[PC Gamer} IO Interactive says that, once Bond is out of the way, hell yeah we're getting back to the good stuff: 'Of co

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IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak told Variety. "Somehow, it kind of made sense after 25 years of rehearsing for the agent fantasy and doing 007. That was a match made in heaven, you could say. But there's no doubt Hitman has been our flagship game, our long love for all the time IO Interactive has existed."Therefore, as 25 years rolls around, Abrak wants you all to know there's lots more to come."Of course there will be more Hitman," says Abrak. "But right now, I think we need to get to the other side of this year and next year you'll get more news about Hitman co-op, because I think co-op is a really, really good extension to the universe, and will introduce very interesting mechanics and combinations in World of Assassination. But we will, after that, be talking about the next Hitman—because, of course, there's going to be a next Hitman."The big question will be whether the next Hitman is part of the World of Assassination or kicks off a whole new chapter: the current trilogy of games began with 2016's Hitman and, while very few would argue with it being the series pinnacle overall, we have had an awful lot of it. Abrak notably avoids calling the next project Hitman 4, even as Variety puts that name to him.Also speaking in the interview is lead level designer Jacob Mikkelsen, who in an admirable move goes to bat for Hitman: Absolution (an ill-advised attempt to make a more narrative-focused and cinematic experience) as a valuable learning experience. Let's be fair, we all need to learn what not to do."I don't want to go back and change anything," says Mikkelsen. "I think Absolution is, of course, the one that stands out as being different. But Absolution was a product of its time in so many ways, and we wanted to try something with a story that drove things more than what we saw in the previous games. And then we wanted to experiment with a different format of the gameplay."But that in itself, then led to, OK, now we know how to do better mechanics, better AI, better controls, better camera, better shooting, better on a lot of things. And then, when we paired that with the sandbox mentality for Blood Money, together they made up this new foundation that we could work on. So I don't think I would change anything. And then also, looking back for so many years, and all the way back to Contracts—gaming was just different back in 2003. It was much more underground and nowadays, everybody is gaming on everything."Abrak ends by reeling off some impressive numbers: "We have had more than 85 million gamers play [Hitman: World of Assassination], and we have north of 25 million copies sold. Every month, we have more than a million people playing Hitman consistently. That's pretty amazing after all these years." And Agent 47's days of creative murder are clearly far from over: hey, those cakes won't poison themselves.

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/io ... xt-hitman/