Man behind the hit Christian Elverdam

OXM Talks to Christian Elverdam, Creative Director of Hitman, About Elusive Targets, Going Episodic and Redefining What a Hitman Sandbox can be

- Tom Stone

After the mixed response to 2012’s Hitman: Absolution, the future looked shaky for the chrome-domed assassin with a penchant for fashion. Fast-forward to 2016 (and page 68) and the Hitman reboot has shot onto OXM’s GOTY list. Having directed both games, no one knows more than Christian Elverdam about the difference between a hitman and a shi… er, a not-very-good man.

Why end the game in Japan? What made this the perfect setting for the season finale?

Well there are a few different factors that go into that. First of all, for the whole season we looked at travelling the world in a physical sense. We go to Paris, we go to Italy, we go to the United States. You feel a bit like a globetrotter when you physically travel.

But then we also looked at the fantasy of the place you visit. So you could go to Paris and do many different things, but then we settled on the fashion show. We wanted this whole aspirational vibe. Two different fantasies – going to Paris and attending a fashion show – meet in that context. So it’s also a promise of the things you actually get to do there. Like infiltrating a biohazard lab, or with Colorado, the militia. Or experiencing what it feels like to be there in the hours just before a coup d’état in Africa.