Video games have always thrived in creative iteration, and there’s no better example of a studio that’s benefited from this process than IO Interactive. When their debut game, Hitman: Codename 47, was released in November 2000, it was a janky hybrid of rudimentary stealth, third-person shooting, and the problem-solving mechanics of traditional adventure games.
Its wild amalgamation of ideas didn’t totally succeed, but it found its audience thanks to its slick presentation of underworld espionage. Over the next 25 years, IO took its ambitious idea for a definitive assassination sandbox from niche PC oddity to one of the best video game trilogies of all time.
