Eidos Montreal yesterday unveiled its second project, the curiously named and nigh-unpronounceable "Thfourteeneff." Though many speculate the fourth-coming game to be the latest title in the acclaimed Thief series, the unproven developer (which is also hard at work on the controversial Day o' Sex 3) has revealed little else beyond the moody logo seen above. Those hoping for a more substantial reveal may have a long wait ahead of them, as the studio's general manager, Stéphane D'Astous, told IncGamers that Thfourteeneff has yet to enter the pre-production phase.

With the conceptual stages behind it, Eidos Montreal is looking to hire an additional 40 designers, programmers, artists and other personnel to start full development and help "introduce this classic franchise to new fans." As for the target platforms ... well, who knows what we'll be playing on by the time the game arrives? "With the fast evolving world of hardware, there's a lot of things that will be happening in the following years so we need to be close to that," said D'Astous, "but either way, there's a lot of work to be done."

It remains to be seen how much Thfourteeneff will share with its supposed predecessors, created by Looking Glass Studios and then Ion Storm. If concept art, purported to be from the latter studio's efforts (see it after the break), is to be believed, Thief could have been (and may yet be) set in a more modern milieu. For the time being, all we're certain of is that Garrett will find himself in a fantasy world where a "4" sort of looks like the letter "E."

[Via VideoGamer.com]