Come to think of it, I still have the disc…
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If it’s the same golden helicopter that’s used in Freelancer I sure hope he’ll want to fix the sound before trying to fly :x
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Hopefully it won’t be 10 years, but I guess time will time on that. Also, I wouldn’t have thought every IOI employee would be working on Bond at the same time. The team that’s currently supporting Hitman could very well start early planning etc in say in a couple of years time perhaps? To be fair, nobody actually knows and we could be here theorising for hours 
Also on the second point, I expect a couple of updates and stuff for Freelancer this coming year and other parts of the WOA may very well get updates as well.
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I’m grateful for them making Hitman 2016, and then 2 and 3, I’m still amazed by it, I just hope they upgrade the engine for the new generation and make a more complete game next time. Hitman 2016 started of by releasing one mission after the other, and although very fun, the game have always felt a bit Beta’ish. Absolution may be different, but what Absolution succeeded with was making a story with atmosphere, they had a vision with that game, and therefore felt more complete, IMO.
I remember back in 2016 when people complained about the levels never really felt like they took place in the countries they were supposed to take place in due to the accents of the actors, and I agree, these past 3 games have had amazing locations, but it have never felt like you were actually there, therefore I hope for the next game they really travel to these locations and consider making it more immersive.
For the story, I just find it cool how they did it with Blood Money, the villain talking about past missions that you get to play out, so cool! This way they can fit a game in between the others without really making drastic changes that people may not like.
Just make a new game with a new upgraded engine and I think people will be happy.
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I think the future of IO and Hitman looks bright, and its certainly been reflected in the quality of the trilogy and all the recent expansion/growth in IO interactive with the launch of new studio locations, lots of hiring, and great sales figures for Hitman 3 despite all the past struggles with separating from Square Enix (which in retrospect was clearly a good decision as we have seen with Square Enix’s current performances and shortcomings).
With Project 007, as well as that new fantasy title IO is working on, its clear that they are looking to diversify their portfolio, which is something they desperately needed to do (as much as I love Hitman and would love for IO to pump out nothing but bigger and better Hitman games, its what’s best for the quality of the games and survivability of the studio).
My predictions for the future of Hitman and IO are as follows:
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Project 007 will be great, I think IO is definitely in their wheelhouse here and they will make several efforts to strengthen combat, enemy variety, AI, progression/upgrades, and possibly dialogue (who knows, maybe project 007 will have RPG elements like Deus Ex). Maybe it will be a trilogy of entries and maybe it won’t who is to say with how little we know right now?
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I think IO will make a heist based stealth game with multiplayer PvE elements in a similar vein to Payday 2 (I think it would be like if you had a heist based Hitman game with a possible element of multiplayer: with players coordinating takedowns and opportunities. If I were to go REALLY crazy with these predictions I would say it would be based in the Hitman universe with the main characters being The Yardbirds and detailing their extensive heisting career and eventual fall. A bit far fetched I know, but I think that The Yardbird narrative had a strange focus/emphasis on it during the course of the trilogy with some vague foreshadowing of them messing with a large organization as though it was hyping up something
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It will likely be a while before we see 47 and the Hitman franchise directly again, however I think their next entry in the series will be their best and boldest yet. I think that it will effectively be as if you made Freelancer the whole focus of the game. I think it will be like if you mixed Xcom 2 / Evil genius with Freelancer, elements of safehouse base building / upgrades, world map asset management combined with classic hitman mission gameplay while fighting off threats both on the ground in missions and while you and your assets move around on the world map. I actually want to make a post / thread about this idea later about what it would be like, what the developmental challenges would be, and what would be added / ideal.
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Eventually as well, I think we will get remakes of some of the old Hitman games. I still think that’s a loooong way off though and that there are several innovations to AI and the main gameplay loop that need to or will occur before IO heads in this direction though. The formula is better than its ever been, but there are still some refinements and tweaking to be done before its ready for a series wide retrospect though.
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Yikes, I hope not. And I hope we don’t see any remakes or reboots until the series is brought to an actual narrative end, which will likely be when David Bateson can’t voice 47 anymore. Of course, once that happens, unless he takes the James Earl Jones route and gives IOI permission to use old recordings and computers to replicate his voice, I’m bugging out of the series.
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It’s probably because I didn’t explain it that well (and again I eventually plan on making a thread / discussion about what a game of this kind of style would be like and what people would want from it), I don’t mean like as a 1:1 copy of freelancer’s entire system with completely randomly generated targets with no story on a small handful of reused maps. I mean more as kind of taking down entire syndicate networks in normal missions of various sizes and types while moving yourself and your assets across and around a world map with an emphasis on random elements interplaying with it (assassins, lookouts, missions being more alerted / regions having high “heat” from recent actions, additional payout objectives, interactions with a monetary system, more extensive and less rigid preplanning, etc.).
I think the freelancer we have is more of a testing ground for how many of these mechanics could / would eventually work on a wider and much more detailed scale in a later game by IO, whether it be Project 007 or an eventual next Hitman game (and that was part of it’s justification for its creation).
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Oh no, I got all that. I just want a return to the formula of simply being told who the target is and all relevant info, and we just go and kill them. All this shuffle with Freelancer is a cute little experiment just for a change, but I in no way want it to continue past this point. No optional objectives, no lookouts, no assassin guards, let’s get back to the traditional formula that’s just all about the target being the sole contract.
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When the next game eventually comes around, I hope we at least see 47 briefly start off the new story in the Freelancer Safehouse before he inevitably moves on. I think 47 and Diana will start up some form of ICA structure again, but until then I think he’ll remain at the Safehouse until this happens.
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Freelancer is great as an extra, but I don’t want it to ever replace the single-player story mode.
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I could see him remaining at the safehouse even with a new ICA up and running. Or even getting a few different safehouses around the world. Could give us a reason to finally visit Australia or Sub-Saharan Africa.
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To me, Freelancer is obviously a great addition to the Hitman gameplay loop. It feels central to the assassin-fantasy, getting paid and building an arsenal, and it’s something IO have played with in the old games, but never fully committed to.
So, I would hope and believe that for the next full game, they will take these lessons with them, and do some sort of compromise between the two where they implement key features from Freelancer into the story mode, in a way that makes sense.
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Really, all they’d have to do to achieve that is have the safehouse and award system Freelancer has, while skipping the whole killing off low-level syndicate members and just going straight for the Leaders due to having an agency network to do the research for us like the other games. Maybe now and then the identity of the target is unknown as happened a few times in WoA and Blood Money, but mostly we go straight for the high-profile targets, earn our money, buy our gear and fix up our environments to our liking. That would be the ideal setup.
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I… agree with you.
There’s a first time for everything.
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I don’t think that was ever the intention of IOI for the mode to be fair. By the time next game arrives, we’ll definitely be heading onto another awesome single player story with 47 again. As for Freelancer, that will definitely tie us over until the next big AAA Hitman game arrives, especially if IOI continue to add cosmetics/unlocks for the Safehouse etc. Freelancer is also a way to show us players where 47 ended up post Hitman III epilogue, before inevitably starts hunting high profile cases again.
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i would be genuinely shocked if that was even under consideration by io.
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You never know. They did make the rather dumb decision of destroying the ICA. Without it, or an organization like it, what does 47 have other than exactly the work he’s doing in Freelancer, other than another personal adventure a la Absolution?
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i don’t think they’re comparable in terms of the difference they make. one is a narrative decision that doesn’t really change much; the other fundamentally alters the mechanical formula of the series.
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47’s going to find a new „Totally Not ICA” to work for.
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But that mechanical formula was introduced due to the fundamental change to how the story was presented. The ICA was always the answer to everything insofar as why 47 was killing anybody, and the one time it wasn’t was Absolution, a very different game. Setting aside the whole decorating the safehouse thing, the reason 47 has to build up his arsenal is because he lost access to a lot of stuff with ICA’s downfall, and the reason the player has to be so picky and choosy about their items and mission order, and the whole identifying the suspects thing, is because there’s no ICA to just tell him who the target is. Bringing an agency in to handle the workload would eliminate the need for half of what Freelancer is all about. If IOI don’t want to remove the aspect of us doing these things to figure it all out for ourselves, there’s little change they might make away from the Freelancer model in the next game.
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