Hakan Abrak has a lot on his plate right now. The IO Interactive CEO just watched his studio's biggest release in years, 007 First Light, lock in a May 27 launch date. GTA 6 got pushed to November. A mysterious fantasy RPG is quietly cooking in the background. And Switch 2 owners are still waiting. In a wide-ranging interview with The Game Business, Abrak addressed all of it.
How GTA 6's delay actually helped First Light
First Light was originally slated for March 2026, putting it just a couple months ahead of GTA 6's planned May window. When Rockstar pushed GTA 6 to November, the competitive math shifted considerably.
Abrak was refreshingly direct about it. "I would be lying if I said I didn't care," he told The Game Business, noting that the delay gave First Light "a bit more breathing room." At the same time, he wasn't about to celebrate a rival studio's setback. "GTA is a huge behemoth in our industry. We never wish anyone ill. They have their good reasons for pushing it. I am certain it's going to be amazing."
For players, this is genuinely good news. A new Bond game going head-to-head with GTA 6 in the same release window would have been a brutal fight for attention. With that pressure removed, First Light has a cleaner runway heading into late May. You can read more about why GTA 6 isn't coming to PC at launch if you want the full picture on Rockstar's platform strategy.
Switch 2 owners shouldn't panic, but should be patient
The PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC versions of First Light all hit on May 27. Switch 2 is a different story.
The Switch 2 version was delayed to summer, and given that Gearbox's Borderlands 4 recently paused its Switch 2 development entirely, some fans were understandably nervous. Abrak pushed back on that comparison directly. The game is up and running on Switch 2 right now, he said. The delay is about quality, not viability.
"I don't want to hear it wasn't a good version," Abrak said. "To be completely honest, we need a bit more time to get it where we want it to be. We said summer. It's probably going to be late summer. But we're going to get it out."
He also noted that the Bond franchise has a "special place on Nintendo," which reads as a clear nod to GoldenEye on N64. That context matters. IO isn't treating Switch 2 as an afterthought.
The Switch 2 version of 007 First Light is confirmed for late summer, not cancelled. IO Interactive says the game is already running on the hardware.
Project Fantasy is alive, well-funded, and further along than you'd think
This is the part of the interview that will matter most to people watching IO Interactive's long-term trajectory.
Project Fantasy, the studio's mysterious online fantasy RPG developed under a partner widely identified as Microsoft/Xbox through documents surfaced in the FTC's case against Microsoft, has been a source of real anxiety. Xbox has cancelled several projects in recent years, and the silence around Project Fantasy made it easy to assume the worst.
Abrak wouldn't confirm the partner's identity. "I'm not going to confirm or deny anything," he said. But he was unambiguous about the game's status: it "is in a very healthy place, it's still financed, and it's amazing." He also described it as "very far" into development, which is a more confident signal than the studio has sent publicly before.
All IO has officially said about the game is that it's a "bold new online fantasy RPG." That's still all we have, but the fact that Abrak is this bullish on it suggests the studio isn't just hoping it survives.
Hitman isn't going anywhere either
With First Light out the door and Project Fantasy in the pipeline, you might wonder where the World of Assassination fits into IO's future. Abrak answered that too.
"We are looking forward to get into the weeds with Hitman again," he said. "Rest assured we cannot wait to get into the engine room and upgrade, invent and innovate with Hitman."
That's not a roadmap, but it is a commitment. IO Interactive is juggling three major directions at once: an ongoing Bond franchise with First Light sequels potentially on the table, a fully funded fantasy RPG deep in development, and a renewed push on Hitman. For a studio of its size, that's an ambitious spread.
For the full breakdown of what IO Interactive has coming and how the developer addressed all these topics, the original interview with The Game Business is worth reading alongside the GameSpot coverage. First Light lands May 27, and the next few months will tell us a lot about where IO is headed next.
