007: First Light Developer Will Make More Hitman Games in the Future – CEO

While IO Interactive might be busy with the development of the upcoming 007: First Light, studio CEO Hakan Abrak has confirmed that the studio will also go back to making more Hitman at some point. In an interview with Variety, Abrak spoke about how IO Interactive has traditionally focused on its own IP, and that 007: First Light is the studio’s only title to use an externally-licensed IP.

“We’ve created other original IPs from the ground up — ‘Bond’ is actually the only external, licensed IP that we’re working on,” said Abrak. “And I would say that’s probably the only IP we will work on externally that is not ours. Somehow, it kind of made sense after 25 years of rehearsing for the agent fantasy and doing ‘007.’ That was a match made in heaven, you could say. But there’s no doubt ‘Hitman’ has been our flagship game, our long love for all the time IO Interactive has existed.”

Continuing the conversation, Abrak spoke about how Hitman 3 – now known as Hitman World of Assassination thanks to its essential combining of all three of the modern Hitman games into one package – will not be the final game in the franchise that IO Interactive makes. However, the studio also currently has plenty of other projects, including a co-op experience for Hitman, so a brand new Hitman might take some time.

“So of course there will be more ‘Hitman,’” he said. “But right now, I think we need to get to the other side of this year and next year you’ll get more news about ‘Hitman’ co-op, because I think co-op is a really, really good extension to the universe, and will introduce very interesting mechanics and combinations in ‘World of Assassination.’ But we will, after that, be talking about the next ‘Hitman’ — because, of course, there’s going to be a next ‘Hitman.’”

While we may not know what a potential Hitman 4 might look like for quite some time, lead level designer Jacob Mikkelsen indicated that there hasn’t been much regret in the studio about past titles in the franchise. He discussed his past experiences in working on the Hitman series, and while he identified 2012’s Hitman: Absolution as being the odd one out in the series thanks to its emphasis on more linear levels, he went on to say that the studio still learned important lessons from it.

“Actually, I don’t want to go back and change anything,” Mikkelsen said. “I think ‘Absolution’ is, of course, the one that stands out as being different. But ‘Absolution’ was a product of its time in so many ways, and we wanted to try something with a story that drove things more than what we saw in the previous games. And then we wanted to experiment with a different format of the gameplay. But that in itself, then led to, OK, now we know how to do better mechanics, better AI, better controls, better camera, better shooting, better on a lot of things.”

“And then, when we paired that with the sandbox mentality for ‘Blood Money,’ together they made up this new foundation that we could work on. So I don’t think I would change anything. And then also, looking back for so many years, and all the way back to ‘Contracts’ — gaming was just different back in 2003. It was much more underground and nowadays, everybody is gaming on everything.”

In the meantime, 007: First Light is making its way to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch 2 on March 27, 2026.