BAR REVIEW: IO INTERACTIVE SHOWCASE

by Charlie Wacholz

Editor’s Note: The IO Interactive Showcase happened back in June 2025. Mind’s Eye has been released, and the development studio behind it, Build A Rocket Boy, had moved to reduce their staff by around 100 (a third of the total work force) by the end of that month.

IO Interactive is making some exciting moves in the games industry. After buying its way into independence from Square Enix, the developer/publisher has managed to make one of the coolest AAA decisions in recent memory with Hitman: World of Assassination by straight-up giving anyone who bought Hitman 3 access to the entire rebooted franchise. This week, they’re publishing games starting with Mind’s Eye. And next year, they’re introducing the world to a new take on James Bond.

Big-boy moves mean big-boy events. This year, IO Interactive hosted its first IO Interactive Showcase: a glitzy old-E3-style press conference in all its glory, complete with celebrity appearances (I was in the same room as Mads Mikkelsen twice that day!), technical errors, “please clap” moments, and even a dance number. Being the baby of games media, I never got to go to E3, so this was a perverse, monkey’s paw kind of wish fulfillment as I sat hungry in the back row without so much as an olive to snack on.

Picture James Bond. He’s suave, sexy, stepping out of a cool car with a fitted tuxedo decorating his athletic frame and a gorgeous femme fatale on his arm. The moment he enters the room 007 makes a break for the bar, as he’s known to do. What’s he ordering? If you said Heineken, as MGM’s years-long brand marketing deals would want, kindly see yourself out. No—you practically hear it before it leaves his lips in a Brosnan, Connery, Craig, or Moore-like affect—“Shaken, not stirred.” This iconic swap of the classic (and proper, if you ask me) way to make a martini became inseparable from Bond himself and the martini as a whole.

So, picture my (admittedly frivolous) shock as both a Bond fan and enjoyer of a mop-water-filthy, dish-rag-dirty, spit-in-my-mouth-nasty, loaded-up-with-preferably-blue cheese olives martini when an open beer-and-wine bar greeted me at the ritzy, historic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood last week without a drop of gin in sight. First world problems, I know. And I understand. Martinis can get finicky for big groups when everyone has their own way of ordering. Plus, it’s not an easygoing crowd-pleaser, no matter how you order yours; it’s a recipe for wasted product among folks who may not know their way around a stemmed glass with olives and gin or vodka. 

And if you’re to do a Vesper martini—as ordered by Bond in Casino Royale—Lillet Blanc is ridiculously expensive. Plus, not every journalist or influencer is built like a bartender from the drunkest city in the US. A single martini is enough to knock out some folks, which you don’t want during an event where you’re presenting news. But they brought out food after! Why not a martini too?

The food itself was solid. They had mini egg rolls, bite-sized avocado toast, ropa vieja bites, and a shrimp cocktail so runny, it was practically a virgin Bloody Mary. Each bite was tasty; the kind of h’ors d’oeuvres you’d expect to see at a fancy, icconic hotel like the Roosevelt with epicurean influence and a light footprint in your stomach.

I think my favorite was the shrimp cocktail: it wasn’t so much a shrimp cocktail with sweet, thick horseradish-heavy sauce and full shrimps for dipping as it was a hybrid between an aguachile and a virgin Bloody Mary. With bits of plump shrimp marinating citrus and tomato-forward, zesty liquid, I had no choice but to drink the sauce like a mini Bloody. It also kind of reminded me of Leche de Tigre, which is the leftover marinating liquid used for ceviche commonly enjoyed in Peruvian cuisine, often taken like a shot.

Delicious bites aside, IO forgot to bank on something important: the hundred-something media, VIPs, influencers, industry folks, and streamers they bussed from Inglewood all the way up to West Hollywood in near-rush hour traffic on a Friday in Los Angeles had just sat through two hours of trailers and reveals at Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest Live event, which started at 2 in the afternoon. Add on another hour (really hour and fifteen) for the bus ride all the way across town, and another decent chunk of time for the mixer before the show, and then another hour and a quarter for the presentation and Q&A itself, and you wind up with a bunch of hungry journalists who haven’t eaten a meal in around five hours.

Small bites that, though delicious, didn’t amount to much for someone with my appetite just weren’t cutting it. Thankfully, there was an In-N-Out right around the corner! Now, I’m something of a fast food hater, with between two and four exceptions depending on sobriety, but In-N-Out happens to sit on both lists. I really admire their (relatively) sustainable approach to business that puts ingredients and employees first, and the quality of their product shows in the burgers. Even though their fries are like damp cardboard, cooling after no more than a minute outta the fryer, that Double-Double with chillis on it never fails to hit—gotta be one of the best burgers in fast food! I wolfed it down, animal style.

As run-before-you-walk IO’s first showcase felt, I’m glad to see developers like the Hitman studio leverage their independent success into new things. New publishers, when managed well, are great for the industry, and it’s good to see them pump those profits into new projects and other studios rather than the C-Suite. Here’s hoping next year will come with a firmer vision, heartier bites, and maybe even a stiff martini.