IO Interactive boss Niels Sorensen has revealed that the development team will be split into two new teams, one whose assignment will be to develop a new intellectual property as the other works on Hitman Absolution.
In an interview with Gamasutra, Sorensen stated, “When people work on the same IP for some time, I believe that there’s a sort of creative drain. Thankfully we managed to make sure we keep focusing on different IPs and keeping people fresh.”
Sorensen was vague about what the new IP might be. “We’ve built an incubation department whose focus is work on new IP and prototypes, and all sorts of things for existing and new IP,” he said. “And that’s a really interesting sort of secret place where they cook up a lot of new things.”
As for the Hitman title after Absolution, the half of IO Interactive not working on the new IP will collaborate with Square-Enix Montreal on it.
Hitman: Absolution will be released next year on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.