Eidos Life President Ian Livingstone has revealed another Hitman game is in the works, as well as details on other upcoming sequels, in an interview with Gaming Indians.

"We haven't even announced the game yet" says Livingstone, "So everything you hear about the next Hitman game is purely speculation at this point." He goes on to speculate that the game is being developed by series creators and veterans IO Interactive.

The Hitman sequel is perhaps little surprise, as all other Eidos franchises listed in corporate documents released in April were already known to have sequels underway.

Livingstone also reveals that the sequel to Kane & Lynch: Dead Men under development at IO Interactive is currently scheduled for a September release, though "these games often slip because the production times are so difficult to predict."

On Tomb Raider, Livingstone says "The next Tomb Raider, I think, will surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise. There are some remarkable things we're doing in the next Tomb Raider to make you say, 'Oh Lara, I love you so much!'" Oh Ian!

With Square Enix's $120 million purchase of Eidos now complete, lifetime sales figures of their major franchises have been revealed.

The information was provided as part of Square Enix's "Corporate Strategy Meeting," during which the company discussed "synergies" and presented materials on the "Eidos Integration."

Square Enix
• Final Fantasy franchise > 85 million units
• Dragon Quest franchise > 47 million units
• Kingdom Hearts franchise > 12 million units
Eidos
• Tomb Raider franchise > 30 million units
• Hitman franchise > 8 million units

Details on the sales of other Eidos-owned franchises, including Kane & Lynch (around 1.75 million units) and Deus Ex (over 2 million units), were also provided in bar graph form, along with individual figures for the various iterations of Hitman and Tomb Raider.

A number of IO Interactive co-founders have left the Eidos-owned Hitman, Freedom Fighter and Kane & Lynch developer to form a new studio under the name of Reto-Moto.

No projects have been announced, though the company noted it is "committed to redefining the online multi-player space."

Among the company's staff are Hitman director Jacob Andersen, previous IO VP David Guldbrandsen, former lead character designer Jesper Vorsholt Jorgensen, and old sound engineering lead Martin Pollas. All were co-founders of IO Interactive.

The four are joined by Neil Donnell, who served as an executive producer at Eidos Interactive.

Originally founded in 1997, Reto-Moto's first act was to create IO Interactive in a joint-venture with Nordisk Film. Publisher Eidos acquired IO in 2004.

Eidos Interactive owner SCi Entertainment has announced that it will be canceling 14 projects and terminating 25% of its staff under a new effort to restructure the company.

No details were provided on the canceled titles, though the company noted they were "unlikely to generate an acceptable return on investment or are not of appropriate quality."

Going forward, SCi will focus on what it described as its "cornerstone products," including Tomb Raider, Hitman, Championship Manager and Deus Ex. Of those franchises, new Tomb Raider and Deus Ex titles are known to be in development.

Other properties held by the company include Carmageddon and Kane & Lynch: Dead Men.

In addition to cutting 25% of its staff, bringing its workforce down to 800 people, SCi will also relocate much of its production staff from London to Montreal. The ... Read more