For sometime now, it’s been known amongst some gaming circles that IO Interactive, the team behind the Hitman trilogy of games, has been working on two different titles: Project 007 officially, and the rumored Project Dragon. Now, a recent tweet from IOI themselves has confirmed that they’re starting development on a fantasy RPG.
We don’t know all that much about IO’s RPG game at the moment, but various hints and statements from IO Interactive and Microsoft employees could possibly point to it being a live service title, as Jez Corden of Windows Central said that he expects the game to continue getting updates for at least 10 years.
We do know that prior information by Jez about Project Dragon implied that dragons will also be involved, ruling over a massive, connected medieval fantasy world. Whether this means it’s some kind of open-world or shared-world MMO game like Destiny remains to be seen, especially since other than these little marketing pitches we’ve seen nothing about this new game beforehand.
It does, however, appear that the game that IO announced did evolve from Project Dragon. This might mean that before IO’s announcement, the game might have looked very different. Of course, without any kind of gameplay we can’t really make any guesses for ourselves. Corden, however, also said that the game might also be going multiplatform, rather than being Xbox-exclusive.
It will also be a very large departure for IO Interactive, who have only ever worked on mission-based games before with the Hitman trilogy. While those games had levels that were large and open so players could use any of a number of methods to kill their targets, Project Dragon promoting itself as a wide-open online RPG is an entirely different beast.
Live-service games have proven to be very difficult to keep running the past several years. Whether it’s the horrendous failures of BioWare’s Anthem, Platinum Games’ own Babylon’s Fall or Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers, those sorts of games often close soon after they’re released unless they’re well-developed.
While IOI’s experience with Hitman as a service game will likely help them a lot with Project Dragon, it remains to be seen just how well the game fares. Of course, that’s also if the game is still any kind of live-service game and Corden’s assessment of a 10-year lifespan is still accurate. Either way, hopefully we’ll see some info about it from IO Interactive in the near future.
