With Square Enix’s new Montreal Studio set to develop another Hitman game, IO Interactive plans to create a new IP once Hitman: Absolution releases next year. and then begin collaborating with Square Enix’s just-announced Montreal studio on another entry in the franchise — but that’s not all.
Studio head Niels Jorgensen told Gamasutra that part of IO will collaborate with Square Enix Montreal on the new Hitman, while the rest of the studio will be developing a new property.
When people work on the same IP for some time, I believe that there’s a sort of creative drain. Thankfully we managed to make sure we keep focusing on different IPs and keeping people fresh.
Continuing:
We’ve built an incubation department whose focus is work on new IP and prototypes, and all sorts of things for existing and new IP. And that’s a really interesting sort of secret place where they cook up a lot of new things.
Whenever a new console generation looms, publishers begin investing in new IPs that they think will have a greater chance of succeeding.
