How Hitman Devs Turned Jacksepticeye Into a “Violent Narcissist” in Newest Mission

After spending years playing Hitman with his online community, YouTube Jacksepticeye has finally entered the World of Assassination—although not as himself. The creator, whose real name is Seán McLoughlin, portrays Finn Colton, better known as FinnVictus: a wealthy content creator, former children’s television star, exploitative employer, and suspected murderer operating from a constantly livestreamed compound in Hawke’s Bay.

The new mission, named The Host, is available as a free Elusive Target from October 29 through November 25, 2026, both for existing owners and through the game’s Free Demo. Agent 47 enters Colton’s compound as “thought leader” Tobias Rieper, ostensibly to appear on the Finn and Friends podcast, while avoiding the remote-controlled cameras recording almost every corner of the property. 

Speaking with 80 Level, Senior Game Designer Eskil Møhl and Senior Level Designer Martin Skov Ansdal explained how an earlier Jacksepticeye cameo in 007 First Light developed into a much larger dramatic role. Rather than portraying the famously upbeat creator directly, IO Interactive used his natural charm and knowledge of online culture to create what Ansdal calls an amalgamation of “the absolute worst parts of the internet.” 

Check out the game and the new mission while it's free until November 25.

HITMAN has featured several celebrity Elusive Targets, but Jacksepticeye brings a very different public persona: energetic, joyful, kind, and deeply connected to online creator culture. What was the starting point for turning Seán McLoughlin into Finn Colton, also known as FinnVictus?

Eskil Møhl, Senior Game Designer at IO Interactive: Seán is indeed kind and energetic and was also game to play the worst version of online creators in this installment.  

Martin Skov Ansdal, Senior Level Designer: We had a great experience working with Seán for a small cameo in 007 First Light. This inspired us to give him a much bigger dramatic role in HITMAN World of Assassination. Working with a YouTuber, we immediately thought of making his character an amalgamation of all the worst aspects of content creator culture. We went all in, on the knowledge that Seán would give this role a real authenticity based on his experience with that world.

How do you design a target around a real person’s recognizable traits without simply making them a caricature? What details from Seán’s personality, content style, or creator background helped shape Finn Colton as an in-universe Hitman character?

Eskil Møhl: There’s some caricature in here and satirical commenting on certain internet phenomena; Seán is playing Finn here, not himself.  His mannerisms and style as an over-the-top influencer couldn’t have been done by just anyone, so his background definitely helps make Finns’ far out persona somewhat believable.

Martin Skov Ansda: We look for their strengths as a performer and try to design a narrative that would utilize them. In Seán’s case, he is incredibly affable and has charm that cuts through to the audience on the other side of the screen. With Finn Colton we weaponize that effortless charm and turn it into a facade that gets gradually peeled away as the mission progresses. Finn Colton is a violent narcissist who performs charm effortlessly, and that makes for a great villain.

Elusive Targets need to feel memorable very quickly, because players may only have one meaningful attempt to study and eliminate them. How did that structure influence the writing, mission setup, environmental storytelling, and level design around FinnVictus?

Eskil Møhl: The ET concept has developed over time, and especially with the celebrities, the missions have typically become more elaborate. The targets should shine, and as most are very good performers, you really want some movements with them where they are up front and center. They can now be played as special assignments, so players don’t become overly anxious about messing up as they want to toy around in the levels with the main attraction.

From a game design perspective, what makes a good Elusive Target in 2026? How do you balance novelty, player freedom, challenge, humor, and the pressure of a limited-time mission?

Eskil Møhl: The player freedom and systemics are there as base and foundation. Then a lot of the ideas for narrative and fantasy and what level the ET should take place on comes naturally from who is up. With Milla Jovovich we had a chance to pay homage to a franchise we love, and we had a big old mansion, a ruthless pharmaceutical company, and a contagious virus, so that’s how Lilith came to be. Snoop and Haven Island seemed like the right combination.

Who wouldn’t want to be at a Snoop party on an Island in the Indian Ocean?  The well-known faces have brought something special and unique to the table each time. There is more often than not some underlying expectation of what flavor their mission should end up with. Humor and dark are then peppered in.

A lot of the humor and the dark bits come from the systemics themselves, but we also use the scripted dialog as a dial to turn up the lights or dim them when a moment calls for it.

Martin Skov Ansda: An Elusive Target has to simultaneously be a perfect introduction to Hitman as well as serve our hardcore fans. In some games, that duality might be hard to solve, but since Hitman is all about player freedom, we can design each mission like an iceberg – at the top we have an intuitive path which can be played without even having completed the tutorial, but then underneath we build layers of increasing complexity. The player can then choose to engage with the mission from whatever angle suits their level.

Since we now offer the elusive targets as Special assignments, the player can also replay the mission later and uncover the entire iceberg, this is the true strength of Hitman.

What were the biggest creative challenges in designing a mission that reflects Seán’s personality while still fitting the darker, deadpan tone of HITMAN World of Assassination?

Eskil Møhl: As mentioned, Seán plays Finn in The Host. A very different persona than Seán himself. How much of themselves the celebrities bring into a level differs. Snoop is Dr. Cane, but it really is Snoop. Mads Mikkelsen was the established villain Le Chiffre he plays in Casino Royale. Wiz Khalifa brought his performer and martial arts persona and so on.

Finn is a nasty piece of work but of course, Seán isn’t at all, though his knowledge of that world and him being all aboard on the concept made that part of creating the level a joy.  

Martin Skov Ansda: Agent 47 is a deadpan master of disguise and that conceit allows the character to fit into many different stories and environments. In some ways the game’s trademark dark comedy only becomes funnier the more outlandish the situation becomes. This allows World of Assassination to be incredibly tonally diverse.

This mission starts out as an overt parody of the content creator lifestyle – Seán’s performance is incredibly funny at first, but as the mission progresses and the mask peels away we see that Colton is a man with a pathological need for attention that comes from a place of trauma and we actually end up in a pretty dark place tonally

Can you walk us through the process of building Finn Colton as a character, from the initial concept and narrative role to likeness, wardrobe, animation, voice/performance considerations, behaviors, routines, and final implementation?

Martin Skov Ansda: We always play with our target’s public and a private persona and this duality is mirrored in the level design with public and private spaces.
Working with a YouTuber we immediately keyed in on the public persona as this high-energy content creator that completely dominates the private persona who is quite literally locked away in the basement.

How did the team approach level design for this mission? What kinds of routes, disguises, opportunities, environmental clues, scripted moments, or player-driven possibilities were important to support the target’s identity?

Martin Skov Ansda: In every Hitman mission the player starts in public space and breaks into the characters private space as they progress towards eliminating the target.

This level centers around a single house which is essentially a representation of Finn’s personality. Upstairs is the zany kingdom of a high-energy content creator but downstairs he has hidden away all his trauma and malice.

The player must descend while constantly being filmed by Colton’s remote-controlled tripod cameras.

HITMAN missions often work because the comedy, violence, and systemic problem-solving all emerge naturally from the space. How do you design assassination opportunities that feel specific to this target without making the solution feel too obvious or too restrictive?

Eskil Møhl: Creating a moment with some poetic justice rarely falls flat. These can be heavily scripted but that gives us a chance to create good narrative and theater. Then the systemics are always there to take over when things go another way. I think they help balance each other in the ETs.  

Martin Skov Ansda: It’s all about enticing the player to go down the most interesting paths instead of forcing them.

We present a target with a despicable personality flaw and then promise the opportunity for poetic justice. The player could always just pull out their gun and shoot Finn Colton in the face, but the promise of the perfect elimination, further exploring the level and the iceberg of dialogue and lore beckon the player to keep going.

In my opinion, this co-creative relationship between the player and the game is the single most important quality of videogames, and when Hitman peaks it essentially replaces the pure mechanical challenge with the joy of collaboration between the player and the game.

For players who know Jacksepticeye well, what kinds of references or personality-driven details did you want them to notice? And for players who may not know him, how do you make Finn Colton work purely as a Hitman target?

Eskil Møhl: The likeness of Seán and that it is him doing the voice we hope will be fun for fans of Jacksepticeye to experience. Finn is a very dark version of an internet content creator and, as such, would fit fine in the roster of villains in the Hitman universe, and Seán’s performance definitely helps to give Finn’s character all the more depth.

Martin Skov Ansda: There are many references and easter-eggs for fans of JackSepticEye, but aside from being an Irish content creator - Finn Colton couldn’t be more different than Seán. Finn Colton is a sociopathic content creator. He is written as an amalgamation of the absolute worst parts of the internet. 

HITMAN World of Assassination continues to support new live content years after its original release. What has the team learned about using Elusive Targets as a way to experiment with tone, guest characters, mission structure, and community engagement?

Eskil Møhl: WoA started out in an episodic format that wasn’t greatly received but it was quite nice to work this way actually. We could react and adjust continually and the new ETs have some of that energy. The ETs are self-contained stories which gives us a lot of freedom in what we can do with each as they don’t have to fit into an overarching narrative as the main missions. Releasing something is always exciting, and with the ETs it’s a much faster loop.    

Martin Skov Ansda: Mastery in game design is really about iteration, and releasing targets on a shorter timeline has allowed us to push ourselves beyond what was in the original World of Assassination. I think Finn Colton is a better character than any of the mainline targets I worked on.

Additionally, I think we have honed in on the quality that makes Agent 47 iconic. His use of disguises allows him to slot into wildly different narratives. As long as he has a target to eliminate, he can blend into the cast of an English murder mystery just as well as a psychological horror story about internet fame. This chameleon ability to adapt is what has given him longevity as a video-game protagonist.

Senior Game Designer Eskil Møhl
Senior Level Designer Martin Skov Ansdal

Interview conducted by David Jagneaux