Hitman Series to Use Call of Duty Dev Model – According to Absolution Director

The Hitman series of games will use a development model similar to that seen with the Call of Duty series of games, according to Hitman: Absolution director Tore Blystad.

It’s something that we are going to see more and more as publishers seek to get the most out of their successful game franchises, a game from your favourite franchise popping up every year or two thanks to development by two difference studios happening side by side. We’ve seen it with franchises like Call of Duty and Bioshock, now it seems to be Agent 47’s turn to get the duel studio treatment.

In an interview with Official PlayStation Magazine, Hitman: Absolution director Tore Blystad explains the thinking behind this duel development approach, and how developer Square Enix Montreal will differ from IO Interactive.

On the duel development model, Blystad said:

“You have an IP that has been developed. They will feed off each other, as well as some things that stand out. I think with these big franchises it takes a long time to develop just one game. If you can, work a little bit in parallel at least and help each other out. We’ve been talking about these similarities to some of the big movie franchise like Aliens, where everyone’s doing it their own way. Every time someone gets their hands on a franchise they do something different. So rather than doing the same thing again you get another take on the character from a fresh perspective. There’s a lot of these problems you encounter with these sort of productions, some of them are really fundamental problems, or they have a big effect on the game – like how you do a mechanic for instance. If you change a mechanic too much then the whole gameplay will be modified”.

While the next game in the Hitman series will be all the work of fledgling studio Square Enix Montreal, the guys at IO Interactive will be keeping a close eye on their baby.

“Well there are talks between us and of course it has to be somewhat in sync but it’s the first time you could say Hitman has gone out of the house,” says Blystad. “Luckily it’s with someone we know. Some of the key developers came from IO and have been working on previous games so it’s not like it’s in completely new hands”.

So from the above we can assume that a lot of new ideas will be thrown into the Hitman melting pot. Will a fresh perspective will give us another cracking Hitman game? Or will the new team flounder under all that expectation? (Bioshock 2, anyone?). We’ll have to wait and see.

Hitman Absolution is available to purchase now for Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows PC