Eidos Montreal originally announced the new Thief project—previously titled Thi4f—all the way back in 2009, but they didn’t begin talking about it until this year. This is because, back in 2009, the game wasn’t even in pre-production yet.

“Eidos-Montreal announced the Thief project in 2009, well before pre-production began, to ensure that we could recruit the best possible talent,” shares a post on the studio’s official blog. “We wanted to attract developers who not only had the right skills, but also the right motivation to bring this beloved franchise back to life.”

Eidos continue: “Since then, we’ve gone through all the typical phases of game development: hours of hands-on research with the previous titles to decode the Thief DNA, followed by countless brainstorming meetings to reinvent the franchise while keeping true to its deep roots. Through iterations and reiterations, shedding blood, sweat, tears, ink and pixels, our talented developers have crafted an experience worthy of the long wait.”

Meanwhile, in a separate blog post, Thief game director, Nicolas Cantin, clarifies some of his recent comments regarding the redesign of Thief protagonist Garrett.

“Hey guys, I think I might not have illustrated some of my points clearly on the video,” Cantin explains. “It’s not correct to say that we’re trying to make Thief ‘mainstream’, or that we’re trying to make Garrett ‘less gothic’… This isn’t the case.”

He continues: “I was referring specifically to a previous Garrett design we tried out internally and not Garrett from the previous games. Our early design went a LOT more gothic—with black nails etc—but we thought that this wasn’t true to the legacy of Garrett so we pulled it back a bit. Returning to something more true to the original Garrett is what I meant when I said we made him more ‘mainstream’, this wasn’t a comment about the direction of the game.”

Cantin adds: “I can assure you we’re huge fans of the original games and we’ve done our homework to create a game that maintains the essence of the original. I can’t wait to show you more of the game and Garrett soon!”

Thief will allow for multiple ways to approach your objectives, Eidos Montreal say. Each path will have its own encounters and looting opportunities, and difficulty options will be available to tweak the game to your liking. You’ll also be able to complete the game without killing anyone, because “Garrett is a Master Thief, not a killing machine”.