Brendan and I once had a podcast conversation about Hitman in which we predicted that IO Interactive would be limited by James Bond’s license holders MGM to a maximum of three toilet drownings, one fish spearing, and absolutely no duck explosions. While we can’t yet confirm specifics, IO’s franchise director Jonathan Lacaille has said that MGM were “a lot more daring than (the studio) thought” in a recent chat with Very Gary Computing.
It doesn’t sound like they restricted IO very much at all, actually, aside from asking them not to make 007: First Light’s Bond “a killing machine!”. Lacaille actually credits Hitman’s, um, restraint in helping them secure the license in the first place.
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“In Hitman, you shoot maybe once per level, or not at all, sometimes,” Lacaille says, which he thinks helped “open the conversation” with MGM. “If you get to shoot, you kind of fail the mission”, he says later. I have been harping on about this forever re: Hitman’s pointless amount of guns for a stealth game, and it is very nice to be vindicated.
This said, it sounds like First Light’s Bond might be a bit more gung-ho anyway. Hitman is “a very patient game,” Lacaille says, “versus First Light, the character – in a sense – is young and a bit reckless, and sometimes doesn’t have enough patience”. Which lines up with earlier comments about IO’s Bond being “more reckless” than Ian Hitman.
“If the other game is more methodical,” he continues, “this one will be more about making you think fast under pressure, giving you a lot of options and you have to think – right, or left, or do you take all these guards? Do you blow your cover? We bring you forward all the time. So in that sense, the game is probably not as open”.
But the game will open up more “when it makes sense to,” says Lacaille. “When we want to make an homage to what the franchise is about, which is sometimes very big stunts and cinematic moments”.
First Light is set for release next year, but IO have already spoken about the potential to spin out a trilogy from the game, as well as hinting toward Hitman-style post-launch missions, possibly with all the pisser drownings my awful heart could desire.
