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"It feels like it's going back to where the series started. "

In January, Danish studio IO Interactive announced that Hitman 3, released two years ago, would be renamed Hitman World of Assassination, which integrates all the levels of the new trilogy after the brand relaunch. It may seem like a simple change, but what's less well known is that internally, the killer team has been planning the change for 10 years.

IO has experienced several upheavals over the past decade. On the face of it, the studio, founded in 1998, has survived many of its better-known peers and is one of the most robust game development companies in Europe. However, despite repeated attempts to break through, the company's most influential brand is still the "killer" series. The parent company also had a changeable fate. IO was acquired by Eidos Interactive at first, followed Eidos as a subsidiary of Square Enix until it broke up with Square Enix in 2017, regained independence and took back its most important commercial brand, the "Killer" series.

Before leaving Square Enix, the studio's future was clouded, but IO always had its own plans for the future of the "killer" series, which never changed. Killer: World of Assassins is the beginning of a real plan.

In a recent interview, IO chief creative officer Christian Elvidam and CEO Hakan Abrak talked at length about the past, present and future of the "Killer" series.

The old series, which includes all the content of the previous series, can be called conscience. The old series of "killer" from the old series includes four main works, from "killer: code 47" in 2000 to "killer: blood money" in 2006. After Killer: Blood Money was launched, IO didn't have a new "killer" game for several years in a row, including four years when the company devoted most of its resources to the high-profile new action shooter Kane and Lynch, with a sequel. The collection looks cool and seems more to appeal to younger people, but it actually fails to deliver a lucrative commercial return. During those years, their cartoonish action game Mini Ninja also performed poorly.

Hitman Absolution was officially released in 2012, marking the series 'official return after years away from public view. Many fans were expecting this, but the game disappointed in many ways. "Killer: Absolution has not been popular with players. Elvidam admitted,"A lot of people commented that this is not a killer game at all, and some even asked us, can you still make games for this series?" "

Behind the scenes, IO also went through an unusually difficult period. With the acquisition of Eidos and Square Enix, the company's leadership and strategic direction changed dramatically, the studio was reorganized, a large number of employees were laid off, and some of the earliest founders left and took some employees with them. To add insult to injury, Microsoft also canceled a game that was given to IO development but never announced to the public.

Given these circumstances, the failure of Killer: Absolution has been particularly hard on the company. Elvidam and the other lead creators realized they had to make drastic changes, so they canceled all other projects, including the Kane and Lynch series, and began planning for the future of the Killer series.

Hitman: Absolution was criticized for its nonlinear level design, simplified gameplay mechanics, and undramatic plot. In 2013, Elvidam was promoted to creative director to lead the development of new products, assisted by Hakan Abrak, then production director. Today, Abrak is CEO and the studio's other co-owner.

Elvidam has plenty of ideas for the future of "killer." First of all, he wanted to change his worldview. He wanted to enrich the story and background, and the players could experience more humor. "Instead of being a down-and-out avenger, you become more like a star assassin, you feel like the best of the best and you can travel the world like a dream. "

Humor is another key ingredient. "Now we talk about the sense of humor in 'killer,' and it probably feels natural and very appropriate for the series. But at the time, we had to face enormous skepticism from inside the studio and outside. "

There is also a larger and holistic vision to push it as an expanding platform. "We just celebrated the successful launch of the free player mode (Roguelike mode for Hitman 3). Elvidam said,"We found a video from the historical archives made in 2013 titled 'Killer: Assassin World'. "

Both as an idea and as a title,"Killer: Assassin World" has existed since 2013."We made this video to inspire discussion about the future direction of the series. In the video, we use the name 'Assassin World' for the first time, and it shows an ever-expanding, dangerous world where new locations and targets frequently appear. "

"Looking back at that old video now, we find it embarrassing to use all kinds of strange materials and try to stitch them together. But anyway, it explains the logic behind the new game since then…We want to change the tradition of releasing a new game every five or six years and allow players to travel to the killer world all the time. "

"Simply put, we want to provide players with a game that is constantly updated. Abrak adds,"You can think of it as World of Warcraft in a standalone game. "

Back to Origin After the series restarted, the first game released in 2016, Killer, was released in chapter form, and IO considered making it a game that expanded over time. Abrak pointed out that the development team initially did not plan to make Hitman 2 and Hitman 3, but a strange technical problem changed their plans.

"There were platforms that weren't able to support this change well after Square Enix left in 2017," Abrak said. This meant that we could do certain things on a single platform, but not simultaneously on other platforms, so we had to name the game's subsequent release Killer 2. "

On the other hand, the form of distribution of chapters has also raised concerns. Angry players in the community have been asking the development team,"Is this a hoax? What the hell are you doing? Why only one chapter? "

The difficulty of the stages generated by the independent player mode was relatively high, and the error tolerance rate of the player's operation was reduced. As more and more players started playing in person, they quickly changed their views. "I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. Elvidam pointed out,"I had to face a lot of doubts before, but then a lot of people said it was great, it was a good way to experience the game." We won the annual award, and it was incredible to go from being questioned to being praised. "

However, the hard days did not end. In May 2017, Square Enix suddenly announced plans to sell IO and devote more resources to other studios. A few months later, without a suitable buyer, the company had to lay off workers again. In the face of many difficulties, Abrak and Elvidam decided to make their own decisions, allowing IO to regain independence through management buyback, while retaining the copyright of "killer" themselves.

The future of the "killer" series was once a concern after it left Square Enix. In November 2018, Warner Bros. Interactive released Killer 2 for IO, which some felt was more like an expansion than a full sequel, but with a high degree of freedom, fun and humor, the work resonated a lot. Thus, when IO decided to self-publish Killer 3, the series already had a large player base, and Killer 3 quickly became the best-selling game in the history of the series. According to IO, there are more than 50 million players worldwide who have restarted the "killer" trilogy.

"We feel like we're going back to where the series started. Elvidam said,"Hitman is a complex game that encourages players to play autonomously, set their own goals and take responsibility for failure. It's not suitable for all players, as some people prefer relatively simple challenges, easy-to-understand goals, or progressive goals. But Killer clearly isn't--in many ways, it offers players unfiltered freedom of choice. "

One of the reasons Killer: Absolution failed was that it was too close to the design of mainstream games at the time, without emphasizing its own characteristics. IO realized that this was not suitable for "Killer." "We're more relaxed now than we were in the past, we know who we are and don't want to go so far as to destroy the reason for the series. Over the years, we have found our foundation step by step. "

Not only is there "Code 47," IO takes on an exciting new look compared to a few years ago. Now they are recruiting developers for several projects, including a 007 spin-off and an ambitious fantasy RPG. If all goes well, they will probably continue to make "007" games in the future. IO has 3 offices worldwide, located in Malmo, Sweden, Barcelona, Spain and Copenhagen, Denmark.

A triple-A RPG codenamed "Project Fantasy," currently in early development."First of all, I feel pretty good about myself. Abrak laughed."But sometimes it's hard to digest. As you said, the first few years were too hard. Frankly, when we bought back the company, it was really tough. There were 178 people at the time, and we only had enough money to keep the studio running for three months…so unfortunately we had to lay off nearly half of our staff. Even so, we still can't guarantee how long we'll last. "

"With our long-term vision, careful planning and trust among team members, we finally found our way forward. Not only did he survive, but he also expanded the team size to 280 people and may announce the establishment of a new studio in a while. "

"Today, our goal is not only to survive, but to spread our wings and develop more games. Killer will always be part of IO and we also have experience developing new brands. "

"Sometimes I ask myself, is this true? It felt really good. "

Elvidam said that in the future, Killer: Assassin World will continue to develop. "I wish I could have both. We have a wonderful platform to experiment with and understand what players think and want about the game. As creators, at some point we definitely think: 'Based on everything we've learned, if we had to redesign a sandbox, what would it look like? '"

In the short term, though, IO is likely not to develop new titles for the "killer" series.

"At this stage, the 'killer' series is in an interim period and no big new games will be developed for it. Elvidam admits,"because the team was building another spy game, it took a lot of time. In any case, we will not forget the beloved Agent 47, who is still the soul of this company. "

This article compiled from: www.eurogamer.net/how-io-turned-hitman-around-from-absolution-to-world-of-assassination

How IO turned Hitman around, from Absolution to World of Assassination

Written by Robert PurcheSquare Enix

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