Amidst the fuss over Hitman’s Game of the Year Edition launching yesterday, developers IO Interactive also said a little about something unsurprising but quite welcome: a new Hitman game. Last year’s episodic game was a fine return to form for the sandbox stealth-o-murder simulator so I’m certainly glad to see IO continue.

“One last thing about our next Hitman game,” CEO Hakan Abrak said in yesterday’s announcement, “I want to let you know that we’re making great progress and we have exciting new features and some franchise firsts, which we can’t wait to tell you all about. You’ll have to wait a little longer as we don’t plan to start talking about that until some point in 2018.”

That’s it. That’s your lot. But isn’t that enough?

Let’s assume that when he says “new features” he means Ian Hitman can throw a handful of football stickers to distract whole crowds with a classic playground ‘scramble’. The other new feature is surely committing long-term murder by nudging targets’ lifestyles towards death from natural causes. You know: order double-decker Meat-o-rama pizzas to their flat every night, don a range of disguises to keep offering them cigarettes, pretend to be a plumber and replace their plumbing with lead pipes – play the long game. As for “franchise firsts”, he can only mean Ian Hitman will visit Blackpool and ride a donkey on the beach. Scoops: scooped.

As I said, it’s no surprise. I’ve been expecting this ever since IO confirmed that they’d kept hold of Hitman while going independent after former studio owners Square Enix ditched them. And since they muttered vaguely about future plans. And especially since they started posting job adverts seeking more people to work on Hitman. But now I can say: a new Hitman game is confirmed.