The franchise is IO's baby

Aug 17, 2009 17:11 GMT  ·  By

Eidos, or now Square Enix Europe, is one of the biggest publishers from the Old Continent, taking care of franchises like Tomb Raider or Kane and Lynch. But one of its most respected series, Hitman, has always managed to gain critical acclaim through every iteration.

That is why the team at IO Interactive, its developer, is working for quite some time on the new Hitman 5, which might appear next year, if fans of stealth gameplay and assassinations are lucky. But according to a recent rumor started by a British actor, it seems that UK-based studio Rocksteady, which is polishing up Batman: Arkham Asylum for its release, is also working on the game.

The actor went on to reveal that he recently did some voice acting and motion capture at Rocksteady for the new Hitman game. When asked about this subject and whether or not Rocksteady was only collaborating with IO Interact, Eidos president Ian Livingstone revealed that this wasn't true and that IO would always take care of Hitman.

“This is the first I've heard about it. Hitman always has been and always will be IO Interactive's baby, which it still continues to be so,” Livingstone said at a recent video games-related event in the UK. “Rocksteady are not involved with the development of Hitman 5.”

While it definitely seems that Rocksteady did a great job with Arkham Asylum, perhaps it is for the best that the studio hasn't gotten involved with IO Interactive on the prestigious franchise. The studio has been doing a great job up until now and maybe the long wait is beneficial, as there are a lot of stealth-based games coming in the near future, from the new Splinter Cell: Conviction title to new Metal Gear Solid iterations for a lot of platforms.