IO Interactive performed a management buyout in June 2017, becoming independent and regaining the rights to their Hitman and Freedom Fighters franchises.

[7] As such, the team opted for a run-and-gun action game, as it took less time to develop compared to an MMO, drawing inspiration from John Woo films, such as Hard Boiled and The Killer.

[7] As executive producer, Eneroth encouraged the development team to stray away from the run-and-gun gameplay, and instead focus on a "methodical experience", including dragging dead bodies around the scene to create tension.

[7] He had previously worked on Deus Ex and Thief: The Dark Project, which had heavily exposed him to the stealth game mechanics he wished to see in Codename 47.

[8] The game was received well by critics; according to Greg Kasavin in his review for GameSpot, "Hitman 2 fixes virtually all of the problems of its predecessor".

[6] To properly establish the studio, 50 Hungarian staff were hired and brought to the company's Copenhagen headquarters for a six-month training programme.

[5] At the time, IO Interactive was Europe's 10th largest video game developer, with 140 staff members employed at their offices.

[36] In January 2009, Eidos Interactive announced IO Interactive-developed Mini Ninjas, a family-friendly game, as opposed to all of the studio's previous titles.

[6] Shortly after the announcement of Mini Ninjas, in April 2009, Eidos Interactive was acquired by Japanese video game conglomerate Square Enix for £84.3 million.

[39] Square Enix Europe continued to oversee their previously owned development studios, including IO Interactive.

[44] In a November 2009 interview with gaming website Gamasutra, Jørgensen revealed that, due to the high costs associated with living in Scandinavia, much of the company's graphic department had been outsourced to Shanghai.

[6] The Chinese office had been set up by two Danish representatives from IO Interactive, with one Dane permanently residing in Shanghai to look over the outsourcing progress.

[52] However, many fans of the series, including the developers at IO Interactive, felt like Absolution was leaning too far into the mainstream, as a result of which they were losing their core player base.

[56] In June 2013, 70 staff members, half of IO Interactive's workforce at the time, were made redundant due to "internal adjustments to face the challenges of today's market".

[57][58] Square Enix announced that, from that point on, IO Interactive would exclusively focus on the development of new entries in the Hitman franchise.

[59] At the same time, Hannes Seifert, who for the past three years had held the position of production director at IO Interactive, took over the company's management as studio head.

[64] Around the same time, Ryan Barnard, previously director of the game The Division, left Massive Entertainment to join IO Interactive.

[67] Seifert announced in February 2017 that he had left IO Interactive to return to his home country of Austria to pursue an unannounced project.

[69][70] In May 2017, Square Enix announced that they had withdrawn funding from IO Interactive and would begin negotiating with potential investors that would want to purchase the studio.

[76] The buyout also included the intellectual property (IP) for Hitman and Freedom Fighters, but lacked that of Kane & Lynch and Mini Ninjas.

[92] In November 2020, the company announced Project 007, an original James Bond video game, working closely with licensors MGM and Eon Productions.

[99] In 2024, IO Interactive introduced IOI Partners starting with the publication of MindsEye, a AAA title from Leslie Benzies's Build A Rocket Boy.