When is the Sleight of Hand release date? First revealed during the Xbox Partner Preview back in March 2024, Sleight of Hand is a third-person stealth game featuring deck-building mechanics. You play as a powerful witch known as Lady Luck, she’s on a mission to find out why she was cast out and framed by her former coven.
Sleight of Hand is the first project by Riff Raff Games, founded by Joshua Boggs, who previously worked on the similarly noir-themed Framed series. We haven’t had a chance to see any gameplay just yet, but the trailer shows us how the card game elements are going to fit in with the stealth game mechanics. Here’s everything we know about Sleight of Hand so far, including its release date, trailers, and more.
Sleight of Hand release date estimate
The Sleight of Hand is set to launch sometime in 2025 on PC and Xbox Series X|S. In addition to the rough release window, Riff Raff Games has confirmed that Sleight of Hand will be available on Xbox Game Pass at launch.
The developer hasn’t confirmed whether Sleight of Hand is going to be exclusive to Microsoft’s console, but with the announcement that it’s coming day one to Game Pass all but guarantees an exclusivity period. There’s a chance Sleight of Hand could launch on PlayStation one day, but we expect the Xbox exclusivity period to last at least six months.
According to Gameindustry.biz, Riff Raff Games is working on another unannounced game. However, it’s unclear if the development of the second game will affect the release date of Sleight of Hand.
Sleight of Hand trailer
The reveal trailer introduces us to Lady Luck, voiced by Debi Mae West, best known for her role as Meryl Silverburgh from the Metal Gear Solid series, as she attempts a heist. Like every good film noir detective drama, Lady Luck’s internal monologue details her being cast out and framed by her former coven. This is dubbed over the action as we see her cast a spell by flinging a card at the ground to conjure a vine-like trap that keeps the enemy goon stuck in place.
She picks up a bottle and pulls back the hastily stuck label from the Beltane Brewing Company for Old Dry Gin, which covers the bottle’s true contents: Nostalgia. The hired henchman she hexed soon turns into stone, and just in time, too, as she nearly gets hit by a crowbar. Some offscreen gangsters spot her, so she makes a quick getaway.
During this action sequence, we see several spell cards in Lady Luck’s hand. Namely, Smoke Bomb, which disguises her descent from the rooftop to behind the truck, and Chain Smoker that turned an enemy into stone. Finally, she escapes from the enemies at the end with the help of a third card, Mist Step.
Sleight of Hand news
The only other news we’ve seen comes from an IGN interview with Joshua Boggs shortly after the game’s announcement. In it, he reveals that Hideo Kojima praised his previous work, Framed, on X (then known as Twitter) and that he is a fan of the Metal Gear Solid series.
“Making this game has been a long-time dream of mine”, he says, adding that “it combines my love of Kojima’s brilliant pioneering work in Tactical Espionage Action with Metal Gear Solid and my obsessive desire to push the envelope in making new gameplay experiences”. Perhaps then, it’s no coincidence that Debi Mae West is the voice of Lady Luck, given her previous involvement with the MGS series.
Unfortunately, this is where the trail behind the Sleight of Hand release date and gameplay information goes cold. In the meantime, we’ve created a list of the best PC games of this year, and we’ve lined up a list of suspects for the most wanted upcoming PC games in 2024 and beyond.