14 DAY TRIAL // When the new Thief video game from Eidos Montreal was revealed, some long-term fans of the franchise were upset by comments from the development team, which suggested that the protagonists’ new incarnation would be less gothic and more action oriented.
Nicolas Cantin, the game director working on the game, is keen to set the record straight, explaining that the legacy of the stealth series and the character himself are secure, despite information offered in a GameInformer reveal.
He tells the official Thief blog that, “Hey guys, I think I might not have illustrated some of my points clearly on the video. It’s not correct to say that we’re trying to make Thief ‘mainstream’, or that we’re trying to make Garrett ‘less gothic’... This isn’t the case.”
He adds, “Our early design went a LOT more gothic – with black nails etc - but we thought that this wasn’t true to the legacy of Garrett so we pulled it back a bit. Returning to something more true to the original Garrett is what I meant when I said we made him more ‘mainstream’, this wasn’t a comment about the direction of the game.”
Garrett continues to be mainly a thief, who aims to get into people’s homes and official buildings without being seen.
Killing is seen as a last resort and even confrontation with a manageable number of enemies is perceived as a failure by the character.
The development team at Eidos Montreal also says that every objective in Thief can be approached in various ways, each of them using one of Garrett’s tools and abilities, with different loot drops and encounters available for each path.
Eidos Montreal will deliver more information in the coming days, revealing their full vision for the reboot.
Thief is expected to launch during 2014 on both current and next-generation consoles.