing supplies because bread costs money. You are building a mercenary company whose relationship with law enforcement has become an ongoing business arrangement.
The Lair gives crime an actual home
This is what Community Update 7 changes.
Once your Suspicion becomes high enough, you can gain access to The Lair, an underground criminal hub specifically serving outlaw bands.
Inside, you can fence stolen goods, reduce Suspicion, rest, buy specialised weapons and armour and pick up dedicated criminal contracts. Those contracts include attack, assassination and catch-and-deliver work. Suddenly all the existing systems have somewhere to meet.
Before, Wartales already gave you many of the ingredients of a criminal career. The Lair puts them in the same building, gives them a noticeboard and presumably asks everyone not to inquire why half the inventory still has somebody else's initials scratched into it.
A convincing criminal fantasy needs an economy.
Stealing is amusing. Stealing because stolen goods have value, possession carries risk, criminals can help you convert them into money and that money supports further criminal activity creates a loop.
The Lair closes that loop.
crime --> Suspicion --> underworld --> profit/services --> criminal work --> more crime
That is the point where being an outlaw stops feeling like something Wartales merely permits and starts resembling something the game is prepared to support.
Prefer your criminal enterprise with automatic weapons, getaway vans and fewer suspiciously affordable horses? CRIMENET’s Heist Games hub has the robberies where planning survives until somebody meets a door.
Merchant relations have also deteriorated considerably
Community Update 7 also expands what you can do to the people unfortunate enough to possess things.
Wealthy travelling merchants can now be captured, while new armour sets can be stolen from travelling merchants.
Which is fantastic news if your response to seeing a successful medieval entrepreneur has always been:
"Look at this arrogant bastard, owning trousers."
Merchant robbery already existed, but these additions make merchants more interesting criminal targets rather than ambulatory shops surrounded by guards.
Combined with the existing theft, fencing and Suspicion systems, it reinforces one of Wartales' best qualities as a crime game: criminality isn't isolated inside special CRIME MISSIONS where everybody politely agrees that villainy has now commenced.
The ordinary economy itself contains opportunities for criminal behaviour.
A merchant isn't necessarily where you buy equipment.
He may simply be where your equipment is currently being stored.
The prisoner overhaul makes being horrible considerably more complicated
Prisoners have also received a major overhaul.
Captives now have dedicated skill trees, individual needs and desires, clearer trust mechanics and hidden objectives. Escaping no longer necessarily means they simply vanish into whatever dimension video game NPCs traditionally enter after leaving the player's immediate vicinity.
An escaped prisoner can potentially return with reinforcements, attack your camp or later turn up imprisoned somewhere else.
That gives captivity consequences.
And while prisoners are not exclusively part of the crime system, they fit beautifully into an outlaw campaign because capturing people is now mechanically connected to the sort of criminal work The Lair offers.
It also produces a wonderfully uncomfortable management problem.
Congratulations, you have kidnapped somebody.
Unfortunately, kidnapping apparently comes with HR.
Your captive has needs. Your captive has ambitions. Your captive has opinions about working conditions. Your captive may escape and return with armed friends to conduct what can only be described as an extremely negative Glassdoor review.
Crime, it turns out, has paperwork.
Wartales lets you become an outlaw. Some games have the decency to stop pretending entirely. Enter CRIMENET’s Playable Villains hub and see what happens when saving the world is removed from the job description.
So how deep is criminal play really?
Deep enough that Wartales deserves to be considered a proper crime game if you choose to play it that way.
Wartales is still fundamentally an open-world tactical RPG about running a mercenary company. You do not have to become a medieval organised-crime syndicate. Criminality is a route through its sandbox rather than the premise governing every campaign.
But it is now a remarkably complete route.
You have criminal progression.
You have theft and stolen property.
You have fencing.
You have merchant robbery.
You have assassination work.
You have burglary.
You have prisoners and capture contracts.
You have a Suspicion and Wanted system.
You have law enforcement actively responding to your behaviour.
And now you have an underworld location providing criminal equipment, contracts, services and somewhere to sit down after spending Tuesday attacking travelling salesmen.
What we cannot say yet is whether The Lair makes that criminal career consistently great.
Community Update 7 has only just reached the live game. It is too early to know whether its criminal contracts remain interesting after repetition, whether its unique equipment stays worthwhile throughout progression or whether being able to manage Suspicion through The Lair eventually makes the relationship between crime and consequences too comfortable.
Those are questions about quality and longevity.
The depth is no longer particularly mysterious.
Wartales has gone well beyond letting you occasionally behave like a criminal. It now has enough interconnected systems to let you build your company around being one.
The Lair isn't the crime system.
It's the moment the rest of the crime system finally got a headquarters.
And somewhere outside, a wealthy merchant has just realised his armour is no longer equipment.
It's loot.
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