Hitman studio suffered so many setbacks before its new James Bond game that "some companies would offer $1 to take over"
Nov. 11, 2023The failure of Hitman: Absolution put IO Interactive and Square Enix in a tentative situation
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The failure of Hitman: Absolution meant that whenSquare Enixchose to divestProject 007studio IO Interactive, some offers were as low as a single dollar.
At the end of those seven years, Abrak says that “whatever was hot back then had changed. It was DOA. Having worked so hard, and made people work so hard” - Hakan describes “two years of brutal crunch” to get the game over the line - “and then that dissatisfaction, feeling that it was our fault…” Absolution was a failure - commercially, critically, and with the fans.
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It proved difficult to find a buyer. As Abrak points out, “You have millions of dollars monthly burn running a studio like this. And obviously, looking at the books, IO had not made money for almost ten years in a row. Some companies would offer $1 to take over IO, because of the responsibilities and running costs and whatnot.” Other suggestions included an 80% reduction in headcount and a free-to-play future for the series, something that Abrak said he would “not be part of.”
Project 007 is being billed as “the ultimate spycraft fantasy.”
I’m GamesRadar’s news editor, working with the team to deliver breaking news from across the industry. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I’ve run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam’s latest indie hit.
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