"Hitman" has been around for more than two decades, during which time some films were clearly better than others. However, it is arguable that the series truly came into its own with the 2016 reboot, which culminated in a brilliantly done trilogy and ultimately a comprehensive package called "Hitman: World of Assassination" (open in new tab). Unfortunately for fans, there will be no new Agent 47 adventures for some time to come.

In case you forgot (I did), IO Interactive, the developer of Hitman, is currently working on a James Bond game (opens in new tab). This is a pretty big license, and IO's success with "Hitman" over the past half-decade is highly anticipated.

"Currently, there is a major, major new Hitman game: it is on a bit of a hiatus, because we are building another Agent Fantasy, which is also taking up a lot of our time. "IO Interactive's Chief Creative Officer, Christian Elverdam, in an interview with Eurogamer (opens in new tab), clearly refers to James Bond. 'But it's clear that we're coming back to our beloved Agent 47. He is still at the heart of this company."

The good news for fans is that World of Assassination, recently upgraded with the Freelancer roguelike game mode, will continue to be expanded.

"With such a great platform, we hope we can have our cake and eat it too, in that we can continue to experiment with what officials can do and what people expect," Elverdam said.

"And at some point, obviously, whatever the creativity," he added, "now, if we were to rebuild the sandbox in light of everything we've learned, what would that look like?

We still don't know anything substantial about IO Interactive's 007 game, except that it will be a "completely original (opens in new tab)" story detailing James Bond's origins. Maybe (and this is pure speculation) it will explore the backstory of the British assassin's first murder (opens in new tab); this is not all that IO is preparing: in February, the studio announced that it was also working on an "online fantasy RPG (opens in new tab). (Hopefully, both will be better than IO's last non-Hitman effort, the entertaining but not great "Kane and Lynch" (opens in new tab).) Successful video game series never really die, but given IO's hands are full right now, it's understandable that Agent 47 is given a bit of a break.