PCGAMER has a preview for Thief 4. Not to much more to say just read the preview and comment.

One of the most interesting elements of the new Thief is an expansion of this pronounced sense of the world’s physical properties: the soft carpets, clopping flagstones, almost blanketlike darkness. Now on the borders of the first-person screen are Garrett’s hands. They rest on surfaces and obstacles, brush against walls – not always visible, but creeping into view when Garrett presses up against objects, giving a sense of the fabric and flavour of what the studio are calling a “tactile world”.

In the demo Eidos Montreal have prepared, this tactile world looks like one you wouldn’t necessarily want to touch. The introduction to The City, another core returning element, has a sense of BioShock-like parade. Garrett rides a bumpy wooden cart through a portcullis checkpoint, with piles of plague victims stacked nakedly on the filthy roadside, top hats and iron armour marking the clash of medieval and Victorian, bystanders and guards muttering and arguing as he passes by. There’s a sense that The City is happening on cue – on the left, a thief protests as he’s clapped into the stocks, on the right a noosed prisoner is kicked from a first-floor ledge and swings lifelessly into place alongside two or three others.

The City is the same place as before, with a different configuration. The Hammerite and Keeper ideologies that dominated the earlier trilogy are all but swept away (at least on the surface – the occasional Hammerite slogan might appear as a brickwork advertisement, and I did glimpse some Keeper glyphs in the demo).

Eidos contributor Adam Badke has a brief interview with Game Director Nic Cantin.

Hey Nic‚ tell us: is Thief a 1st or 3rd person game?

1st person!

Are there any 3rd person elements?

Yes‚ we do have some 3rd person elements – but they’re really kept to a
minimum‚ we don’t have a lot. 3rd person is used to improve your
awareness of your surroundings – for example‚ during vertical
navigation. We’re really taking particular care to make sure that we’re
not jarring players back-and-forth between cameras.

How would you describe the pace of the game?

We want to give the player a choice about pacing. It’s really up to the
player to decide how to use the tools at their disposal to define their
own pace.

Will fighting/combat ever be the best choice to take?

If you do choose to take that kind of approach you’ll be challenged by
both the guards and the environment/level design – people are certainly
going to react to your behavior!

Would you say Garrett is a Superhero/Ninja/Action hero?

(laughs) No. Garrett is Garrett. He’s a thief. He’s THE Master Thief.

Does Garrett’s updated look reflect anything specific in gameplay?

Yeah‚ Garrett is a capable guy and I definitely think that’s reflected
in his costume. But if you look at the old Garrett I don’t think we’ve
changed him that much. He’s still that same dark guy‚ but with more
elements to reflect his new abilities.

What are the “action moves” that have been discussed in past coverage?
How do they work and are you able to fight without using them?

Yes – I think fans will be happy to hear that old school style melee
combat is still there like the classic Thief games‚ and it’s just as
challenging. We’ve also added an extra layer on top of that to empower
the player‚ Garrett has the option to use his Focus ability to give him
a temporary advantage if players choose – but it comes at a cost.

So you’re saying classic melee combat is still in the game?

Yeah – and the blackjack’s back as well!

Polygon brings news that develpment of Thief 4 is facing setbacks due to office politics, and high-level departures.

According to one source, each new lead and senior designer would come with a new vision for the game. Old ideas — including stages and mechanics — would be rebuilt or scrapped. In March of this year, the same month as the game's publicity push on the cover of Game Informer magazine, Lead Game Designer Dominic Fleury left the studio. The studio has seen a number of high-level departures

Sources emphasized the high level of talent and enthusiasm of team members, many of whom came to work on Thief because of their love of the franchise. Those same sources cited team politics and conflicting visions as cause for many departures and setbacks.

Due to a need to hit promotional deadlines, the latter part of 2012 and early 2013 was focused on creating press demos, the first of which was shown for the Game Informer cover and also at last month's Game Developers Conference. According to a source, the demo took nearly 10 months of development time, roughly six of which required the participation of nearly every content creator on the team. The level, which takes place in part inside a brothel, apparently featured "Cinemax-level" sex sequences at one point that some animators were uncomfortable creating.

Over the past few years, Square Enix has become increasingly concerned with the status of the game, now half a decade into development. A source says Eidos Montreal turned to a German investment firm for additional funds, something superiors within the studio claimed to be a common strategy in the industry and not cause for concern.

The current version of Thief barely resembles the initial concept, says a source. The vertical slice doesn't load inside Thief's current heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Many programming tricks were necessary to run the current demonstration, like turning off non-playable character AI — the engine has trouble when too many characters are on screen.

Edge-Online has an article about Thief 4. The article goes into length about being respectful to the old games, and on being a reboot.

The first words spoken by shadow-hugging anti-hero Garrett in almost a decade are carefully chosen: “I’ve been away, but I couldn’t tell you where.” In that wry, noirish tone of old, they acknowledge his absence and also address the conundrum of bringing him back – the balancing act of continuity and reinvention at which Eidos Montreal proved itself more than adept with 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

In some ways, this is a fresh beginning. The ‘4’ is gone from the title – a blessing, since at last look it appeared in the middle of it – and the game is aimed at PC and the next gen, confirmed for PS4 and “other next-gen consoles” (read: the new Xbox). These decisions are linked: Thief is now a new game for new machines. But it’s also still unmistakably Thief, a firstperson stealth adventure set in a world built around shadows, light and stealthily cracking people unconscious with a sturdy blackjack.

Certain building blocks have been identified as crucial to the Thief experience. Garrett is one of them. The 30-minute gameplay demo Eidos Montreal has readied for the press shows a scarred, angular hero strapped in buckled leather layers up to his high, peaked hood. The obvious concern is the jollification of this dark hero to appeal to broad console audiences, but if anything the new Garrett threatens to be too snarled, too icy. He delivers his signature line during a monologue – “What’s yours can be mine” – and it seems a shade more purposeful and directed than the appealing bow for hire of the original games. The team, though, see him as essentially unchanged. “The Garrett I know is back,” says producer Stephane Roy.

Thief fans are petitioning Eidos Montreal for the return of original Garrett voice actor Stephen Russell, and the campaign has already amassed 1,800 names.

PCGamesN reports that at present, Garrett is now being voiced by Assassin’s Creed 2 mo-cap actor Romano Orzari, and that some fans are none too pleased.

The petition is called “Eidos Montreal; Square Enix: Bring back Stephen Russell for Thief 4″, and you can sign it here if you wish.

Stephane Roy answered a few questions in a Strategy Informer article about Thief 4. Below is a short summmary.

While not confirming anything, in our chat with Stephane Roy, we learnt that perhaps Thief will harbour some disturbing moments like The Cradle from Deadly Shadows.

"Like you said, it’s a tradition, and when we started to work on this project I guarantee that we did our homework to understand why people were in love with this franchise," producer Stephane Roy told us.

"I think we understand very well what makes a good Thief game. That’s the maximum I can tell you without Adam cutting me off, but I think if you read between the lines you can get your answer there..."

Eidos Montreal is using a whole new team on Thief, which is an open world where Garrett can go off exploring and stealing some rather choice loot if he can find it. Mostly Eidos want this new Thief to stay grounded.

"For this one we decided not to be too magical, instead we talked more about mystical. On our side it’s really important to see players connect with the games and the realistic believable aspect is important for this, but that said we are going to have some stuff that looks weird and is mystical," said Roy. "But we will not have zombies in this one."

This new entry in the series is not a prequel or sequel - it's their interpretation.

"We want to give some homage to previous games, but if you compare this to what Christopher Nolan did with the Batman franchise – it’s still the same main character, still the same Bruce Wayne, but on the other hand it looks completely different to what’s gone before, different costume, and no Adam West! That’s the type of thing we’re aiming to go for."

Roy promises his team are doing all they can to avoid the dread 'port' for PC.

"No doubt on our side the PC version is extremely important. Just playing Thief with a keyboard and mouse it’s different so we must make sure we support that well. For making the PC version we think like a PC gamer, for consoles it’s a different type of beast. It’s one of our goals to make sure that the PC version isn’t just a copy of the console version."

Full article on SI.

Eidos has released an incredibly short Thief teaser that ends with the date of April 2nd, so presumably more will be revealed shortly. Meanwhile, Kotaku has some concept art from artist Nicolas Ferrand.

Every major site is running the rumour that Thief 4 has been switched to next-gen consoles, hence the delay. This would mean a release late next year. From CVG:

That's according to the latest issue of OXM UK, which reports in its gossip section that the long-in-development revamp will likely release late next year, when Xbox 720 (codename 'Durango') is expected to launch.

CVG sources indicate the report is accurate.

Kotaku writes a piece titled Worrying About Thief 4, discussing the apparent loss of several highly placed developers and suggesting Square Enix has been sitting on a concept video for a number of months:

After two-plus years of work on the project, Thief 4 audio director and composer Paul Weir left the Eidos Montreal in March. The month prior, lead level designer Adam Alim went to WB Games Montreal. He apparently is not the only lead level designer to hop off the team — Pierre-Olivier Clement, the previous lead level designer, apparently moved to another project at Eidos Montreal last year. Among other departures: two senior concept artists exited Eidos to a freelance career after nearly two and three years, respectively; a senior technical level designer left last month; a senior animator went back to Ubisoft last September; and a senior level designer moved to something else at Eidos in August.

You can check out the "missing" video here.

Industrious folks on the NeoGAF forums have been combing through Eidos Montreal jobs looking for hints in Thief 4. Based on the position requirements, they have good evidence that Thief 4 will use the Unreal 3 engine (no surprise) but will also have some sort of mutiplayer or online component. Examples include a job for an "online programmer" who will be "involved in many aspects such as networking, gameplay, debugging, online and offline tools on Thief 4".

VG247 has noticed a thread on the Through The Looking Glass forums with some story board concept art from Thief 4. It's hard to draw any conclusions but interesting because Eidos has stayed very quiet about Thief 4 to date.

This isn't much to go on but it will probably have to do until the reveal at GDC. French site JeuxVideo has a single photo of a play tester with - apparently - Thief 4 in the background. Controversially, it shows a 3rd-person view - an interesting choice for the first visual hint.

Thief 4 was officially announced some time back but we haven't actually seen anything yet.  It looks like GDC (late Feb to early March) might see the game actually unveiled, with NeoGAF noticing a Thief presentation is scheduled.  Here's a snip from Eurogamer's newsbit:

According to the accompanying blurb, "Innovative audio has been at the heart of the original THIEF titles and Eidos Montreals new THIEF is no exception, this presentation will mark the first time that the game has been spoken about publicly."

Stéphane D'Astous, the general manager at Eidos-Montreal, has been interviewed about the freshly announced Thief 4.  Not much is revealed and it turns out the game has been revealed even before pre-production:

So how far along the development process are you at the moment?

In the world of gaming there are mainly three phases – the concept, pre-production, and production – and right now we've reached our goals with the conceptual base, the story. Obviously, the tough part is still to come, so the team will be ramping up, which is good news because even with the hard times in the financial world, videogames still have bright skies – at least in Montreal! So we'll be hiring approximately 40 people in the next six months: artists, programmers, designers, all the works. They'll be working on the next phase, which will be pre-production, so it's too early right now to mention any kind of a release window or SKUs that we'll be working on. The important thing is that we have a great team, a core team of maybe 20 people, and we're going to the next stage.

Eidos Interactive has officially announced Thief 4, in development at Eidos Montreal alongside Deus Ex 3:

Eidos-Montréal is excited to unveil its previously secret second title in development at the studio, Thief™ 4, the next instalment in the legendary series.

The original Thief game, Thief: The Dark Project redefined first person gaming and established an entirely new genre of stealth based game play. The critically and commercially acclaimed Thief series has won numerous awards and accolades including GameSpy Hall of Fame, GameSpot Greatest Games of All Time and The Academy of Interactive Arts And Sciences Outstanding Achievement in Character and Story Development.

Eidos-Montréal, which is also currently producing the much anticipated Deus Ex™ 3, has recruited the very best core team for the development of Thief 4. The team is comprised of industry veterans who have worked on an incredible collection of AAA titles and who each bring personal expertise in their respective fields.

“We’re in the early development stages for Thief 4, but this is an incredibly ambitious and exciting project for Eidos,” said Stéphane D’Astous, General Manager at Eidos-Montréal. “While it’s too early for us to offer any specific game details, right now we are focused on recruiting the very best talent to join the core team at the studio and help us make what we believe will be one of the most exciting games on the market.”

Development is under way and the team is looking to recruit the very best talent as production ramps up. If you are a world-class developer looking to join the talented Thief 4 team, visit www.eidosmontreal.com to submit your résumé or www.thief4.com to join the community discussion.

Not, it's not an RPG but we've historically covered the Thief series.