A little while ago the future of Hitman and IO-Interactive seemed to be quite grim, though thankfully that entire episode ended with IO-Interactive becoming an independent studio and Hitman getting a bunch of new content to mess around with. And now, with the Game of the Year Edition successfully launched, the developers have come out to announce their continued support of Hitman.

However, instead of simply revealing a second season with new maps and events, it appears that IO-Interactive is working on an entirely new Hitman game! The details are still unfortunately lacking, but according to the brief announcement the developers are making great progress on some "exciting new features and franchise firsts".

More information will be revealed at some point in 2018 once everything has been nailed down, but for now let's engage in a bit of speculation. IO-Interactive is currently hiring an experienced online programmer, which combined with the "franchise firsts" part of the announcement leads me to believe the new Hitman might have some sort of major online component. Whether this might be PvP or PvE orientated, I don't know, but it definitely is a feature the fans were asking for since the very beginning of the Hitman series. So while it might be far-fetched, its actually not out of the realm of possibility, especially if IO-Interactive was willing to seemingly abandon Season 2 in favor of this new project.

Whatever the case may be, I'm afraid we'll have to wait for quite a while until we get our answers. On the positive side, Hitman: Game of the Year Edition just launched with a bonus campaign and a couple of new outfits/weapons, so if you're a Hitman fan you'll at least have something to keep you busy for a little while. And as a final note, let me send you off with the recently posted trailer. Enjoy!