Intel Gathering

Introduction

During the intel gathering phase, players will be able to move around the city freely, in order to meet with their team members. You have your role to play in the heist, and you'll need to choose the best approach to gather the intel you need. Afterwards, you'll meet up with members of your crew in order to find out what they've learned. You'll rarely meet together at the safe house, as it's too risky, so you'll need to meet up in various locations around the city.

Systems Overview

From the beginning the system is set up to be a series of tasks that you can undertake in order to gather intel. These tasks will be presented to you by your team members, but also the main characters intuition, and you'll need to choose which ones to undertake. Each task will have its own requirements and risks, and you'll need to decide which ones are worth the effort and which ones you might want to ignore.

There's also a feedback loop built into the system, where the intel you gathered from a previous heist will affect the planning phase of the next heist. These, often hidden or obscure, tasks will stack on top of each other, and the more you gather, the more you'll be able to use in future heists. For example, if you gathered information about a one of the employees at a specific location, you might find that that same person is working at another location in the future, and you'll be able to use that information to your advantage.

As the game progresses, you'll be able to unlock new abilities and skills that will help you gather intel more effectively. For example, you might be able to bribe people for information more easily, or you might be able to ability to disguise yourself so enemies don't recognize you. These abilities will allow you to take on more challenging tasks and gather more valuable intel, but they'll also come with their own risks as well.

Debriefing

After sending out your team members on specific tasks, you'll need to meet up with them in order to find out what they've learned. This will usually take place in a public location, such as a bar or a cafe, where you can discuss the information you've gathered without drawing too much attention. During the debriefing, a scenario will trigger where you, the player, will return to the location/task that the team member was sent to, and play through a scenario where you gather the information yourself.

Say you sent out your crew member to get a job as a cook at the club your target 'frequents'. You crew member will narrate the events as they take place on screen, and you'll be able to play through the scenario, making choices that will affect the outcome. While grabbing something from the freezer, you'll witness a conversation between two employees discussing the target's habits, and you can 'listen in' while pretending to be busy. Or maybe, you're tasked with delivering food to the target's table to get a sense of the VIP room's layout, the mobsters that were present, the people they were dining with, etc. These pieces can be tallied up and used to influence the planning phase of the heist, or the tasks you'll assign to other crew members.

Risk and Reward

Each task you undertake during the intel gathering phase will have its own risks and rewards. For example, if you decide to stake out the location, you might be able to gather a lot of information, but you also run the risk of being spotted. On the other hand, if you decide to bribe someone for information, you might not get as much reliable intel, but you also won't have to worry about being caught. It's up to you to weigh the risks and rewards and choose the best approach for each situation.