Hitman is a living sandbox, not an episodic game

In March of last year, publisher Square Enix kicked off a six-episode season of content for the latest Hitman game. From the outside, it looked like an experiment in a new business model, but inside developer IO Interactive, it made complete sense.

Hitman was one of my favorite games last year, and IO recently launched the entire first season on disc for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and that provided me an excuse to talk to IO creative director Christian Elverdam about the sandbox assassination simulator. This also gave Elverdam the opportunity to correct the record on one thing: Hitman is not an episodic game. Instead, it is a “live” game or a game-as-a-service where the developer frequently adds content.