In 1997 Janos Flösser, a former Danish television producer, started ringing a list of phone numbers he had kept for ten years. In the late 1980s, making a programme about “cyberspace” for Danish national broadcasting, he had met a group of young Danish programmers who later left the country to make games for companies such as Sony and EA. By 1997 they had written a game engine. Flösser pitched it to European publishers with eight or nine game ideas, and one of them, about a professional assassin, “immediately fired everyone’s imaginations”. Eidos put up the money first. That was the start of IO Interactive, and of Hitman.
Fast facts
- Founded: 1998 in Copenhagen, as a joint venture between the developer Reto-Moto and Nordisk Film, with seven staff.
- People: founders including Janos Flösser (managing director in the early years), Martin Munk Pollas, David Guldbrandsen, Karsten Hvidberg and Jesper Jørgensen; Hakan Abrak (chief executive at the 2017 buyout).
- Engine: Glacier, written in-house; Glacier 2 from Hitman: Absolution (2012).
- Owners: independent to 2004; Eidos, 2004–2009; Square Enix, 2009–2017; independent again since June 2017.
- Games: the Hitman series from 2000, Freedom Fighters (2003), Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (2007) and its sequel (2010), Mini Ninjas (2009), 007 First Light (2026).
From Zyrinx to Hitman
Several of the founders had already worked together. Jesper Kyd told Wireframe that he met David Guldbrandsen, Karsten Hvidberg and Jesper Jørgensen through the demo scene, and that with them he started Zyrinx, whose Mega Drive shoot ’em up Sub-Terrania came out in 1994. Zyrinx moved to America as the internal team of the developer Scavenger; when that company collapsed, the rest of the team went back to Copenhagen. According to Edge, the company they formed there, Reto-Moto, dates from 1997, and it “soon created IO Interactive in a joint venture with Nordisk Film”, the Danish film company. Kyd stayed in New York, and scored IO’s games for the next six years.
Denmark had almost no games industry to join. Flösser told Edge in 2004 that the only Danish developer “of any significance” at the time was ITE, the maker of Hugo, so the team copied business models from British and American studios, and concluded that unless their games sold in the top five per cent, they would struggle. “These were scary figures for us,” he said. “If you have a dream of setting up your own development studio, you have to try. Otherwise you might as well go and work for the government.”
Hitman: Codename 47 came out on the PC in late 2000, published by Eidos, with bodies moved by a physics system that IO’s Thomas Jakobsen had built into the studio’s Glacier engine. It was criticised for its controls and its missing save, but Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002) fixed the controls, went to consoles and sold, in Flösser’s words, “over three million copies”. By early 2004 IO had 140 staff and a new headquarters on the Copenhagen waterfront, and Deloitte ranked it Europe’s 24th fastest-growing technology company. It had also made a game for another publisher: Freedom Fighters (2003), a squad-based shooter about a Soviet invasion of New York, published by Electronic Arts.
Eidos and Square Enix
In March 2004 Eidos bought IO Interactive while it was finishing Hitman: Contracts. Edge later reported that Reto-Moto’s founders then had to sit out a four-year non-compete clause, and reformed Reto-Moto in 2008 with developers from IO to make the online war game Heroes & Generals.
Under Eidos, IO made Hitman: Blood Money (2006) and a new series, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (2007), about two criminals on the run. When Square Enix bought Eidos in 2009 it took IO with it. The studio’s next games were the family adventure Mini Ninjas (2009) and Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (2010), which Edge found shot to look like handheld YouTube footage. The next Hitman, Absolution (2012), took six years and a new engine, Glacier 2. When Edge gathered Copenhagen developers at IO’s headquarters in 2013, Unity’s Joachim Ante said that the city had few big studios: “there’s basically… IOI.”
Independence
IO went back to the large, open Hitman levels in Hitman (2016), released in episodes and published by Square Enix. Early in 2017 Square Enix announced that it would sell the studio, to concentrate on its “key franchises and studios”. On 16 June 2017 IO announced a management buyout that left it independent and holding the rights to Hitman. “As of today,” said its chief executive, Hakan Abrak, “we have complete control over the direction for our studio and the Hitman IP.” The buyout came with job cuts.
Warner Bros. published Hitman 2 (2018); IO published Hitman 3 (2021) itself, and in 2023 combined the trilogy as Hitman: World of Assassination. The studio now also has offices in Malmö, Barcelona and Brighton.
Its next game left Agent 47 behind. 007 First Light, an original story about a young James Bond earning his place in MI6, was made with Amazon MGM Studios and released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 27 May 2026, after a delay from March.
Sources
- “The hitman and him”, profile of IO Interactive and Janos Flösser, Edge issue 135, April 2004, pp. 61–65: Flösser’s television background, the 1997 approach, the engine and game ideas, Eidos’s money, seven staff in 1998 and 140 in 2004, the Deloitte & Touche Fast 500 ranking, the new offices, Hitman 2 sales, Freedom Fighters.
- Heroes & Generals preview, Edge issue 240, May 2012, p. 65, “Origin story”: Reto-Moto founded in 1997, the joint venture with Nordisk Film, the sale to Eidos in 2004, the non-compete clause and the 2008 reformation.
- Interview with Martin Munk Pollas, Edge issue 257, September 2013, p. 144: Reto-Moto as “the parent company of IO-Interactive”. Copenhagen feature and round table, same issue, pp. 131–132: Glacier 2, Pollas as a founder of both companies, and “there’s basically… IOI”.
- Matthias Sundström, “A Symphony of Shadows”, interview with Jesper Kyd, Wireframe issue 23, September 2019, pp. 18–22: the founders, Zyrinx and the move to America.
- Game Developer, “Eidos Acquires IO Interactive”, March 2004 (web, secondary). https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/eidos-acquires-io-interactive
- Freedom Fighters review, Edge issue 128, October 2003: published by Electronic Arts. Edge issue 183, Christmas 2007: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Eidos) among the season’s releases. Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days preview, Edge issue 211, February 2010.
- Hitman: Absolution feature, Edge issue 229, July 2011, pp. 70–71: the years since Blood Money, Mini Ninjas, the Kane & Lynch games, the Square Enix takeover and Glacier 2. Edge issue 257, September 2013, p. 136: Square Enix acquired IO when Eidos “was merged with the Japanese publisher in 2009”.
- Wikipedia, “Hitman (2016 video game)” and “IO Interactive” (web, secondary): Square Enix as publisher of Hitman (2016); Mini Ninjas in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitman_(2016_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO_Interactive
- Adam Barnes, Hitman 2 review, Wireframe issue 3, November 2018, p. 56: the episodic Hitman; Warner Bros. as publisher. Nic Reuben, Hitman 3 review, Wireframe issue 48, February 2021, p. 98: IO Interactive as publisher.
- Game Developer, “IO Interactive goes independent, secures the rights to Hitman franchise”, 16 June 2017 (web, secondary): the buyout, Abrak’s statement, Square Enix’s plan to sell and the layoffs. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/io-interactive-goes-independent-secures-the-rights-to-i-hitman-i-franchise ; PCGamesN, “The Hitman series will continue without Square Enix”, 16 June 2017 (web, secondary). https://www.pcgamesn.com/hitman/hitman-season-2-io-interactive-rights
- IO Interactive, “HITMAN 3 to become World of Assassination”, January 2023 (web). https://ioi.dk/hitman/news/2023/hitman-3-to-become-world-of-assassination
- IO Interactive, website, office addresses in Copenhagen, Malmö, Barcelona and Brighton (web). https://www.ioi.dk/
- IO Interactive, “007 First Light launches globally today”, 27 May 2026 (web), and 007.com, “007 First Light game launches globally” (web): the release, platforms and Amazon MGM Studios. https://ioi.dk/007firstlightgame/news/2026/007-first-light-launches-globally https://www.007.com/007-first-light-game-launches-globally/ ; Hypebeast, “IO Interactive delays James Bond game, ‘007 First Light,’ to May 2026”, December 2025 (web, secondary): the delay from March. https://hypebeast.com/2025/12/007-first-light-delayed-to-may-2026-for-extra-polish