IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak has revealed the secrets behind how the studio has managed to stay competitive in the AAA market. In an interview with The Game Business, Abrak revealed that in Hitman games since Absolution, the studio started cutting down on the development budget of the titles by simply making fewer new toilets for every game.
“I was the executive producer on [2012’s] Hitman Absolution, and I swore never to do more new toilets,” said Abrak. “We were just doing new everything. It was just a throwaway. When we were doing the initial foundation on Hitman 2016, we built it in a way where we would do smart reuse.”
Abrak also revealed that the development budgets for the Hitman games had gone down since the trilogy started. While he didn’t reveal precise figures, he did give us an example; if 2016’s Hitman was developed for $100 million, Hitman 3 – which was the highest-rated game of the trilogy – would comparatively have a budget of $20 million.
“Without being too precise, Hitman 2016… let’s say it was a $100 million game. Hitman 2 was maybe $60 million. Hitman 3 was $20 million,” he said. “And Hitman 3 was the highest Metacritic. It was 85, 84, and 87 Metacritic. And it had very unique new locations. Obviously, there’s a bigger investment into Bond. It’s a more expensive and ambitious product. But the way we build it, the longevity… if we were to look at sequel at one point, who knows? At IO, we have a really, really good way of trying to be efficient. That’s extremely important to us.”
Ultimately, Abrak spoke about how excessive budgets largely came about because of wasted resources. Describing the development of Absolution as wasteful, Abrak went on to talk about how IO Interactive has since become much more efficient in developing its titles.
“With Absolution, we wasted so much,” he said. “It was a wasteful production. As studio production director back then, I completely changed our thinking. The World of Assassination is a vision that started 13, 14 ago years ago. Building this foundation, the brick system as we call it, where we can make an experience, like [new Hitman mission featuring Mads Mikkelsen] very quickly and efficiently. This was a really part of us creating sustainable AAA production. I’m not going to sit here and say we are doing everything right. We’ll keep on trying to improve and be less wasteful, but still super ambitious.”
“Like most industries, our industry is also going through maturity. That’s what we are living through. We could have grown a lot more, we could have taken on more projects, but we’ve been very mindful about growing at the pace where our culture and our expertise could follow.”
While the most recent bit of content for Hitman World of Assassination – Casino Royale’s Le Chiffre as an Elusive Target – IO Interaction is currently working on its next major game: 007: First Light. While the game is slated for release on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2026, Abrak has confirmed that the studio isn’t quite done with Hitman either.
