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Stephen Russell, the original Garrett from Thief, joins Underworld Ascendant

Looking Glass love-in continues.

Stephen Russell, the original voice of Thief protagonist Garrett, has signed up to work on Underworld Ascendant.

Stephen L. Russell voiced Garrett, the original Thief.

Back in the late 90s Russell worked with influential developer Looking Glass to voice characters from Thief, Thief 2 and System Shock 2. Underworld Ascendant is the crowdfunded fantasy role-playing game from Ultima Underworld designer Paul Neurath, who founded Looking Glass.

Thief fans were disappointed to learn that Russell would not reprise his role as Garrett in the recent Thief reboot, developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix.

Meanwhile, the Looking Glass love-in continues. Terri Brosius, who worked as a designer and voiced Shodan and Delacroix in the System Shock series, and Viktoria in the Thief series, is also working on Underworld Ascendant.

Underworld Ascendant is described as the next-gen sequel to both Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2. Neurath has joined forces with some of the developers behind the original Underworld games, such as designer Tim Stellmach, to form new independent studio Otherside Entertainment.

The Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter is yet to meet its $600,000 goal, but it looks like it'll do it. At the time of publication, $459,401 had been raised from 8321 backers, with 17 days left to go.