IO Interactive Announces Fifth Hitman Game, Absolution

Danish Square Enix Europe subsidiary IO Interactive is reviving the dormant Hitman series with Hitman Absolution, a new title to be shown at next month's E3 convention. Series protagonist Agent 47 will return for the new game, which will see him hunted by police and embroiled in a conspiracy, according to today's announcement. The fifth Hitman title, and the first since 2006's Blood Money, will use the company's proprietary Glacier 2 engine, a new version of the technology that powered last year's Kane & Lynch 2. Absolution is planned for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, the company said, though a specific release date was not discussed. The Hitman series has sold 8 million copies from it's first release in 2000 through mid-2009, just after Square Enix's acquisition of publisher Eidos. Blood Money sold 1.5 million copies in Europe and North America in its first six weeks on sale after a late May, 2006 release. Though IO Interactive is known for violent titles like Hitman and Kane & Lynch, the company went a more family-friendly direction with 2009's Mini Ninjas, which went on to sell 600,000 copies in the U.S. and Europe in the first half of the year. "We wanted to reach a broader demographic, but we have toyed with the idea of entering the children's games market for years," IO's Neils Jorgensen told Gamasutra in a 2009 interview. "We believe that our abilities in storytelling and in producing quality games that entertain people are something that we can transform from the adult market to the broader market with a focus on children."