While the Danish team is working on Project 007 for MGM (or Amazon, since they already own the studio), it’s official what they’ll focus on afterward.

IO Interactive has confirmed that their game, codenamed Project Fantasy, will be an online fantasy RPG, for which they are looking for more people (senior combat designer, senior gameplay animator, senior game producer, lead gameplay animator, senior project manager), so they won’t release the game this year, and most probably not next year, which is not a problem, as the official announcement will stop the rumors about what the Danish studio’s plan will be “after James Bond” (because that’s what Project 007 would be). All we can see at this point is a concept artwork image.

The studio wrote, “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 complete 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 many unforeseen events, to the ever-expanding world with freedom of approach at 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 and intellectual property—an online fantasy RPG. A world and a game created 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. 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, and part villain. For everyone around that table, it meant creativity, imagination, building a world together, and a shared goal of 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—inspires us. It encourages the fantasy world we are building and illuminates how we make it. IO Interactive now spans multiple 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 worldwide with diverse personalities and skill sets 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,” IO Interactive says.

They’ve also released videos featuring some of the team’s leading personalities. At the moment, it’s better than nothing, as there is little point in speculating on a release date and target platform. A PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC trio seems logical, but in the meantime, who knows how much the cloud platforms (e.g., Amazon Luna) can strengthen…

Source: Gematsu