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.[60] At a June 2015 press conference, Sony announced that a new game in the Hitman series, simply titled Hitman, had been slated for a December 2015 release.[61] The game was shortly delayed to March 2016,[62] and later announced to be released in an episodic model.[63] As such, starting in March 2016, the first season for the game was released through six episodes, the last of which was released in October 2016.[64] Around the same time, Ryan Barnard, previously director of the game The Division, left Massive Entertainment to join IO Interactive.[65] At the time, IO Interactive had 170 employees,[66] and was the largest video game developer in Denmark.[67]