With the release of the final game in the Providence Trilogy, I think it would be interesting to take a look into the Hitman 6 game that we never got. Hot on the heels of Absolution, Square-Enix opened a new studio called Square-Enix Montreal in 2011. The studio started out with 4 staff members, the head of Square-Enix London studios Lee Singleton and three employees from IO-Interactive, one of them was Mads Prahmm who worked on Absolution as well as Kane & Lynch series and later Hitman GO.
The plane was that Square-Enix Montreal and IO-Interactive where going to work in tandem on the series, much like we know it from the Call of Duty franchise, where multiple studios work on the same IP.
Due to company wide changes the focus of the newly found studio changed to the Mobil scene. Going on to create the Mobil “Go” series, starting out with Hitman GO and later adding more franchises such as Deus Ex and Tomb Raider to their series of Mobil games. Which meant that the H6 project was cancelled and many of the employees went to work on other AAA-titles.
There’s a bit of confusion around the Hitman projects currently in development at Square Enix-owned studios and so we wanted to take the time to clarify what each studio is working on to clear up some of this confusion. Io-Interactive is developing a new, AAA Hitman game that will be coming to PC and next-gen consoles and Square Enix Montreal is fully focused on mobile development of games some of which are related to the Hitman franchise," the representative said. "We look forward to sharing more details about these titles later this year.
Sadly there isn’t much more information on this cancelled version of H6, other then a few pieces of art work.
This picture at the time draw a bit controversy, fans feared that it would lean more into action then Absolution did. This picture may not be all that conclusive about the tone of the cancelled game, it was done live in front of a crowd in Montreal.
A picture of Square-Enix Montreal’s homepage at the time.
If Absolution had been the commercial success that Square-Enix had hoped for, the franchise would have looked very different then what we got, It’s interesting to speculate on what could have been. I hope you enjoyed a look into a soon forgotten title that never saw the day of light.
I think the idea and premise of continuation of a more Absolution styled Hitman game is interesting, even if I don’t want this version. It’s an entire different trajectory the series could have gone in and would probably been a very different experience then what we ended up with. Yet I wonder if H6 would have used the newer hardware to create bigger levels, then the limited level that was possible with PS3 and X360.
One of the things that created some very positive buzz around this title was that the art-work showed 47 with his iconic briefcase. The tone seemed closer to earlier games in terms setting and would probably have a darker title from the start, just like Contracts and Absolution. I would love to see more art-work from H6, seeing what ideas they where playing around with. Which ideas that made it over to H16.
There was rumour that the game would feature another playable character and possible the guy we see in some of the art-work. One being more focused on action and 47 closer to the traditional experience. The duel pistol homepage eludes to two different main characters.
Anybody have that artwork where 47 is walking next to a semi-transparent window and behind it a corpse and a blood splatter is visible? That was also for Hitman 6
When I visited the studio in 2012 along with other HMF members, there was a whole wall dedicated to concept art and brainstorms for a future Hitman game. A bunch of those images above were there - And some others. One that really stood out to me was a campsite in a desolate, mountainous area with lots of slow - Thing style.
It had a subtitle but I probably shouldn’t say what it was. All I’ll say is it was a name that was copyrighted around a similar time. I was always very curious about the project, but as we know it probably ended up being consolidated into Hitman 2016.
I think I’d be quite into a more action focused game that is set within the universe of Hitman but not a hitman game. From what we’ve seen 47 is quite an anomaly, other ICA agents don’t disguise like him or do wacky stuff like he does. So having a game where we play as another more normal ICA (more shooting, less social stealth) sounds like it could be a cool cousin game series to Hitman
However I wouldn’t want IO wasting their time on it, they’re the masters at spy games and I want them to keep making those (looking at you 007 )
I do think that this was also setting up more play able characters that later could have their own series of games. I do like the idea of playing other ICA agents, kinda like the game equivalent to Bourne Legacy.
I wonder if the game came out if it would feature two main characters, like some signs points towards. What would set him and 47 apart? This is where I believe that both would have their own strength, a possible setup could be a story seen two different fractions. ICA vs some generic evil organisation, the other character looks more chaotic to 47 controlled character. I love the idea, it’s insanely interesting the premise of what this game could have been, even if I don’t really want it.
A lot of this is just speculations, since the overall information regarding game play, tone doesn’t exist, well at least not for the public. We can only go by what we saw in those pictures and IO and Square-Enix Montreal working in tandem on the series.
That said when the news hit that this game future was in jeopardy, was also a big scare within the community. It was around the same time the news that Square-Enix wasn’t happy with the sales of Absolution, there was even some downsizing of IO’s team and suddenly the current Hitman project was scrapped. It painted a picture of the series future being unsure.
It was an utterly fascinating period of being a Hitman, looking back with the current day perspective.
Yep, I remember those days! Just saying that I’m struggling to imagine a Hitman game going in a different direction to the WoA being a better experience for my tastes in Hitman games than the WoA has ended up being, so I’m grateful that things have worked out exactly as they have rather than the parallel universe where something that wasn’t the WoA was released instead!
To be honest I would loved if H3 was the entry point into Providence Trilogy, this was the game that felt the closet to the games I feel in love with, but that is another discussion
Shit! I remember reading a post on Archive.org saying they are now emulating Flash to preserve older sites, but it’s not working on the old Hitman sites where all the rare concepts are stored.
I’m not looking forward to going on my slow probably malware-filled laptop just so I can download the SWF files and run the Flash programs in a SWF player
i’m barmy for john woo influenced games.
)
Just saying that I’m struggling to imagine a Hitman game going in a different direction to the WoA being a better experience for my tastes in Hitman games than the WoA has ended up being, so I’m grateful that things have worked out exactly as they have rather than the parallel universe where something that wasn’t the WoA was released instead! 
I know we got absolutely nothing on Knight & Stone but tbh I was quite endeared towards them
