IO Interactive has revealed it’s expanding to the UK with the announcement of a new studio located in Brighton, with the core of the new team at the South East England Studio set to “make significant contributions to the ambitious development and publishing efforts on all games currently in active development” including IO Interactive’s upcoming James Bond game, Project 007.
“We are extremely proud and excited to open our next studio in Brighton, where we see enormous potential to expand our incredible team and attract the very best talent from the exciting United Kingdom development scene. We’re eager to expand our operations to new shores and believe that IOI Brighton is an extremely appealing destination for developers of all crafts,” IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak said in a press release
This announcement marks the fifth overall studio for the Hitman developer, with the developer already setting up shop in Sweden, Spain, Turkey, and Denmark, IO Interactive’s main base. In an interview with GameIndustry.Biz, Abrak revealed that they’ve looking to open a new studio in the region but were figuring out exactly which city to open up the studio at and even looking at locations such as Leamington Spa and Newcastle, and Edinburgh.
They landed on Brighton because ” it just seemed that the energy was right… there are a lot of developers [here], it is very close to London, and it complements our other studios very well.” This may not be the end of IO Interactive’s expansion as Abrak teased that the developer could be “closer to 400 people in another year or 18 months from now”.
Project 007 was first revealed back in November 2020; the game is set to be an origin story for 007 and will feature “a wholly original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world’s favourite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first James Bond origin story.” As for the game’s other work, the Hitman series is “a little bit on hiatus,” according to IO Interactive creative officer and co-owner Christian Elverdam in an interview with Eurogamer. Although Project Fantasy is another being worked on which we honestly don’t know too much about other than it is rumoured to be an Xbox exclusive
