Thief Will Feature a "Less Goth" Garrett - UPDATED

[UnderGlass]

These comments do make me wonder how well the producers actually understand the original games. To my memory Garrett was way more Han Solo than The Crow's Eric. He's also mixing his metaphors here. "Goth" the sub-culture and "Gothic" the architectural style and 18th century literary movement are not at all the same thing. Modern Goths share far more DNA with early twentieth-century B&W film, horror in particular, and Punk Rock than with the 'Victorian' setting... What a weird thing to say.

Anyway, designs are ok I guess. 'Action oriented' is making me sweat a little, though. 'Deadly Shadows' was the first console Thief title, with an updated, 'cool' Garrett available in third person. It's generally considered to be the weakest (most watered-down if you're feeling mean) of the 3 Thief games. Just get your priorities straight guys!

 

[Slycne]

Revamping the character a bit comes with the times, sure. I'm not against that, as long as the focus stay more on a thief not an assassin. We already have Dishonored and Assassin's Creed. But seriously what's less goth about that than.

Spoiler

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[Epic Fail 1977]

This... does not make me feel confident. Hopefully "more action moves" means more dynamic and acrobatic ways of traversing the environment and not "more forced combat." Because fuck that noise.

I wouldn't bet on it, though :[

Maybe it'll be like Dishonored where you have the choice of being stealthy or not.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Less goth? That's LESS goth?! I expect the first mission to involve robbing a Hot Topic.

This does not bode well for the future of one of my favorite franchises.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

This... does not make me feel confident. Hopefully "more action moves" means more dynamic and acrobatic ways of traversing the environment and not "more forced combat." Because fuck that noise.

I wouldn't bet on it, though :[

Maybe it'll be like Dishonored where you have the choice of being stealthy or not.

I wouldn't be completely opposed to that, I did love Dishonored. My only complaint was that it wasn't quite as challenging as I would have liked.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Maybe Garret's new pasty white face and eyes with copious amounts of eyeshadow are part of a new mechanic where he has to scare enemies away?

*guard patrols hallway. Notices something in corner.*
"Holy crap, there's a disembodies ghostface staring at me!"
*guard runs off screaming like a little girl.*

In any case, this news is somewhat worrisome. I doubt we'll be getting a new Thief, but with a little luck we might get a good Dishonored knock-off.

 

[s_h_a_d_o]

"We wanted to bring him more for the modern audience of today's console market... He's now in the game doing more action moves and that's how we wanted the costume and the suit to reflect that."

To me, the Thief franchise is all about the Gothic ambience (in an historically-accepted, literary sense).
My expectations for this just took a nosedive. :|
*sighs*

 

[1337mokro]

Oh my heart.... I can't take this.....oh fuck.... it's pure rage....

Appeal to the console market by turning Thief into an Action Game!? You already tried that. You FAILED at it. It was the WORST, most linear thief game of them all and sold the poorest. No... I don't want this. You already partially fucked up Deus Ex. It was still a good game but it was nowhere near what it should have been had you not beaten it with a hammer until it went stupid.

Why must you do this? If you don't want to make a fucking Thief game why make a fucking Thief game. The people on console won't know what thief is because it was before most of them were 2 years old at the time. So the name has no brand value, the only people that are guaranteed to notice are people who have played thief and those are the people that will call bullshit on what I suspect will be Dishonoured with Thieves.

What is with the "to" Gothic bullshit to? This is the MOST Gothic he has ever looked. He always looked more like a shabby thief, because he was a shabby thief. Why does he have two eyes? Him being one eyed was a part of the mythos. The one eyed thief was his nickname.

Here is how he looked in concept art.

Where do the devs see black nails and mascara? He looks like he breaks into buildings for a living and will shank you if you cross him. That is how he is supposed to look! This guy? He looks like he's going to a goth concert and has a cold so he's wearing a scarf over his face. These people have never played the original games have they?

This is so gonna blow chunks.

 

[Therumancer]

IMO if they want to radically redesign the character they shouldn't be doing a "Thief" sequel but instead make a new IP/Franchise entirely based around what they want, rather than changing everything saying "this is Garret" and slapping the name "Thief" on it in hopes of getting some nostolgia points.

Honestly my first thoughts were less "Goth" than someone's self-made picture of their Sith character from a D20 Star Wars Game... you know what someone might draw on their character sheet. Give him a glowing red lightsaber and he'd fit right in.

Either that or a Vampire Ninja who is trying way too hard.

To even enter "goth" into this discussion makes me think that the person dropping that term is using a buzz word without really knowing what it means or what the style is like. I mean this guy looks more "goth" than the old look which was a pretty stereotypical sword and sorcery rogue. But even so it doesn't really look "goth" so much as like someone trying to make "hip" dark fantasy without really quite getting it. Heck, the black eyeliner makes him look more cyberpunk or futuristic since that really wasn't a "style" in the middle ages.

Really, if they haven't done much programming yet it seems to me that they need to re-think their character models. To be honest it seems to me that the interest in reviving Thief is largely because of the success of "Dishonored" and they seem to be trying to play "follow the leader" with that game's atmosphere without seeming like that's what they are trying to do.

Garret is the kind of rogue who wears a hooded cloak for example, not the kind of dude who wears a hoodie (which doesn't seem to be attached to a cloak) with a ninja mask. Leather armor is okay, but even if the guy sneaks around at night he should not look like he bathes in white base or has had every drop of blood drained out of him. I've seen milk that is less white than this guy... and that's okay if your Elric (who is an Albino) but otherwise a no-no for fantasy. The freaking eyeliner though... and the extraneous shoulder pad... I mean WTF.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Oh no... The whole speech gives me a bad feeling.

"We wanted to make him more mainstream so now it's set in a modern day battlefield and he's soldier out for revenge! Also, he drinks Cola! And eats doritos! And wears Adidas!"

Less gothic? I don't even know what's going on there. I never once saw him as gothic. The setting had goth themes, maybe that's what they're getting at...? But is anybody else getting the feeling these guys never played the originals?

 

[wetfart]

I .. um ... geeze. I don't know about this. In the first two thief games you rarely even saw Garret full on. Mostly he was in shadows or silhouette. But this ... I ... it just makes me feel sad and crushed.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

That?s their idea of less goth? He looks like a band member from My Chemical Romance.
Also I haven?t much experience with Thief yet but...when was Garret ever supposed to be Goth?
I thought he was just supposed to resemble a traditional rogue.

EDIT FOLLOWING THE UPDATE: Ah yes context, it's a beautiful thing.

 

[infohippie]

Welp, that's that. I had been so looking forward to this, too. Now it sounds like it's going to be CoD with bows and free running. This is no longer a day one purchase for me; I will wait a few weeks after release to find out what it's really like, and whether it's actually a Thief game or just s shitty action game with the the Thief name duct taped to the box.

Good thing I have the old Thief series on Steam, I might go back and play through those again. I don't care that they look like ass, they're still some of the best stealth games ever made.

 

[Mister Six]

Well my hopes about this game were already fairly low, so either it'll be a shite game that I figure it'll be or I will be pleasantly surprised.

 

[RJ Dalton]

"We wanted to bring him more for the modern audience of today's console market," Cantin said. "He's now in the game doing more action moves and that's how we wanted the costume and the suit to reflect that."

Okay, the developers can officially go fuck themselves. Thief was not an action game, nor was it ever supposed to be.

 

[Norrdicus]

Change Altair's main color from white to dark blue and it'll already look more like Garrett than what they're going with

Which is rather ironic on multiple levels

 

[Zhukov]

"We wanted to bring him more for the modern audience of today's console market"

"He's now in the game doing more action moves..."

"Time has moved on," Narrative Director Steve Gallagher added. "We're not still in 1998."

Cantin's statement that Eidos has toned down Garrett's "gothic" look to make him more mainstream.

Oh man, I'm not even a Thief fan and even I can hear the howls of heartbroken rage about to echo through the tubes.

Also, spot the goth:

 

[furai47]

Hey guys, chill out, it's only a hair colour change, what's the big deal?

 

[Andy Chalk]

There are a couple of things to keep in mind here. One, Eidos Montreal took on Deus Ex, a project fraught with risk, and nailed it. Human Revolution was a proper, full-on and entirely satisfying DX game, and that buys the studio a LOT of credibility. Two, as others have mentioned, the look is less important than the man, and the man will be dependent upon The Man - Stephen Russell. I'm willing to put up with a lot, but if Stephen Russell isn't back on board it's going to be a problem. Remember when Rockstar first announced that it wasn't going to use James McCaffrey for Max Payne 3? Leaving out Russell would probably be even worse. A Robert Smith-esque Garrett I can handle, but the real test will be when the cast is announced.

I'M NOT FREAKING OUT

 

[Dfskelleton]

My heart leapt with joy when I head that there would be a new Thief, and not even a week after the initial announcement, my excitement is ebbing away and being replaced with a sound similar to "urrrrrggggggnhhhggghhhhuuuuh..."

Garrett was never very goth to begin with. Shady and misanthropic, yes, but he wasn't flipping his hair and listening to awful music in his bedroom with all of the lights off.
And he never wore any really stupid eye shadow.