IO says Hitman 3 Launch Recouped Development Costs in a Week

The latest Hitman title has set the bar very high for the future of the series.

Hitman 3 hit new records at launch with an amazing first week. But what caused this spike in sales?

January Release Date

Hitman 3 saw an increase of 300% in sales when compared to the launch of Hitman 2. As you can imagine, this has had a massive impact on IO's focus.

Hakan Abrak, IO Interactive CEO, stated that the change to a January release window is the main reason for the increase in sales.

By committing to this new release window, the game didn't have to compete with the release of other major triple-A titles in time for the holiday season.

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Hitman 2 had to compete with Red Dead Redemption 2 at launch which likely led to a massive fall in sales.

By releasing in January, Hitman 3 got the limelight it deserves and has been a massive pay off for IO interactive.

Other Factors

Abrak also realises there are a number of other factors that affected the game's success.

One major factor that possibly went into the game's success is the fact it was one of the first big games to launch on the next-gen consoles (PS5 and Xbox Series X).

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IO has now launched a new Barcelona Studio to support development on their new James Bond title, currently named Project 007.