Thief 4 on the way: Trail of Blood

It hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but there are several clues that have been spotted, some by many, and others by just a few.

There was this piece of concept art suggesting a more modern setting for Thief 4, allegedly created by Ion Storm in about 2004/2005:

And for those of you worried about the prospect of Thief being modernized, the latest rumours say that idea has been scrapped, thankfully- although it wouldn’t be a bad idea for a spin-off or another game entirely.

We all know about the clue a time ago where Eidos advertised a job offer on their site with the letter “T”, supposedly referring to Thief being their next project (quite obvious, really):

Then there was the clue this year that looked like this, with people claiming that the font was very “Thief”:

 

Then recently in a magazine, according to thereticule.com, there was this:

 

As we can clearly see in the ad, the mystery game belongs to a series that has earned a place in GameSpot’s “Greatest Games of All Time” and “Ten Best Heroes in Gaming,” as well as Gamespy’s “Hall of Fame.” Thief is the only Eidos-developed series to have earned these accolades. And when you think about it, it’s rightfully deserved- at least for the first two games.

In a thread on the TTLG forums very recently, someone did a search for www.thief4.com and, yes, found it to be a domain registered by Eidos last year:

 “Just did a whois look up for www.thief4.com and got these tantalizing results.

Quote:
Registrant: 
Eidos Plc
Domain Administrator
Wimbledon Bridge House 1 Hartfield Road
London, SW19 3RU
GB
Email: haithamr@eidos.co.uk

Registrar Name....: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.corporatedomains.com
Registrar Homepage: www.cscprotectsbrands.com 

Domain Name: thief4.com

Created on..............: Tue, Dec 30, 2008
Expires on..............: Sun, Apr 04, 2010
Record last updated on..: Mon, Jan 05, 2009

Administrative Contact:
Eidos Plc
Haitham Rowley
Wimbledon Bridge House 1 Hartfield Road
London, SW19 3RU
GB
Phone: +44.2086363000
Email: haithamr@eidos.co.uk

Technical Contact:
Corporation Service Company
Domain Registrar
PO Box 597 
Yarmouth, NS B5A 4B4
CA
Phone: +1.9027465201
Email: admin@internationaladmin.com 

I'd say that's a pretty good indication of development. I had to change my pants after I got curious and checked it. December is pretty recent too.

I think it's officially on, fellas.”

The next thing to look out for will be the date mentioned in the magazine advert- the 11th of May, when hopefully all will be revealed and the “big secret” will be let out. Still, it might be a while before the game actually comes out.

This year, Eidos was bought by Square Enix too, although they maintain that Eidos Plc will operate independently, so hopefully we don’t end up with a Japanese anime-type game.

I’d also like to see how it’ll compare to The Dark Mod, which has been in development nearly since the last Thief game, Deadly Shadows, was released.

Sources:
 
http://thereticule.com/2009/05/more-thievery-acoming/

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126419 

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2009/05/04/thief-4-is-the-worst-kept-secret-in-the-world/

Thief 4 on the way: Trail of Blood