Over the past several years, IO Interactive impressed many players with its modern trilogy of Hitman games. After the somewhat divisive reception and commercial underperformance of 2012’s Hitman: Absolution, IO Interactive swung for the fences with its new Hitman trilogy and hit a home run. Not only did all three games receive heaps of praise, but Hitman 3 ended up outselling every other game in the series in no time. With this newfound success, fans may wonder when they can experience IO Interactive’s next stab at the series. However, according to the developer, the Hitman IP will undergo a hiatus of sorts for the time being.
IO Interactive co-owner and CCO Christian Elverdam relayed this news in an hour-long podcast interview with Eurogamer. He stated that the studio has currently centered the brunt of its focus on “another agent fantasy,” namely a new James Bond game. For those who don’t know, IO Interactive announced this project, which currently adopts the codename ‘Project 007,’ back in 2020.
Hitman on hiatus, but far from dead
This does not mean that IO Interactive currently has no plans for the Hitman franchise, however. In fact, Elverdam expressed an interest in continuing to expand the current trilogy, now named World of Assassination, with new twists on the Hitman formula. The studio already began doing this with Hitman: Freelancer, a new rogue-lite DLC that came to World of Assassination on January 26. As for an entirely new game, fans will have to wait for now, although Elverdam assured that the studio will return to the IP at some point.
The Hitman series may currently be on hiatus, but the considerable amount of content and gameplay possibilities in World of Assassination means that fans should remain more than occupied until the next entry. And with more free updates and DLC to come, fans will have even more reasons to keep coming back.
Image via IO Interactive A/S
