Cate and Garrett

Lore & Background

In the rain-slicked, vertically layered city of Thief (2014), thievery is both trade and survival. Garrett operates at the apex of that world: a name whispered in guild halls, a figure who has already stolen from the most fortified vaults and walked away unseen. His code is minimal—take what is owed, leave no trace, never linger. He is the benchmark against which every other thief measures their skill, and his presence in the 2014 campaign carries the weight of two decades of player memory.

Cate, by contrast, is still earning her reputation. She works the lower tiers of the city—pickpocketing merchants, slipping through market crowds, making small scores that keep her fed and her debts quiet. Where Garrett plans a heist like a surgeon planning an incision, Cate reads a room and improvises. Her story in the 2014 campaign is one of ambition outpacing experience, of a young thief being pulled into a conspiracy far above her pay grade and forced to grow or disappear.

Their shared world is one of guild politics, corrupted authority, and a threat that hollows out the city's population. Both characters are drawn into the same central conflict, but their vantage points differ: Garrett sees the architecture of power from the inside, while Cate sees it from the gutter, where the consequences land first. The game's design treats them as equal in mechanical capability but distinct in tone, letting the player feel the difference between a legend operating on instinct and a rookie operating on adrenaline.

In Their Own Story

The rain came sideways off the canal, turning the cobblestones to black glass. Cate pressed her back against the warehouse wall, counting the guard's patrol rhythm—three steps, pause, three steps—while her fingers worked the clasp of the satchel she'd lifted from a merchant's belt two streets back. She hadn't planned this. No one planned this. The Guildmaster's words still echoed: *Get me into the vault. The rest I handle.*

Above, on a rain-streaked balcony three stories up, Garrett watched the same guard with the patience of a man who had counted that exact stride a hundred times in a hundred cities. He did not touch his rope. He did not need to. He was waiting for the moment the guard's attention flicked toward the canal, and he had already mapped the three-second window. He exhaled. The city held its breath with him.

Neither of them knew the other was watching. Neither of them needed to. In this city, thieves did not form alliances. They simply moved through the same dark, one shadow at a time, and hoped the other's path crossed theirs at the right angle.

Reader's Guide

Thief (2014) structures its campaign as a sequence of infiltration missions across the city, each built around a central objective—retrieve an item, eliminate a target, or expose a conspiracy—with multiple optional side goals for score. Both Cate and Garrett share the same core toolkit: rope, throwing knives, a crossbow, a bow, and various stealth gadgets, but their starting gear and narrative framing differ.

[SPOILER: Act 2 onward] As the campaign progresses, the missions escalate in scale and the narrative reveals the true nature of the threat to the city's population. Garrett's missions lean on his reputation—guards recognize him, altering patrol behavior—while Cate's missions emphasize her anonymity and the need to build trust with local contacts. [SPOILER: Final acts] The endgame converges both storylines toward a single confrontation, and the identity of the true antagonist is revealed.

Connective thread: Across the series, Garrett's story evolves from a lone operative in the 1998 and 2000 titles to a figure entangled with guild politics and a dark magical threat in the 2014 reboot. Cate's introduction in that same title reframes the franchise's question: is thievery a calling, or a survival skill? The 2014 campaign answers both at once.

Did You Know?

• Garrett has been the face of the Thief franchise since the original 1998 release, making him one of the longest-running stealth protagonists in gaming.
• Cate was created specifically for the 2014 reboot to offer a new, less experienced perspective on the same dark-fantasy city.
• In Thief (2014), the player chooses between Cate and Garrett at the start of a playthrough, and the choice affects narrative framing and certain mission details.
• The 2014 game's stealth design emphasizes verticality and environmental interaction, a direct evolution of the parkour and rope mechanics first introduced in the original Thief (1998).