A solid start to the Lieutenant series, 'In Plain Sight' presents a relatively unique scenario in which you do not play a thief, but rather a spy or secret agent sent in to unravel a conspiracy. Mixing in a bit of verticality to a sizeable city map, what seems at first like an effort to traverse the city to get from point A to point B slowly leads into a mission that requires you to scour every corner of the map to find the evidence you need to progress, on top of grabbing one of the largest loot requirements I've seen thus far.

Where the mission shines the most is its atmosphere, creating an environment that not only feels lived-in, but also busy despite the late hour. The locations you visit are individually relatively small for what they represent, but serviceable for the sake of expediency. Moreover, the clever use of secrets incentivizes the player to explore every nook and cranny to the best of their ability to suss out the location of loot to take.

However, despite the atmosphere, the mission does suffer a little from a lack of clear signposting, and requires the player to carefully read what clues they get to find the path to progression. I, for instance, got stuck with the first objective remaining uncompleted simply because for the longest time, it didn't occur to me that some backtracking was necessary following the closing of a certain path.

Despite this, the mission does not hold your hand in figuring out how to make progress, requiring you to pay attention to your surroundings so you can find out where to go. Something that stands out to me is the use of circular level design. While some paths are one-way or outright blocked off, there's never any point where you can fail to make it back to where you came from, with multiple paths available to get from Point A to Point B. That said, the lack of doors where there should be doors (such as the bank entrance) does make figuring out how to get where you need to go a little tricky. (I would recommend having the doors locked and requiring a key that you can only get past the door, so that it serves as a shortcut.)

As for the story, it is well told in the environment and the notes you find scattered around the levels. It goes to show how clever use of movement restraints can create a memorable environment to navigate through.