Hitman CoOp Proves World Of Assassination Isnt Slowing Down Soon

Amid news on 007 First Light and MindsEye, IO Interactive also had a lot to say about Hitman: World of Assassination during the first-ever IO Interactive Showcase. But the one that caught my eye most of all is a Hitman co-op mode. IO told me in an interview after the show how its existence is a sign of how the Hitman team is still exploring new ways to expand the game.

"Even the early prototypes [of co-op mode] that we showed a little bit of [on stage], it's just a different experience to play with a friend in that world," Christian Elverdam, CCO of IO Interactive told me. "And I'm sure, if you know the game, you could imagine a gazillion ways [to play differently]. Like, 'You could do this, I could do that!'"

Elverdam told me the game's ambitions have led to the team being on a perpetual "journey of discovery," the same journey that spawned the roguelite Freelancer mode two years ago. I asked him how long the team plans to support the game, and he didn't have a timeline. "We're not done figuring out what this thing is. Because [Freelancer was made by] a fairly small team that went like, 'We have this killer idea about what we could do with all of this body of work. What if we did this?' I think co-op will do some of the same things. And so we're super curious about that. I feel we have super fertile ground to keep innovating."