Square Enix Clarifies Next Gen Hitman Status

What started as very sad news has just got better. Earlier today there were reports circulating that the next gen Hitman game that was in development had been cancelled. Senior Game Designer Richard Knight who works for Square-Enix Montreal has a Linkedin profile which confirms the game was cancelled to focus on mobile projects instead. This is where things get interesting.
IO Interactive, the developer behind the last game in the franchise (the fantastic Hitman Absolution) is however still working on a new Hitman game for both PC and next gen platforms which was confirmed by Square-Enix in a statement released today. It read “Io-Interactive is developing a new, AAA Hitman game that will be coming to PC and next-gen consoles and Square-Enix Montreal is fully focused on mobile development of games some of which are related to the Hitman franchise. We look forward to sharing more details about these titles later this year.” So where did this confusion come from?

Well the original plan was to annualize the Hitman franchise and have two studios developing games for the franchise and release them in alternate years, just like how Call of Duty does. This has been cancelled now with just one Hitman game being focused for release and other mobile projects related to the franchise planned.
What started as pretty awful news as a fan of the series has probably now turned out for the best. I would rather wait longer for the next game and it be the same quality as previous entries, so I’m thrilled that IO Interactive are the ones making it. Hopefully we will hear more about all this at E3, but for now we at least know that next gen Hitman is definitely coming.