The previous few weeks have been full of good news for Io Interactive. After some seeming uncertainty with their cut up from Square Enix, they’ve confirmed more Hitman is in improvement, and the franchise is even spawning a brand new, Hulu-produced TV series. What comes after that? Well, you possibly can’t take the basic rebellious shooter Freedom Fighters off the desk.
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Io CEO Hakan Abrak tells GamesIndustry.biz that whereas the studio has left the rights to franchises like Kane & Lynch and Mini Ninjas to Square Enix, they’ve held onto not simply Hitman, but in addition Freedom Fighters. Their focus is clearly all on Hitman for the time being, however there’s a spark of hope right here that we haven’t heard the final of Io’s religious adaptation of Red Dawn. Hopefully at the very least a rerelease of the unique on Steam or GOG.
But extra pertinent to the studio’s quick future, Abrak feels that they’ve realized quite a bit from the successes and failures of the latest Hitman. “We’re the first to admit we got some things right and some things wrong,” says Abrak. “Changing our business model before launch caused confusion, and we had some tech issues at launch. While the episodic nature of the main story campaign received major praise from the press and many gamers, it wasn’t necessarily everyone’s cup of tea. What did really work wonders for the game was the live model.”
That reside mannequin noticed new content material, problem missions, and elusive goal occasions added commonly, and Abrak says this common rollout noticed new gamers continually hopping again in. A couple of months in the past Hitman had reached five million players, now plainly depend is previous seven million. “That number is rising daily,” says Abrak. “And these aren’t dormant players; these are highly engaged players in Hitman.”
In different phrases, count on no matter’s subsequent for Hitman – whether or not that be season two or one thing solely new – to have the same give attention to reside service and fixed updates. But whereas video games as a service is likely to be a AAA conflict cry, Abrak says it is best to count on just a little extra sincere interplay from Io. “Being independent means we don’t have to do things the way we’ve done them in the past. We can decide what’s right for IO Interactive, for Hitman and for our players. We can be more open with what we say and what we do. In other words: expect less corporate-speak, and more heart.”
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