Thief: Garrett redesign more mainstream, less gothic, reflects action focus

Eidos Montreal's new take on gaming's undisputed mater thief, Garrett, is designed to be faithful to the original vision while making him more acceptable to a broader audience.

Game director Nicolas Cantin told GameInformer that Eidos Montreal was given free rein to remake Garrett however they wished.

"But we wanted to keep the main DNA of who Garrett was; we didn't want to change that much because it was working already," he said.

Duly noted, but Cantin also "wanted to bring in more of the audience of the modern console market".

"He's more, in the game, doing more action moves; we wanted the costume and the suit to reflect that.

"In the beginning he was more gothic; we toned down all the things that felt gothic, like black nails and things like that. We wanted to make him a little bit more mainstream. Yes, he's a dark character, but we don't want to say he's a gothic one, even though the Victorian period feels really gothic."

Cantin's previous work includes art director on Assassin's Creed, where he designed Altair.

"It was the same thing I did with Garrett. Both were characters that can feel mystical and we had to make them more action-oriented figures. He needs to stand in a crowd of your NPCs and he also has to stand with all the other heroes on the market.

"People will often say oh he's too white, he's too black, he stands out too much - but really that's a good thing. He has to stand out in a crowd of heroes."

Cantin said Eidos Montreal wanted to show that an anti-hero like Garrett can be popular in mainstream culture.

Thief was finally unveiled unveiled last week after years of being an open secret. It's coming to PC, PlayStation 4 and probably Microsoft's as yet unannounced console in 2014, and you a pile of gameplay details are available, including upgradable equipment and an opening mision sequence.

Thanks, Shack.