The Tightrope Walk: Hitman Absolution, Freedom, and Realism

GamaSutra - Hitman Absolution director Tore Blystad faces a lot of challenges with the latest game in the franchise. The team has built an entirely new engine, Glacier, to power it. The believable environments it allows the team to craft, ironically, make the game - out later this month - more difficult to develop.

When your game is about sneaking through a realistic world, the things that aren't realistic stand out just that much more. And as all game designers know, there's another source of tension there -- because what's realistic is not necessarily fun.