"Thief 4," the long-awaited follow up to Ken Levine's late-1990's cult stealth action videogame, will be developed for the Xbox 720, according to a report by the UK branch of Official Xbox Magazine.

The game has been in development for four years at this point according to rumors sparked as far back as 2008 when developer Eidos Montreal hinted on their website that their next project following "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" would begin "with a T," according to a Gamespot report from the time. Rumors were later confirmed by the developer itself with a press statement in 2009. Eidos Montreal's current website tells visitors the company is "offering exciting opportunities to work on major licenses (Deus Ex, Thief)."

Up to this point, however, no official details have been released about the state of the game's development or a prospective release date. Corroborating the report by OXM, the industry website computerandvideogames.com (CVG) states that the site's sources confirmed the new information was "accurate."

CVG stated that the game could be released as early as next year, coinciding with the rumored release of the Xbox 720 that year that was all but confirmed recently with reports of the code-named "Durango" project. One designer even told Kotaku that they had completed the game's final level.

Similar to "Bioshock Infinite," the game's development was allegedly marred by a number of high-level departures from the studio. But earlier this summer, a number of job listings from the company popped up on the NeoGAF forum advertising for a game involving "player choice" and "stealth."

The latest reports suggest that Eidos Montreal is thus gambling on the anticipation of this historic cult classic over creating a direct sequel to "Deus Ex: Human Revolution" as a launch title for next-generation consoles, despite that title's impressive sales figures.

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