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Antoine Routon: So Square Enix Montréal was originally created to develop the new triple-A Hitman that's coming out. But then things changed around a bit, and the project switched to IO, in Denmark, and we were asked to focus on a mobile title. And when we started on what would become Hitman GO, we were literally just told to make a game within the Hitman universe that would work on mobile. We had all of this understanding of the franchise, as we'd been working on the bigger game for a year at that stage, so we knew what the game was about. At the same time, we had people in the team with experience of making mobile games, and they understood the constraints of the medium. So instead of going for a mobile copy of what you see on consoles, we knew we had to approach this differently. We had to preserve what we knew of Hitman, and transpose it in a different way.
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There are many reasons why it ended up that way, and I can't really pinpoint when we ultimately decided to take that game in that visual direction. We knew we wanted the physicality of a board game. And the other thing is when we were working on the triple-A Hitman game, our art director at the time really wanted to emphasize the "manliness" of Agent 47, the game's masculinity. We were putting attention on the quality of his suits, the material of his guns. We were taking this almost James Bond–like approach to making Agent 47, and in a way, that translated to Hitman GO, albeit in a very different way. We were talking, early on, about the game needing to be made of these "nice" things, and when we translated that into this board game, we wanted it to look like an object that a guy might really want in his man cave, you know? We wanted it to look desirable.
You say that some in the team thought GO was a crazy idea. But the game was massive on mobile, in the end. How did it feel, internally, to see that amazing reception for this game that could easily have been seen as a spin-off and little more?Read on Motherboard: Play as a M17 Hacker in This Cyber Espionage Simulator
Well, first of all I have to say that we got very lucky. We're thankful of that. And with hindsight, it's easy to see some of the ways in which we had an appealing game. GO is true to the Hitman franchise, and we'd worked so hard to capture that—so even though the gameplay was new, we felt fans wouldn't be alienated by it. They'll find that it is truly Hitman. So there are a lot of details in there, from the music to the mechanics, to many small things inspired by the previous Hitman games.
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I can see Hitman GO as a pretty great way into the franchise. I certainly know people who've tweeted that it's their favorite of any Hitman game. Do you think because it plays so differently than the "main" games, and is in many respects a lot more approachable—it's not terrifically violent, it doesn't have a load of buttons to learn, and so on—that it can be a gateway for newcomers to get into the other releases?
Yeah, we've seen it become a door for people to get into the franchise. We receive emails from people telling us that they'd never played a Hitman game before, but through GO, they've gotten into the universe. That's really rewarding. And we've totally seen people tweeting that it's their favorite of all the Hitman games, and that is really cool. But we had a rich universe to draw upon. In a way, it's the same thing you see in the Lego games, where they take something you know and twist it. And from a consumer perspective, that's always interesting.
There was no one, main reason to do it, but people had been asking us for it, and we figured that was as good a reason as any. We had Vita users wanting it, and if we were doing Vita, there was no reason not to do PS4 too. That gave us more screen space, so we could up the quality. So it made sense. It was really just: Why not? It was a cool thing to do. Because the game was made for mobile, we had to put a lot of extra time into making it work on console, so that it works with a controller.
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It's too soon to say! Dot, dot, dot… connect the dots.And in terms of adding content to GO that reflects the story of the new Hitman, is that something you're talking about?
We're not able to say, but I'll write this idea down now, and maybe use it later—you can take some of the credit. But I can't comment on that, right now.Gen St-Onge: We're working with IO, and considering possibilities. We have a very close relationship with the other Hitman studios. Another of our games, Hitman: Sniper, will get some updates. But GO, right now, isn't, at least at this time.Hitman GO: Definitive Edition is out now for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4. You can find more information at the game's official website.Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.