IO Promises Hitman Absolution Won't Be A Simple Evolution

We're all very excited about the existence of Hitman Absolution, but developer IO Interactive is promising that the world won't be treated to a simple "evolution" of the franchise.

Speaking to SPOnG at E3 last week, game director Tore Blystad explained that the studio is keen to improve on the game mechanics of previous Hitman titles. "As much as we love our old games, we also know that they have a lot of flaws, and they're very archaic in many ways," he said.

"We wanted to make it possible for people to get into it easily, rather than constantly having to hammer your head against a wall trying to figure out what the game is all about and how to control things."

Part of that is the new types of scenarios that Agent 47 will be dealing with in the game, explained in detail in SPOnG's E3 preview. "The old games had a very rigid structure, or basically built in the same way. We wanted a more flexible structure to surprise the player," Blystad added.

Then, a potential reason as to why a new Hitman game has been so long in the making. "It was very much up in the air [as to how to develop Absolution] because we had these four games in succession, each pretty much an evolution. We came to the conclusion that we had to stop and look at everything, pick it all apart and put it back together in a way that would work better."