IO Interactive to begin new franchise after Hitman: Absolution

Hitman Absolution Wishlist

Agent 47 and his magical murder adventures may be what IO Interactive's best known for, but that's hardly the only number on the developer's calling card. Most recently, IO gave the Hitman franchise a break in favor of Kane & Lynch. And sure, it wasn't everybody's cup of steaming hot crazy tea, but it was definitely different.

Never one to tread water, IO plans on taking a similar approach after Hitman: Absolution. Don't worry, though: Thanks to a new Square Enix Montreal studio , Agent 47 and his oh-so-snazzy suit aren't going anywhere.

"When people work on the same IP for some time, I believe that there's a sort of creative drain," studio head Niels Sorensen told Gamasutra . "Thankfully we managed to make sure we keep focusing on different IPs and keeping people fresh."

"We've built an incubation department whose focus is work on new IP and prototypes, and all sorts of things for existing and new IP," he added. "And that's a really interesting sort of secret place where they cook up a lot of new things."

Granted, "part" of IO will give Square Enix Montreal a cold, calculating hand with the next Hitman, but the exact capacity of that partnership wasn't specified.