When you hear the name – IO Interactive you immediately think of the Hitman games, right? Well, it looks like the longtime Hitman developer currently working on a James Bond game might be taking a U-turn with another project, the studio has officially announced a new IP known as ‘Project Fantasy’, according to a blog post on the developer’s website. Now the difference between this and the studio’s past games is that ‘Project Fantasy’ is set to be an online RPG and you know it takes place in a fantasy world, very much different from Hitman, right?
“We are embarking on a new adventure, one that expands our creativity, our capabilities, and in some sense our identity. We are building a new world, a new IP – an online fantasy RPG. A world and a game built from the core to entertain players and expand for many years to come. It feels familiar, yet at the same time, IOI is going on a journey unlike any we have been on before,” Hitman developer IO Interactive said in a statement.
“This idea – that a diverse group of individuals with different skills and strengths can work together and become more than the sum of their parts – is what inspires us. It inspires the fantasy world we are building – and it inspires how we build it. IOI now spans multiple distinct studios, from Copenhagen and Malmö in the north to warm Barcelona in the south. All studios take part in making all our games, including this new endeavour. People from all over the world with diverse personalities and skill sets are coming together to forge a new beginning.”
It sounds like the real development ‘journey’ on IO’s unnamed Fantasy game has just started as they add they’re still looking for developers who share their dream to join the team or connect with them at GDC this March. Now, this may or may not be the first time we’ve heard about the game in an unofficial capacity as back in April 2021 Windows Central reported that IO was working on a similar new IP known as ‘Project Dragon’ at the time.
The working title was described more so as a live service multiplayer game that would feature a “connected-world RPG” design similar to games like Destiny 2 in a World of Warcraft-like lense. At the time Microsoft was reportedly involved in development possibly as a publisher which may mean the game could be exclusive to Xbox – probably launching day and date on Game Pass.
As for Project Fantasy, no specifics on that end were confirmed just an early announcement of what IO is working on, so we’ll just have to keep an eye out until more details are revealed in the future.
