After sales figures for Tomb Raider and Hitman Absolution failed to meet the ridiculously high expectations of Square Enix, it would appear that Thief developer Eidos Montreal is feeling a bit of pressure. The series reboot has been in development for some time now, but that’s not what’s making the studio nervous. Instead, it’s having the responsibility of getting “a single shot” to reinvent the franchise and make it succeed.

“We reinvented this franchise, I think we have a single shot,” explained Producer Stefan Roy in a statement to Joystiq. “We cannot say, ‘Oh sorry, we missed, so we are going to try again.’ No, it doesn’t work that way. So we cannot compromise, we must really give a good product, we must work closely with the marketing to make sure that the messaging around the game is really clear.”

I played a bit of Thief prior to E3, and I really dug the atmosphere, clean interface, and stealth gameplay it provided. Here’s hoping Eidos Montreal can deliver a winner with the reboot. Thief is due out on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2014.

Follow this author on Twitter.