The Hitman Franchise Is Going on Hiatus

gamerant.com:

Now that Hitman 3 has been rebranded and re-released as Hitman: World of Assassination, IO Interactive has confirmed that the studio is done with the franchise for the time being. The series' latest trilogy of games has gone through a fairly rough development period, even going so far as to try launching new levels as episodic sandboxes. But now that the dust has settled, things are finally looking up.

In fact, the release of Hitman: World of Assassination was essentially the biggest content update that Hitman 3 had received up until then. Featuring new levels and the long-awaited introduction of a veritable rogue-lite game mode, Freelancer, IO Interactive managed to re-establish the IP as the pinnacle of the social stealth gaming niche, and its staff is now ready to move on to different projects.

Hitman 3 Freelancer Gets Cinematic Trailer

With the studio hard at work on an all-new 007 title and an unannounced fantasy role-playing game, it would seem that most of its production capacities are being directed to entirely new ventures instead of sticking with Hitman. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, the chief creative officer and co-owner of IO Interactive, Christian Elverdam said that "[the Hitman franchise] is a little bit on hiatus." Elverdam went on to explain that the 007 game is taking up a lot of the studio's time. Still, he said that IOI will eventually «come back to beloved Agent 47» when the time is right.

After years of working on Hitman and nothing but, it's only natural that IOI would want to mix things up with something different, yet potentially very similar. That's where the mysterious James Bond-themed Project 007 comes in, of course. Yet, Elverdam did say that Hitman fans may get more content for the