From the boulevards of Paris to the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, players have been chasing down Carmen Sandiego for more than 40 years – and learning about far-flung cultures and regions of the world along the way.

But for the women-led development team who reinvented the character for Gameloft Brisbane’s 2025 reboot (called simply Carmen Sandiego), the most important question wasn’t “Where is Carmen Sandiego?” It was “Who is Carmen Sandiego?”

“You never got to know her or her motivations – she was just a villain to pursue,” says Hannah Crosby, the game’s lead artist. “We wanted to get inside her head. Who is this person?”

Gameloft’s version is both an homage to and a departure from the edutainment title that started it all: 1985’s Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego on the Apple II. As before, the new game finds Carmen crisscrossing the globe. This time, however, she isn’t a criminal prize for the player to catch; she’s a vigilante who brings bad guys to justice.

To track down agents of V.I.L.E. (Villains International League of Evil), gather clues that hint at a location – think a curious plane ticket, or a laptop with a search query for Portuguese lessons. If the thieves are headed to a city where Cantonese is spoken and the local currency is dollars, for example, a visit to Hong Kong might be on the horizon.

“Originally, we were really focused on the investigation,” says art director Liz Ballantyne. “But as we went on, we felt like it was missing a bit of why Carmen is such a badass.”

To fix that, the team added action-oriented mini-games, where players help Carmen pilot a hang glider or zip across rooftops with a grappling hook.

The team also gave her a visual update following the standard set by the original character.

“For girls and women, that mattered,” Ballantyne says. “She normalised the idea that women could lead through intellect and confidence, rather than appearance.”

Throughout the process, the team stayed focused on the game’s core purpose – to teach players about different parts of the world – and to do so with sensitivity.

“We wanted to show these amazing places in a way that accurately represents them and isn’t just a cultural caricature,” Crosby says.

That required reaching out to local governments and rights holders, since depicting certain buildings and landmarks – say, Singapore’s Supertree Grove – requires permission.

The approach was not without its pitfalls. “Two entire levels had been created, but at the very last moment, we didn’t get permission,” Crosby says. “The art team had to whip up entirely new levels at the end of development. Mildly stressful!”

Like many Carmen Sandiego fans, Ballantyne and other members of the development team first met the character through the original Apple II game. Each copy (on floppy disk) came with a physical edition of The World Almanac and Book of Facts – crucial for figuring out where the slippery criminal was going to flee to next.

But for Ballantyne, Carmen has always been more than a game character.

“She framed learning as something fun and adventurous,” Ballantyne says. “And she did this as a woman – which was incredibly rare to see in the ’80s.”

That made reimagining the character more than an exercise in nostalgia.

“It’s about reaffirming that learning is powerful, and that girls deserve a role model who’s defined by her mind, independence and sense of adventure,” Ballantyne says. “She’s evolved into someone players can be – not just chase.”