After releasing Hitman: World of Assassination, what’s next for IO Interactive? Easy: a fantasy game.

IO Interactive announced that it’s making an online fantasy RPG based on a new intellectual property. Right now, it’s codenamed “Project Fantasy”. Here is the company’s full statement post-Hitman:

“It has now been a decade since we first imagined creating a new “World of Assassination” for our HITMAN games. Seven years ago, we launched that world in its infancy and nurtured it to grow to comprise three full games, exciting new game modes, many additional locations, and extra targets. And more importantly, it has allowed us to build a bond with our community that has supported us ever since. We have gone from a strong vision, through a lot of unforeseen events, to the ever-expanding world with freedom of approach in its core that we have today.

Now we are sharing with all of you, that we are embarking on a new adventure! One that expands our creativity, our capabilities, and in some sense our identity. We are building a new world, a new intellectual property—an online fantasy RPG. A world and a game built from the core to entertain players and expand for many years to come. It feels familiar, yet at the same time IO Interactive is going on a journey unlike any we have been on before.”

The company is currently looking for staff for this project. Positions include:

• Senior combat designer
• Senior gameplay animator
• Senior game producer
• Lead gameplay animator
• Senior project manager

Here is more from IO Interactive about why they’re doing an online fantasy title.

“For many, this journey is also a deeply personal one that began long before we started making games for a living—and it started with the fantasy genre. From the Fighting Fantasy books compelling you to choose your path, alone, against wizards, lizards, and thief kings. To the togetherness, camaraderie, agony, and delight found around the tabletop. For some it meant taking the role of a game master: Part storyteller, part AI opponent, part guide, part villain. For everyone around that table it meant creativity, imagination, building a world together, and a shared goal in creating a great game experience.

This idea—that a diverse group of individuals with different skills and strengths can work together and become more than the sum of their parts—is what inspires us. It inspires the fantasy world we are building—and it inspires how we build it. IO Interactive now spans multiple distinct studios, from Copenhagen and Malmo in the north to warm Barcelona in the south. All studios take part in making all our games, including this new endeavor. People from all over the world with diverse personalities and skillsets are coming together to forge a new beginning.

This is just the start of our journey into this new world we are making. We hope you sense the warmth, the danger, the togetherness, and the heart we put into it… And if you do, we would be honoured if you join us.”

For more insight on IO Interactive and their new project’s journey, check out the developer diary vids below.

We do wonder if they’ll bring in Jesper Kyd to do audio and music.