IO Interactive Showcase Summer 2025 Roundup

Technically, last week we covered the majority of Summer Game Fest. However, we are humans and not robots, so some of us needed to sleep, eat, and rest after writing (and editing) thousands of words at once. As such, I put the IO Interactive Showcase on the back burner for this week, so that I’d have a little more time.

This was IO Interactive’s first showcase, and it was meant to cover things like 007: First Light, MindsEye (prior to its release), and more. Let’s see how they did, and how this first showcase sets us up for the rest of 2025.

The pre-show opened with (weirdly) old content for Hitman, specifically a Sniper map called “The Pen and the Sword”. You will kill 3 targets trying to rescue a couple that the targets are trying to transfer out of the country. Agent 47 will have a new Sniper Rifle, and there will be Discoveries to find. As usual, there is cooperative play in this Assassination-focused mission for Hantu Port, which was released back in March.

As we get into the rest of the pre-show, I just have to comment on the sound quality. I know it was IO’s first showcase, but couldn’t they have gotten sound equipment that sounded better than two guys yelling at each other in a tin can? The sound quality was a little rough at first. It did get better as time went on, but yikes.

The next section (after a short interview with the Voice Actor behind Agent 47) was a gameplay trailer for the VR version of Hitman. Watching gameplay in VR is always fun, because it takes Hitman to another level with proper Dual-Wielding and a more up-close look at the gameplay.

The rest of the Pre-Show wasn’t really worth writing about. It was trailers and gameplay to keep people interested in the main show. As such, we’ll just move right along to the main showcase.

It started with a rundown of how Hitman has reached 80 million players and 20 million units sold since 2016. This is the 25^th Anniversary of Hitman as well, so a celebratory retrospective video was shown. There is a limited-time 25^th Anniversary Hitman: World of Assassination box, complete with a shadowbox and celebrity bundle. It will be available in limited supply at select retailers in October.

The next segment discussed the Le Chiffre Elusive Target, a crossover with James Bond. This was revealed in the main SGF showcase, but this segment went into more detail with gameplay footage. The footage showed off the different ways you can deal with Le Chiffre, from beating him at Poker, to more traditional Hitman methods. The Le Chiffre Elusive Target mission is available now for a limited time.

Next was a small, rapid-fire set of announcements. Hitman: World of Assassination is out for Nintendo Switch 2, Hitman VR has been updated and enhanced, and Hitman: World of Assassination is coming to iOS this summer.

I’m not entirely sold on Hitman for Mobile. It seems like an unnecessary idea, and I can’t imagine it running that well. The next announcement makes more sense, though. Hitman is getting a board game. A Kickstarter campaign for Hitman: The Board Game is coming later this year. A prototype (I assume) was shown off, detailing iconic characters and locales that you’ll compete with other players on for assassination jobs.

The last Hitman-related announcement was related to co-op missions. IO Interactive is creating a set of co-op missions for Hitman: World of Assassination. It is still in early development, but there will be two new playable characters for these missions.

Now we transition into 007: First Light announcements. They showed the same trailer as before but revealed that more information for First Light will be coming later this summer. It looks good, but I still need more to see how they are going to differentiate it from Hitman.

The next segment involved a discussion on IO Interactive’s game engine called Glacier, which allows them to port it to all manner of platforms. Now, we move into coverage for MindsEye, which has been maligned since launch. This is a reminder that I’m covering the showcase before release.

They started with gameplay for MindsEye, which was probably carefully curated to avoid performance issues. To avoid spoilers, they bleeped out a good bit of dialogue. They also used a more combat-focused bit of gameplay to start with, so a lot of things were thrown at the viewer at once.

Even in this gameplay showcase, I can see why some people are having issues with the game on a fundamental level. That isn’t the point of this article, though, so I’ll save that for another time. Despite the technical issues people are having, I am impressed by the wealth of custom-level creation tools they offer for MindsEye. I don’t think it will ever beat GTA’s options, but this is something different.

The next segment was a series of trailers for MindsEye and Hitman: World of Assassination (all of which we had seen before), leading up to a discussion on stage with a variety of people involved with Hitman, 007 First Light, and MindsEye. There was a bit of a technical glitch too, during the showcase at this point.

The panel was cringe. It was peak E3 cringe, and we haven’t seen that since probably 2016 or so. I also can’t help but be annoyed by how much they mischaracterize Agent 47. He takes on terrorists and bad guys, yet they talk about him like he is the evil one. It makes no sense to me. To soften the blow, I’m including a video on how IO Interactive adds accessibility in their games.

That concluded the showcase itself. You can watch the livestream below, which has a few extra interviews outside of the showcase. Overall, for a first attempt, it wasn’t bad, but I think they needed to focus more on things we didn’t see in other showcases. Most of this could have been compiled into a press email or folded into other showcases.