Thief Interview with Nicolas Cantin
I stole a moment with Nicolas Cantin, Game Director of the upcoming Thief title, picking his pockets for information about Eidos Montreal’s upcoming reboot.
As he leans back on his chair, Nicolas Cantin couldn’t be more at ease. He’s spent the last four hours peering over the shoulders of eager gamers as they test his new game - weaving in and out of peripherals, feeding advice here, dropping tips there. In a way, he seems the very embodiment of a master thief, never lingering long enough to draw attention to himself, instead letting his game speak for itself.
“It’s about the fantasy of being a thief, but especially a master thief” he explains, “you’re not stealing just generic stuff, it’s really about being a master of your trade. Yes, there’s a good story about it, a story of a thief caught up in a dark city and the epic events that follow, but in the simplest terms, it’s a thief fantasy.”
Seeing as the original series is one of the most celebrated stealth titles in video game history, fans of Thief have had their eyes on development since day one. Cantin and his team were prepared for this however, and as fans of the series themselves, wanted to make the best game they could.
“The main challenge was to keep the sense of what made a Thief game, in that we were really conscious not to add something that was not fitting. At the same time, we didn’t want to make a “safe” game, we wanted to make sure we were still trying new stuff and at the end we would take all the good options and discard all the bad. Is it fitting of a Thief game? Is it gonna make you steal more? Is it gonna make you feel that you are Garrett? All those elements were really important for us.”
This can be seen through the dev teams back and forth with diehard fans, as certain new additions showcased over the development period were met with displeasure from the masses. “When we realised that everyone was saying “so and so laid us a little outside the Thief experience”, we decided to reel it back in because it’s what the fans were asking. With the XP system, for example, it was something we were trying, and it’s still kind of under the hood in the game, but it was not encouraging the stealing aspect. If anything, it was kind of breaking our economy system. So now, you steal objects to get money and then … buy!”
But as far as Cantin is concerned, the feedback has been more than they could ask for. “It gave us confidence about our choices as well as being fun to know that people actually care about the game. It’s stressful too, *laughs* it put a lot of weight on our shoulders, but at the same time we’re like “oh my God we really need to do our job well and make sure people will really be pleased!” At the end of the day, we’re fans too, so we also want to please ourselves, you know?”
Another huge change to the series is the eradication of the third person element. “We did try both and frankly the immersion of being in first person, when you do a lock pick and you can see the treasure through the keyhole, or if you do a pickpocket and the guards are patrolling moments away, it’s so much more stressful than being in third person. Seeing a character is great but you then lose sight of the loot you’re going to steal, or the locks you’re picking and on and on. The puzzles, everything, even entering a back alley and being in first person - the goal was not to play Garrett but to be Garrett. The third person view in stealth games makes it feel too much like a game and for us, the immersion was important. We wanted it to be organic. We wanted it to feel like you were in that game, in that experience. So in the end, it is more than just a game mechanic.”
But like most things, there are always exceptions. “Despite these choices, the animation was really important for us. Like for example, when you climb pipes it zooms out to third person, but it comes down to the fact that all those choices are about ”is it better for the game?” It’s not “oh we want to show the player” it’s more “if you’re in front of the wall, in first person, you see nothing” so for the gameplay of it, it was better to go back. Don’t get the wrong idea, we are proud of our character and we are always happy to show him, but we have cut scenes for that. In first person what’s more important is what Garrett sees, “I’m gonna steal that and steal this” it’s all the elements you can interact with. We also found in first person we could really show Garrett through his hands, so the hands have become really important. Doing a peek in first person is so much stronger than in third person you know, when you’re picking locks you can look left and right but you can't look behind you, so it was a lot about immersion and a lot about being Garett.”
The original series was a PC only title, but Eidos Montreal always planned for the reboot to live on consoles. “In the beginning we really worked with the console in mind, but as Thief was really a PC game before, we wanted to make sure the PC experience would be as good as it was on a console. All our choices and ideas were for the console, but we made sure that none of them would be a detriment to the PC version. On top of this, the crew behind the PC version are the guys who did Deus Ex, so we’re really confident about the PC protocols.”
But what about Garrett? Has his more gothic look brought on a more gothic personality? “We wanted him to be the same character as he was, the dark character with the dark humour and a loner, trusting no one. This was, it’s still completely there, only he has more abilities now as a new character and we wanted the costume to reflect this a little bit.”
In order to do this, they decided to make a real costume from scratch. This way, each piece would look as real as possible. “When it was completed, we did some lighting tests on it just to see how the fabrics were reacting to the light, because with the next gen consoles you can go into so much detail. You know if it’s leather, or if it’s plastic, or whatever. It was important for us first to really nail that down, but at the same time, it was really kind of fun to see the costume in real life.”
In order to create Garrett’s bow however, the team took development to a whole new level. “We contracted a blacksmith in Montreal to build the design [for Garrett’s bow]. When they sent us back a reply, it said “Hey guys, that’s really cool… but it’s not really functional. You could almost kill yourself with it. So here’s just some tweaks and it will work, because if you want to make the real model we have to make it functional.” And we were not like “No No No No!” We took their blueprint and we said “OK good, we are going to do those tweaks in the game to make sure that in the game it will be credible”. We even ended up taking pictures of the real model and applying the textures to the game.”
Garrett’s bow plays a much larger role in the new story, having an arsenal of different arrows at your command. Blunt arrows, for example, can be used to attract a guards attention, where as water arrows can put out lamps, creating more shadows for Garrett to lurk behind. “When it was time to design the bow, yeah it was in the previous game, but it was kind of weak as a tool. What we wanted to do was to empower the player, and empower the way you play, giving you more choices. Just so we’re clear, you’re not forced to kill anyone in that game, but if you want to please yourself by killing some people… you can. The game will not encourage you to do that, but it’s still an open window, and I think it creates a big difference.”
Despite his casual nature, you can see how proud Canin is of his latest game, and the enthusiasm with which he speaks is almost contagious. “We’re really proud of what we’ve made. From the very start we’ve had the goal 'Let’s make sure that Thief is going to be a real stealth game'. It’s a nice feeling, because I think in the end we’re closer to the Thief experience than we maybe expected to be in the beginning.”
As seen on Rocket Chainsaw.
