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Hitman 3 director jumps ship from IO Interactive to direct Crysis 4

After his impeccable work leading Hitman 3 in 2021, it would appear that Mattias Engstrom has left IO Interactive to join Crytek as Crysis 4's game director.

TJ Denzer

May 4, 2022 9:40 AM

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Mattias Engström did quite a good job in 2021 leading up Hitman 3 for IO Interactive. Throughout the year under his leadership, Engström and his crew gave us a grandiose variety of free and paid content in addition to the base Hitman 3 game, which was also excellent. It looks as though he’s closed out his work for IO Interactive and is moving to another crew, though. Crytek recently announced that Engström had joined its ranks and will be taking up the reins as director of its recently announced Crysis 4.

Crytek revealed Mattias Engström’s move over to the studio via the Crysis franchise Twitter on May 3, 2022. According to Crytek, Engström will be coming over to take up leadership as game director of Crysis 4, which was revealed to be in development in January 2022, earlier this year. There was no word of Engström’s exit over at IO Interactive. It’s unknown at this time if the exit was on good terms, sudden, or simple.

While Engström’s work on leadership of Hitman 3 can speak for itself over the course of the last year since the game’s impeccable initial launch in 2021, this move is interesting. After all IO Interactive still has plenty of plans in the pipeline for Hitman 3 Year 2 content. Earlier this year, it launched the Elusive Target Arcade, and later this year, IO Interactive will bring us a Freelancer Mode for the game, which includes a new customizable safehouse and an intricate network of targets that we’ll be able to hunt in various locations with gear and resources collected on the fly.

Nonetheless, if Engström brings it as hard at Crytek as he did for Hitman 3, then it would seem that Crysis 4 is in good hands. That said, with Crysis 4 still being a working title and Crytek hiring up for the game, we’re likely a ways off from seeing any substantial reveals for it. Stay tuned as we continue to watch for further updates.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.