Earlier this year, Square Enix shocked the gaming world by announcing they were ditching developer IO Interactive and the Hitman franchise along with them. Granted, the studio’s latest episodic take on Hitman didn’t sell as well as Square Enix wanted, but getting rid of a talented developer and a franchise with multiple successful entries and a couple Hollywood movies under its belt seems more than a little extreme. Why did Square Enix do it? Not even a former Hitman developer could tell you.
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PCGamesN recently spoke to Martin Emborg, who worked on the most recent Hitman, for his thoughts on the Square Enix/IO Interactive split, and he was perplexed as anybody…
“[IO Interactive] seemed to deliver on stuff that was promised since the first [Hitman] game really, and it jived super well with the [episodic] format that they went with. So, you really got this modern Hitman game they had promised before, and after delivering that, there’s a split? No f**king way. I have no idea why they did it, but I have no doubt that IO will land on their feet and do something awesome. [Hopefully] they use the independence to do something crazy; one of my main reasons for leaving was that you felt like you knew what the company would be doing for a long time.”
An IO Interactive with no corporate overlords to keep them in line could definitely be a thing of beauty. IO now owns the Hitman franchise, free and clear – I eagerly anticipate what they might do with it.
Meanwhile, Emborg has left to start his own Studio, Ultra Ultra, which is working on a new somewhat Hitman-like stealth game called Echo. You can check out the rather promising game, right here.
Hitman is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and PS4.
[via PCGamesN]
