Mickey Mouse to Show Dark Side in New Video Game

For 81 years Mickey Mouse has made a living as a clean-cut character, but in a new video game the world's most famous mouse will show a more sinister side.

The New York Times reported that next year in the new video game, Epic Mickey, the squeaky clean character will be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, in the game's forbidding wasteland.

The Mickey Mouse brand is worth $5 billion a year to the Walt Disney Company and they have been cautious about changing or updating the character. But concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for young people, Disney is taking the step of re-imagining him for the future, reported The Times .

"Mickey is never going to be evil or go around killing people," said Warren Spector , creative director at game developer Junction Planet, which Disney owns. But "I wanted him to be able to be naughty -- when you're playing as Mickey you can misbehave and even be a little selfish."

In the game, Mickey stumbles upon a Cartoon Wasteland where some forgotten Disney characters inhabit a world dominated by the sorcerer Yen Sid. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit , Walt Disney's first cartoon character, is the first inhabitant of this land and has become comfortable but bitter after watching Mickey attain his incredible success. Mickey's arrival in the wasteland leads the game play.

The game is set to be released by Disney Interactive Studios in fall 2010 exclusively for the Wii.

Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn writes that the disconnect between Mickey Mouse and the public has been occurring for some time. Zorn asks, "What's Mickey to me or me to Mickey?" The answer is that Mickey as a character has been completely overtaken as just a symbol of Disney. "The character is everywhere but, in another way, nowhere," writes Zorn, who looks forward to restoring some definition to the character.

Mickey Mouse made his debut in “Steamboat Willie” in 1928.

Last week Spector posted a video on YouTube talking about what it took to re-brand Mickey by spearheading Epic Mickey.