Though Hitman 3 marks the conclusion of the World of Assassination Trilogy, developer IO Interactive is done with neither the latest installment nor Hitman in general. According to those who have already played it, Hitman 3 works as the ideal lead into a possible fourth Hitman entry. The game’s early sales success on the market also appears to ensure the development team won’t want to leave Agent 47 waiting in the darkness for too long.
In its first week alone, the game managed to regain all of its development expenses. Hakan Abrak, CEO of IO Interactive, revealed as much in a recent interview, acknowledging that such success puts the company in a “really good place.” Now the development team is free to positively pursue its next new endeavor, which will see the Hitman makes move from one secret agent to another with an original James Bond game.
Talking with The Gamer, executive producer Forest Swartout Large hinted that IO Interactive’s role on the endeared stealth-based game isn’t complete. The executive producer revealed to the publication that “we’re continuously working on Hitman so we are already looking to the future.”
Whether or not this means the studio has its sights locked on a potential Hitman 4 remains to be seen, but the executive producer did confirm that Hitman 3 DLC expansions are on their way. New locations akin to the New York bank expansion for Hitman 2 are not what the developers have in mind. Instead, the developers want to reimagine existing settings. The executive producer said:
“We are definitely going to be doing some DLC, but we haven’t defined what that is. I think for now we are not looking at new maps like the bank and the island. We’re more looking at using existing locations and reimagining them, twisting them. And this time around, we can use the whole trilogy. We can look back at Hitman 2016 maps, Hitman 2 maps – we have all the locations.”
This statement reveals that Hitman 3 is destined to receive more Escalation Contracts and Elusive Targets, as opposed to completely new levels. In Hitman 2, the development team rolled out a similar post-release content through an Expansion Pass which players were able to buy ahead of the sequel’s launch. The newest entry doesn’t have an identical offering as of yet; thus it is not certain how IO Interactive will expand the DLC when the time comes.
As previously mentioned, Hitman 3 is already a remarkable success for IO Interactive. In addition to getting back development expenses within just a week after launch, the follow up had the largest digital release in franchise history. This momentum will possibly continue to increase, provided the universally positive feedback from fans and critics alike.
