Earlier this year it was revealed that video game publisher Square Enix had decided to part ways with developer IO-Interactive. This left the future of the popular Hitman game series, created by IO, with a large question mark next to it.

Yesterday the Hitman Game of the Year Edition, which was announced last month, was released. To mark the occasion, IO-Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak released a statement. And in this statement, he made Hitman fans very happy by confirming that the developer, now operating independently, is working on the next game in the series.

See what he had to say below.

From IO-Interactive:

Five months ago, I posted an open letter to let you know that Io-Interactive had become an independent studio once again.

We’ve kept intentionally quiet since then, because we needed to focus inwards at what we want IOI to stand for, in terms of our employees, our culture and our ambitions and dreams for the future. It’s been hard and challenging work, but also incredibly exciting as we lay the foundations for a new start for this special studio.

Today feels like a good opportunity to update you on how and what we’re doing as we have passed 7 million players in the game and we are releasing the first new content since the conclusion of Season One, in the form of our Game of the Year Edition of HITMAN.

This is our way of showing our fans and players that we appreciate your continued support and love for our HITMAN 2016 game. It’s been made with love and passion and the GOTY Edition builds on our original game with loads of visual and mechanical improvements, new unique powerful items with disguises and a whole new story campaign in Patient Zero. More and more players are joining HITMAN every day and we want to keep delivering on the promise of our ever expanding World of Assassination.

I also want to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you, in advance, to everyone who supports us by purchasing the GOTY Edition or the Upgrade. Your support will directly help us to continue on our independent journey towards the next Hitman game and beyond. We’re in this together and we promise that we will channel our passion and skills to shine through in everything that comes from this studio.

One last thing about our next Hitman game; I want to let you know that we’re making great progress and we have exciting new features and some franchise firsts, which we can’t wait to tell you all about. You’ll have to wait a little longer as we don’t plan to start talking about that until some point in 2018.

Thank you.

Hakan,
CEO, Io-Interactive

Below you can find a brief promo video for the Hitman Game of the Year Edition’s release. You can also grab a copy over at Amazon (or the GOTY upgrade digitally for those who already own the first season) if you’d like to support IO’s efforts as an independent developer.

Video

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