Developer IO Interactive lays off half of its staff to focus on Hitman

IO Interactive, known for developing the Hitman and Kane and Lynch series, has announced that it is laying off “almost half” of its staff. According to Eurogamer , the company is doing this to focus “resolutely on the future vision for the Hitman franchise.”

According to Vice President of Corporate Communication at Square Enix Chris Glover, “The studio will focus resolutely on the future vision for the Hitman franchise and is in pre-production on a new AAA Hitman project. However we have taken the difficult decision to cancel other studio projects and initiatives at IO and reduce the workforce in this studio, which will impact almost half of the employees currently at IO, as we make internal adjustments to face the challenges of today’s market.”

Looks like baldie will get all the attention

“For those affected, we are extremely grateful for the hard work which they have contributed, and where it’s possible and appropriate to relocate staff to open positions at other studios within the group, we will try to do so. We are also reaching out to other companies for outplacement opportunities. We sincerely wish them well in their future careers.”

This basically also ensures that the studio’s non-Hitman franchises, like Kane and Lynch, are more or less dead. So far, there have been two Kane and Lynch games out, and a third one has been heavily hinted at in the past few months, but plans for that seem to have been scrapped. Other franchises like Freedom Fighters also seem to be dead.

The last game made by IO Interactive was Hitman: Absolution last year. The game revolves around everybody’s favourite bald assassin as he is on the run from his former employers—The Agency. The instead of having levels from all over the world, Absolution instead focused on levels in the US itself. Hitman: Absolution is available on the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and PC.