IO Interactive is celebrating a milestone year — Hitman’s 25th anniversary, a Game Award nomination for 007 First Light, and now one of the most unexpected crossovers in the franchise’s history: a limited-time mission built with Eminem himself.
And the studio’s creators say that wasn’t just a celebrity cameo. Marshall helped shape the tone, logic, and personality of the entire experience.
A perfect fit
When IO Interactive considered bringing Slim Shady into World of Assassination, they immediately saw narrative symmetry. CEO Håkan Abrak explained to Variety:
“One of the really, really cool things about Eminem as an artist is that he has these stories in his albums and his career, his alter egos and these things he creates. And it was super, super fitting when we got to agree on working with him that this would fit really well to the “World of Assassination” and “Hitman”. He’s killing Slim Shady, his old alter ego. So it just makes that storyline compatible with something in “Hitman”, where the theme and everything fits really well. It was a good combination and creative decision and he was just on it”.
“We were really inspired by ‘Death of Slim Shady’, the recent Eminem album, and that idea of kind of confronting the self”, notes “World of Assassination” writer Jen Simpkins. Apparently, that idea was attractive for Eminem as well.
According to Abrak, Eminem “was very interested and very cool to work with on this”.
As a result, this mission blends two worlds: Hitman’s clockwork sandbox and Eminem’s psychological lore.
Inside the design process
Creative director Christian Elverdam says the team approached this mission the same way they build all Elusive Targets: by dropping one disruptive idea into an existing location and letting the ripples reshape the whole space. “We create this Rube-Goldberg mission with endless options. Because of the tech we built, we can transform a location without rewriting everything”.
That’s how Hokkaido became the eerie Popsomp Hills Asylum, a warped nod to the Relapse rollout.
Also, it let IO create sequences that would break Hitman’s realism: dreamlike corridors, distorted mirrors, and Slim Shady’s obsession with weaponising music.
As senior level designer Håkan Almer warns, it would be a mistake to expect that “it’s the normal Hokkaido and the normal Hokkaido rules”.
“There’s definitely ways to explore and move around the level that people won’t be used to”, adds Jenkins. “So I would say, make the most of that you possibly can. And also, as a writer, keep your ears out, because you’ll hear not only some fun references we’ve written in for Eminem, but, as always, there’ll be clues in the gossip and things that should hopefully get you what you need to complete your mission. But expect the unexpected for sure”.
Writing Eminem into the Hitman universe
Narrative designer Jen Simpkins handled the strange chemistry between Eminem, Slim Shady, and Diana Burnwood. Admittedly, these voices do not usually go in the same sentence.
In fact, that was the area where game designers worked closely with Eminem. The goal was to make it easier to distinguish between Eminem and the Slim Shady persona. So, Almer explains: “The way we solve it is to have Eminem in your ears and then Slim Shady being the target in the level, so to speak. So you would have Eminem as the handle as a unique thing for this one”.
Crucially, Eminem voices all his lines, guiding Agent 47 through a nightmare that mirrors his own artistic arc – a confrontation with the self.
A rare collaboration
The mission feels like a fever dream, but it still plays like Hitman. Players have multiple endings, stealth and chaos options, and a puzzle-like target who reacts unpredictably. Maybe that is the secret of its success.
It is unusual for IO to work directly with a musician, but the studio says this one felt inevitable. The album narrative, the alter ego conflict, and the dark humour all matched Hitman’s DNA. And Eminem was all in, according to Abrak.
The mission is free for all players through December 31. One month to explore one of the strangest and most ambitious crossovers Hitman has attempted.
