Mickey Mouse is to get a makeover to heighten his appeal to youngsters of the video-game generation nurtured on computer-generated graphics and interactivity.

For decades, the Walt Disney Company has kept Mickey Mouse’s appearance and character largely unchanged, afraid that even the smallest alteration might damage a brand that earns the company $5 billion (£3 billion) a year in merchandising sales.

But as US sales of Mickey merchandise are declining, the squeaky clean rodent is to be “re-imaged” and will acquire a cunning and cantankerous streak when he appears in a new Disney video game, Epic Mickey, next year.

According to The New York Times, the move is part of a wider effort to rethink the character’s image, from the way he walks and talks to his appearance on the Disney Channel and what his house looks like at Disney World.

Epic Mickey, designed for the Nintendo Wii console, is set in a cartoon wasteland inhabited by forgotten and retired Disney creations. Players can choose to be a co-operative, helpful Mickey or they can opt for a more destructive version who starts to resemble a rat.

Warren Spector, creative director of Junction Point, a Disney-owned game developer working on Epic Mickey, said the game would be edgy and unexpected. “By putting the mischievous Mickey in an unfamiliar place and asking him to make choices – to help other cartoon characters or choose his own path – the game forces players to deal with the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, players must ask themselves, ‘What kind of hero am I?’ Each player will come up with a different answer.”

In many ways, it is a return towards Mickey’s original character in the 1928 film Steamboat Willie, where he appeared as something of a rabble-rouser.

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