The studio's first project will be a new game in the Hitman franchise. The latest in the series, Absolution, is under development at IO Interactive in Denmark -- the creators of the franchise.
Was the new studio created for that purpose? "Kind of," says Singleton. "As a group, we identified the need for more high quality games and there's a limit to how much service our current studios can give our IPs. The natural solution was to investigate opening a new studio, and as soon as we knew this was the right answer, we needed to find the right IP for the studio in order to attract the right talent."
That doesn't mean that the series is done at IO, however. "Square Enix Montreal will work in step with IO Interactive so we can both contribute great games to the Hitman franchise in the future. We will increase the frequency of game releases, but we have no plans to migrate the franchise to Montreal in its entirety," says Singleton.
"We've not locked our tech solution yet, but we do have an option to use the proprietary Glacier 2 engine that's been developed by IO Interactive in Denmark," he notes.
