Hitman GO: on mobile, you should only do step-by-step strategies

Daniel Lutz, creative director at Square Enix Montreal, told the Gamasutra resource what difficulties he had to face when creating the Hitman GO mobile game and why the turn-based strategy was chosen as the genre of the game.

The main problem was the lack of experience of the development team.

The fact is that Square Enix has created a Montreal studio to work on AAA projects. Game designers, artists, screenwriters – all were preparing to release the next Hitman game on the console. Therefore, when Square Enix issued a task to create a mobile title, this, according to Lutz, came as a surprise to the team.

At first, Lutz admits, there was an illusion that it was easy to adapt the game. However, in the process, he came to the conclusion that it is necessary to come up with something that will significantly distinguish the mobile game from its console prototype, make it unique.

Moreover, Lutz emphasizes, it was necessary to take into account and meet the expectations of the audience. “We could have made Hitman an endless runner, but the players would hardly have appreciated it,” he says.

There were two finds that helped the title become a full-fledged project, and not just another port of a popular console game. The first was the visual style of the project: Hitman GO is made in the form of a board game. The second is a change of genre. A series of original Hitman games is made in the genre of stealth action. The mobile project has become a step-by-step strategy.

The choice of genre, Lutz notes, is explained simply. One of his game designer friends once said that it was worth releasing only two types of mobile games – games with short gaming sessions and turn-based strategies. Lutz himself does not consider this statement to be an immutable truth, but admits that he could not get it out of his head while working on the game.

The game, according to App Annie, managed to take 1st place in the ranking for downloads in 23 countries, which is not bad for a paid title (Hitman GO costs $4.99).

Other related material:

• Mobile Hitman came outHitman will arrive on iOS on April 17
• Square Enix is a Japanese video game developer and publisher.

Known primarily for the Final Fantasy series of role-playing games.

Square Enix Montreal is the Canadian division of Square Enix. The studio was created in 2012 to work on AAA projects. It was later repurposed into a mobile gaming company.