IO Interactive, the studio that makes the Hitman games, announced in 2023 that it is building a new fantasy role-playing game called Project Fantasy. It is the studio's first game in this genre, and it is being designed entirely from scratch with no existing story or characters to build on.

IO Interactive's project page says the game is built to "entertain players and scale over many years." This means it is a live-service game — one that stays online, receives regular updates, and keeps players coming back over a long time, rather than a game you buy once and complete. The studio has not shared an engine, which platforms it will be on, or when it will launch.

This announcement matters because IO Interactive has spent nearly thirty years focused on Agent 47 and Hitman. The most recent Hitman games — released in 2016, 2018, and 2021 — sold well and received strong reviews. The studio is also working on a James Bond game. Adding a third major project in a completely new genre is a significant expansion. It means the studio will need more people and more money.

Fantasy RPGs that run online are expensive and risky. They cost a lot to build and maintain. They need new content released regularly, or players stop playing and move to something else. The gaming industry has seen many of these games fail, even with huge budgets. Games like WildStar and Anthem had funding and talent but did not survive. IO Interactive has built impressive games before, but running a persistent online world with constant updates is different work than what the studio is known for.

When a game company says it is designed to "scale for many years," it usually means they plan to make money from players over a long time through updates and extras, rather than from a single purchase. This approach can work — Final Fantasy XIV did it successfully — but it also means the studio has to keep delivering for years. IO Interactive and its investors will need to stay committed for the long haul.

IO Interactive is owned partly by its own employees after buying itself out from Square Enix in 2017. This gives the studio more freedom than most — it did not need a big publisher's approval to make Project 007 or Project Fantasy. The trade-off is that if the game costs too much or takes too long, there is no big company to absorb the losses. The risk falls on IO Interactive itself.

The studio's strength is in designing complex, clever game worlds where unexpected things can happen. Hitman games give players many ways to solve a problem, and systems interact in surprising ways. Building a fantasy world where those same kinds of surprising interactions happen is a much bigger challenge. The studio has the right foundation, but the work required is significantly different.

Right now there is no release date and no gameplay video. IO Interactive has announced its intention and shown it has the skill and independence to try something ambitious. But the distance between an announcement and a finished, thriving online game is enormous. The history of gaming shows that many studios, some larger than IO Interactive, have failed to cross it.