Hitman dev “swore never to do more toilets” to save money on development costs
IO Interactive’s CEO revealed how not creating bespoke bathrooms for every Hitman game helped the studio save money.
Withlayoffs affecting much of the AAA industry, oftentimes immediately following asuccessful product launch, effectively managing resources and budgets is at least one key component of reducing the chance of such an outcome.
Talking about IO’s development process in a June 24 episode ofThe Game Business Showpodcast, CEO Hakan Abrak described how the reuse of certain game assets contributed to a more sustainable business model.
When asked by host Christopher Dring about how the developer has accommodated for the rising cost of game development, Abrak responded:
“Yeah, it’s a huge challenge, but somehow I think IO has been able to punch above our weight.” Elaborating, Abrak detailed how IO used to create new assets for each new Hitman title, including the various bathrooms – a popular choice of storage space for incapacitated bodies in any Hitman game.
“We were just doing new everything, and it was just a throwaway,” he continued, adding, “For Hitman ’16, we built it in a way where we knew we could do smart, accumulated content.”
Abrak said the decision to start reusing assets where it made sense to do so, came after Absolution. “If you just look at Hitman, the way we build, especially after Absolution, I was the EP on Absolution, and I swore never to do more new toilets.”
Hitman budgets compared
While IO undoubtedly managed to save on costs with methods other than reusing toilets between games, Abrak said that doing so hadn’t affected how each had been critically received, despite costing less and less to make.
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“Without being too precise: Hitman ’16, let’s say that if that was $100 million, Hitman 2 was maybe $60 million. Hitman 3 was $20 million.”
While those numbers won’t be specific, one needs only look at the Metacritic scores for Hitman through to 2022’s Hitman 3 to see that the series has retained a high critic score since it was soft rebooted in 2016.
IO’s next game is007 First Light, an officially licensed action-adventure title set in the James Bond universe.
