Thief's hero redesigned to be 'more mainstream'
"We wanted to keep the main DNA of who Garrett was; we didn't want to change that much because it was working already," game director Nicolas Cantin said. But, "we wanted to bring in more of the modern audience of the console market."
It's been nearly a decade since players have seen Garrett, star of Eidos' Thief series. With Square Enix and Eidos Montreal working on a new game for next-generation consoles and PC, it was time to rethink how Garrett would be presented to a new audience.
"We wanted to keep the main DNA of who Garrett was; we didn't want to change that much because it was working already," game director Nicolas Cantin said. But, "we wanted to bring in more of the modern audience of the console market."
Cantin's past work includes the original Assassin's Creed, and he's drawing on that experience for the new Thief. Garrett can do much more in the new Thieft, and he "wanted the costume and design to reflect" the game's added action.
In addition, Cantin told Game Informer that "we toned down all the things that felt gothic, like black nails and things like that." Why? Because "we wanted to make him a little bit more mainstream." Considering the new Thief is being pitched as a reboot, Eidos Montreal is free to reimagine the character however they see fit--even if that means toning down his magical abilities.
"Fans remember the original games very fondly and we want to preserve that essence which we have excellent experience of doing at Eidos Montreal, whilst also introducing Thief to a brand new, next-generation, audience," Eidos Montreal general manager Stephane D'Astous said at the game's official announce.
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Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Thief's hero redesigned to be 'more mainstream'.
"We wanted to keep the main DNA of who Garrett was; we didn't want to change that much because it was working already," game director Nicolas Cantin said. But, "we wanted to bring in more of the modern audience of the console market."-
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Garrett, we need you for a very special assignment. We know you have a long and complicated past with the Hammerites, but we need a sacred blessing urn from their gardens. You must kill no-one, and no-one must see you. Do not fail us, Garrett, we rely upon your legendary skill.
SHIT NIQQA I GOTZ DIS YO LOL F'REALZ
AIGHT PEACE -
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Come on, you know there's another definition of gothic that doesn't involve 80s new wave music and black nail polish, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_architecture -
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Thief: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080711212157/thief/images/3/3a/Final_cutscene_09.jpg
Thief 3: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090309034706/thief/images/6/60/TDS_garrett_lockpick_minigame.png
No black nails. Nothing particularly scary about him either, other than the fucked up eye.
He wore gloves at times. Like when showing boredom or contempt: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080505164917/thief/images/0/04/TG_CS06_07.jpg
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The voice actor for Garrett will be played by Sam Worthington. The rest of the cast of CODBLOPS will fill out the rest of the roles. Enemies will respawn until you move past an invisible checkpoint. Soundtrack will feature dubstep. Bullet time will be added so you can dodge incoming arrows. Stealth will be an active ability that has a very small energy meter and will constantly require recharging until you finish the game once, making it basically unusable during your first (and only) playthrough of the game. Water arrows will be replaced by exploding arrows. Enhanced robot physics and destruction make fighting the enemies of Thief 4 more dynamic and exciting, now with innovative ragdoll physics.
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UM
"The game will be continuing the series' tradition of first-person stealth and actively discouraging combat. It will also add a major new mechanic called Focus. It works like Detective Mode did in the Batman: Arkham games and highlights scalable walls, extinguishable lights and fingerprints that can be analysed. It also works as a sort of Bullet Time, as you can use it to slow down time while pickpocketing."-
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so its a 'I can't use more then one braincell to think for myself when playing a game so I need the game to tell me what to do, what to think, where to go and how to not accidentally strangle myself with a wireless mouse chord' button? fantastic! Games need more of those.. particularly Thief games... who needs a challenge anyway?
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they did OK with Deus Ex (as in Eidos, no idea if it's the same people within Eidos). So will wait and see.
OT: I still have Theif 2 CD that came with my Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1 that I haven't got around to playing. That card also came with UT99 and Deus Ex and something else. It was a sweet bundle -
I'm impressed that, after Deus Ex: Human Revolution came out of Eidos Montreal, we're seeing the exact same baby wah wah blub blub boo hoo dunna stinky change me change me peekaboo wheres alice theres alice wheres alice theres alice waaaah boo hoo ha ha oh shes teething just leave her shell be fine she just gets like this sometimes blub blub waaaah over every minor Thief 4 detail as Game Informer spins out an entire month of coverage from one announcement.
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You're right, I forgot babies can't read: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/22042777/thief4.mp3
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I see, looking at the design I get the impression they're talking about toning down their own redesign which is inspired by goth fashion and makeup.
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/square-enix2013/thief/ThiefNewGarret610.jpg
Ugh.
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Yup. And it's the same thing all fucking over any gaming forums or news comments. Nobody is happy about anything, and everyone assumes the very worst about every fucking thing. Excellent games get declared complete and utter shit because of some single issue or downside, and every single thing done differently in sequels are bad, horrible, fucking infernal changes.
Shacknews used to be my getaway from shit like this, a good portion of people actually seemed to have a pretty healthy, objective attitude towards games. I don't know if those people have just given up and either don't post anymore, or have joined the herd-minded cynics.
We're getting more and better games than ever, there are just so many good games coming out all the time that it blows me away. But judging by the gaming community output online, we're living in some sort of horror world where every single game is some intentionally fucked up piece of shit. It's tiresome.
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I presume then you never played, or didn't really get into Thief, because Garrett was never goth at all in the previous games. Unless you mean like, Non-Greco Roman goth, then yes, he was that.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Thief+Garrett&tbm=isch
The new reboot Goth design was toned down, removing black nails.
Thief: http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080505164917/thief/images/0/04/TG_CS06_07.jpg
Thief 2: http://www.onlysp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/t2-boxart.jpg
Thief 3 (with an odd host) http://thumbs2.modthesims.info/img/2/1/0/4/9/4/MTS_carlettina-238592-Thief3.jpg
Thief Reboot: http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/square-enix2013/thief/ThiefNewGarret610.jpg
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yeah... not going to freak out over this. People screamed that the sky was falling over Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and while not perfect, that one turned out pretty damn good.
It's going to take a hell of a lot more than one easily misinterpret-able comment to ruin my excitement over a next-gen Thief. -
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He has intermittently worn gloves. It's more the goth fashion inspired powder white face with black eye shadow.
I'm also not particularly enthralled that they're using another outfit design where in he obviously stands out in a crowd.
Thief 3 wasn't great about that either, his cloak was another thing lost due to the limits of the original Xbox and the optional 3rd person camera.
At least Thief Reboot appears to have rope arrows again. I missed them.
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You people are over reacting. They're just simply toning down on the magic which is a good thing IMO; I prefer a much more realistic plausible world in which to steal things. BTW, I wasn't even aware that the Thief series had magic in it. I've only played Thief 3 and only the first two levels, never got around to playing and that was a while ago.
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I'm just generally sick of gaming character design. Everything is so over-designed these days. All videogame character design basically looks like manga, or anime, it might not have the big eyes, but everything is just so fucking over the top. A character can't just be a shadow figure with a cape, no he's got to be covered in metal buckles with skin tight leather pants, megastyled emo haircut, crazy bandana and glowing black eyes.
I'm not being over protective of the original game here, its a more general grumpiness with modern games. That some how all game developers seem to think good art direction just means adding more buckles and superflous details.
It would be really bad ass if the character in this game, was just a guy who looked remotely like someone from that time period, maybe with a cape, thats it.
Of course it will never happen.-
It helps having an actual character designer in tune with period styles. A big part of why I loved Bayonetta is the attention to detail on the costumes, from color themes to accessories, and how they were complete and cohesive design themes. During the rundown to final release, character designer Mari Shimazaki posted a number of blog entries on what themes went into designing each character:
http://platinumgames.com/2009/04/17/designing-bayonetta/
http://platinumgames.com/2009/06/26/designing-bayonetta-part-2-jeanne/
http://platinumgames.com/2009/08/21/designing-bayonetta-part-3-rodin-and-enzo/
http://platinumgames.com/2009/10/25/designing-bayonetta-4-–-luka-and-a-special-mtvbayonetta-announcement/
Of course, this was at Platinum Games, a developer who was not gunning for mass market demographic targeting to sacrifice the quality and message of their game. Whereas that seems to be what's happening to Thief thanks to Square Enix applying pressure to Eidos Montreal, since Eidos Montreal is apparently carrying all of Square's sales numbers now that Final Fantasy has cratered.-
I'd still categorise bayonetta as over designed too. It might be well informed and have great attention to detail, but it doesn't have a lightness of touch or unique flair. There is a weird perverse obsession with detail in videogame design, I think its linked to the underlying desire for continually improving graphics.
Here's a few examples of what i mean by lightness of touch.
http://www.gamersyde.com/news_the_last_guardian_images-10675.jpg
http://static.gamer.no/images/9/911/91184/c9c9e81dc2e98ac70cffca84c36acd03_18972Desert3_1280x720.f.jpg
A great illustration of this point is prince of persia, if we look at the original character, admittedly the developers were restricted by technology. But there would be nothing stopping the later developers to follow on from this simple iconic character design, but of course not they had to re-imagine him as a clone of every over designed japanese comic book douchebag.
http://www.klopfenstein.net/public/Uploads/lorenz/games/prince_of_persia/sword.jpg
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/877/877054/prince-of-persia-20080527114815313_640w.jpg
Very few game companies have the balls or design talent to create iconic and simple character designs these days.
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Give it a good go. It's quite a universally liked game, even if there are always those that disagree.
I love the old Thief games as well, but honestly, I can't think of a better developer right here and now for a new one. PR statements like these are simply there to gather attention, convince investors and sell copies to masses. I think it's asking a bit much for publishers and/or developers to NOT consider things like these. And if the end result of this "casualization" is something like DX:HR, like it was in the case of this developer, then by all means, casualize all you want afaic. Even if you don't end up liking DX: HR, I'm going to claim you're going to have a very hard time claiming it's still not a good, quality game.
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