Thief Interview Continued

11 May 2009 at 18:38:01 by Tim McDonald

So what sort of games have you taken inspiration from?

When I had time recently, I played Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell, and that sort of thing, to really understand what makes those franchises as good as they are.

What do you think it is that makes them as good as they are, then?

I think it's mainly related to the fact that it's original, and original content always hits the spot. Obviously, we're going to be giving a lot of attention to the main pillars of these games. People remember these franchises because of their storytelling, their characters, their settings, and so on. It's because of their quality content.

Is there anything you want to say to the fanbase that they might not know?

Well, maybe one thing – we're trying our best to be very close to these people, so we've put a lot of social networking tools in place. We'll have a virtual boutique where you can buy merchandise from these two projects and this is something that we're really proud of. This should be up and running today or tomorrow - certainly this week - so if people want to communicate to us they have several ways to do it, and we welcome all comments, suggestions, and remarks.

What sort of merchandise are you thinking of?

It's the traditional t-shirt, baseball caps, bags, scarves... the branding of these two projects are incredible, so we've put effort into creating good merchandise for people to be proud to demonstrate their support, or their fan-following, and their actions for these types of games, and we have – and all this is done within this studio. This studio here has a different approach, we're trained to be more responsible, let's say, of the product than of the development. We try our best to be open. We do some fan tours here – sometimes there are people who write to us and say “I'll be in Montreal, I hope I'll be able to come and visit you,” and on occasion we've allowed some fans to visit our studio! We're trying to be close to the fanbase, and we're really proud about the product and we want to show it.

So with all of this merchandising, are you expecting that this is going to kick off a new Thief franchise?

I guess so, yes. People should know that Thief is the grandfather of the stealth genre, which was a new type of gameplay back in 1998, and it's important for people to know that this game really created that. It shook the ground a decade ago, and we're trying our best to bring it to market and break new ground. I think people are proud and they want to associate themselves with the product, and this type of merchandising can certainly help.

Onto the most important question of the day, then. Is Garrett going to make an appearance?

(Laughs) Good try, Tim! Again, story, setting, characters, features - I have to be as cold as possible to all of those nice, juicy questions, and I can't answer them.

Alright, then. Are you thinking of getting all the original voice actors back?

Something that is extremely clear in the forums and in the comments from the fans is to re-use the voice of Garrett, and this is obviously something that we'll consider very seriously.

When can we expect to hear more?

That's another one that's quite difficult to answer! I'll stay very safe, and say that within the remainder of this year we should have another wave of information.

Thank you very much, Stéphane!

Thank you.

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