In an interview with The Game Business, IO Interactive’s CEO, Hakan Abrak, revealed the surprising costs of the Hitman series, pointing out that their trend is actually the opposite of what one might expect, thanks to a crucial solution.
In practice, the production costs have surprisingly decreased significantly from Hitman: Absolution to Hitman 2 and finally to Hitman 3. Remarkably, Hitman 3 cost much less than the first game, all thanks to the important decision to reuse assets.
“I was the executive producer on [2012’s] Hitman Absolution, and I swore never to do more new toilets,” Abrak joked about a detail from the game that was seen as symbolic of the extensive creative work done at the time and the policy that was subsequently adopted.
The idea of never making “new toilets” again was a way to make the best use of resources by reusing assets for future games, saving both money and time in development.
The huge amount of work put into Hitman: Absolution allowed for excellent results but came at a significant economic and energy cost: “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.”
Still, the quality of the games got better, as shown by press reviews. IO Interactive’s CEO pointed out that Hitman 3 received the best reviews, moving from the low 80s for Absolution to 82 for Hitman 2 and 87 for Hitman 3 on Metacritic.
“With Absolution, we wasted so much. It was a wasteful production. As studio production director back then, I completely changed our thinking,” explained Abrak.
He added, “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.”
He mentioned that this foundation has been crucial for creating a sustainable AAA production. While they’re not claiming to have everything perfect, the team continues striving for improvement and be less wasteful, but still super ambitious.
