Seán McLoughlin, best known as Jacksepticeye online, is a very busy man. He's made a comic book, he has a coffee company, he is producing the animated Bloodborne film, and now, he's getting killed by Agent 47 in a new Hitman update. The creator will be added into the game as an elusive target for free starting today. Players will have a chance to take him down until November 25, so you've got time to find creative ways to kill him.
He won't be playing himself, however. Jacksepticeye is filling the shoes of a character that he describes as a "flanderized" version of content creators, particularly ones in the so-called manosphere. It seems like the character may pull a bit from controversial influencers like Jake Paul, Andrew Tate, and notable podcasters that have become divisive figures online. Ultimately, it makes for an interesting space for Agent 47 to operate in.
We got the chance to ask him about being in both Hitman and 007 First Light, how the Bloodborne movie is shaping up, and much more.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
IGN: How did all of the Hitman stuff come about?
Jacksepticeye: I mean, I get pitched a lot of stuff, I guess, just because I played various games from different studios, or I'm in a very fortunate position where people come to me sometimes and ask if I want to be in something cool. And this was one of those. I think because I played so many of the Hitman games before, it put me on IO's radar, and then we just kind of chatted naturally about different things and they floated this idea a while ago, and it just never really aligned.
We tried hard to make it work, but either I was doing stuff, or they were doing stuff, and then 007 [First Light] was coming out. So they were super busy on that and all hands on deck. So it took a while, but we're here.
IGN: Did you have any say in how you were incorporated?
Jacksepticeye: Yeah, I mean they're super collaborative. They immediately were like, "What do you want to be? Do you want to be you? Do you want to be somebody else?" Which I immediately was like, "Someone else; I don't want to be just me. So make up a flanderized version of me or just all content creators in general within the current landscape." So it's more fun to do that because then I get to live in something else rather than just trying to be me. And there's nothing to talk about when it's me. It's like, “Oh, I sit in my room, and I play video games.”
I'm busy, and stuff goes on, but most of it is like they're sitting at a computer taking interviews or writing emails or giving feedback. But when I went to their studio and met up with them and the writers and the people who made the level and everything, they were just like, "What do you want changed? What dialogue do you want?" They were really, really collaborative and wanted to make sure that I was happy with it. But I was such a fan of the work already. I was like, "I trust you guys implicitly." When I saw the dialogue they wrote, it was so funny that I was just on board immediately.
IGN: So you are basically an amalgamation of a content creator worthy of Agent 47's crosshairs?
Jacksepticeye: Yes. I'm in the sort of manosphere influencer space, so I am completely insufferable, and you will want to shoot me in the head immediately as soon as you find my character or do horrible things to him, which I guess is part and parcel for Hitman anyway. You have to be killing for a reason. But again, because it's just so funny and fun to goof around in that space, and we have a lot of reference material to draw from, and there's a lot of very funny slang that made its way into the mission. There are some lines that I'm like, "I can't believe this is being said around Agent 47 of all people." You hear [Agent 47 actor] David Bateson's voice come after some sort of looksmaxing phrase. It's so funny.
IGN: Did you learn anything about how the Hitman levels are developed through this process? As a fan, was there anything that surprised you about their creative process in putting these things together?
Jacksepticeye: The thing that surprised me most about it is just how fast they are at doing it. I don't want to give away too many secrets about their process because it's not my place to say, and maybe there's some stuff they don't want people to know, but just how fast and iterative everything was. Some stuff we changed on the fly when I was recording the lines and that was fine because there's so many systems going on in place all at the same time.
So seeing that branching path of you say this line, but now if you go here, here, here, or here, all this other stuff comes out of it. And I think seeing that in real time and just seeing how many lines of coverage we needed to get for how many different things, and it's not even just the stuff that 47 interacts with, you can just be walking around the level, you can throw a bottle, you can hit somebody else.
All of that stuff has to be so modular all the time. But the fact that it all works together so seamlessly, it was really cool to [see]. There wasn't anything super unique about it. It is just really, really hard work at the end of the day. But how fast they're able to do it, I think was what was really surprising. Some of the people on their team are some of the best in the industry, I think, at what they do. And in some ways they get a lot of credit for that, but in a lot of other ways I'm like, "This is way harder to do than you guys think it is." There's a reason Hitman is so unique in this space because so many other people probably tried it and were like, "F**k this, I can't. There's no way."
IGN: When officially did you start doing this? How quickly did this all turn around?
Jacksepticeye: I said yes to it a few months back, but again, we had been talking about it a year maybe. I forget the exact timeline, but when it finally started happening, it was like, "Okay, we're going to make it." And then because it's using some of the levels they've had already, it speeds up the process, which I am all for. I'm a huge fan of Fromsoft, so reusing assets wherever you can, if we're just getting more games and people have an easier time, amazing. So when I went in, I only recorded the lines a month ago and then they were just like, "Okay, all in, level's done, it's all polished up, trailer's ready." I was like, "What the f**k? How do you do it that fast?" And it's not like, "Oh, we can tell that it was done quickly.” We played and it feels like it should have taken way longer to do. They're demons at what they do.
IGN: I'd love to also ask you about that 007 role as well, just because that was cool to see you in there. How did that come about? Was it kind of the same thing of just like, "We've known you for a while and we want to figure out a way to make this work?"
Jacksepticeye: Yeah, I mean, I would love to say, "Oh, I'm just so good at what I do," that they simply had to put me in the game. But there are certain roles you get because of the cache that being Jacksepticeye brings. So I think it was also because we had been trying to do the Hitman thing in the background for a while and then didn't pan out. It was like, "Well, we can put you in this one and it matches." And I guess because they had Shroud and Khaby [Lame] in the game as well that they were like, "Well, it makes sense."
But when they asked me to be in it, I was like, "Can I just be a dude?" And they were like, "Yeah, we already just have you as a cloak room guy." I was just excited to do anything. I was surprised I got scanned in for it, which is funny because in Hitman, I think I look more like me than the 007, and they didn't even use the scan for the Hitman one. They were just like somebody was a fan of you at the studio and they wanted to do it and they just hand did it all.
And it looks phenomenal. It was so cool to see. I keep saying it looks more like me than me because the 007 one I look at and I'm like, "Yeah, I can tell it looks a little off and I don't have the long hair anymore. Hair's gray now, so a lot has changed in that time. But yeah, it was just because I was a fan of their games and they had a fun little thing to put me in. Whenever it's something like that, I'm like, please don't let me disrupt the flow. If you have no idea who I am, then you can just go along and see it.
IGN: Dispatch just hit five million copies sold. I know that the team behind that game has been expressing some interest in exploring other stories in that universe. I don't know if anyone's talked to you about that, but what are your thoughts on more Dispatch?
Jacksepticeye: I'm the same with everyone else. I just want more of it. I want to be Punch Up again. I mean, I wish I knew more about what was going on. If they ever need Punch Up back, I'm a phone call away and I'll be there in 10 minutes. I love that character and I love that world and I love the Debs. So whenever they're ready to or if they want to tackle more of it, I'm on board.
IGN: I saw that the Dispatch team is doing some writing on the Until Dawn sequel as well, which is awesome.
Jacksepticeye: I found out that they were involved at the same time everyone else did. It is one of those things that as soon as you see those names attached, it's like, “Okay, now I trust it inherently.” Because I kept saying a lot of the reason why Dispatch is so good, everyone put in incredible performances, but it's also the writing is just so good in that game.
When you're in the studio reading it, you are laughing in real time and the people they had directing the cast and everything, they knew what they wanted. They had such a clear vision of what this looked and sounded like. And I think massive credit goes to the people who wrote those characters because they feel so lived in and they feel so organic and real.
IGN: I also know you tried to take a crack at making your own game and that didn't work out, as far as I understand. Obviously that's just a learned experience though, regardless. I think it's always interesting to go through those processes regardless of the outcome because you learn a lot. Is there still any interest on your end of making a game?
Jacksepticeye: Yeah, I mean, it's always kind of in the background. I think what I learned from it, and I luckily have a lot of developer friends in every tier of the industry, the thing that people need to take away from all of this is that video games are really fu**ing hard to make. Even on the smallest level, you see the nuts and bolts of it and how they're made and how they're stuck together sometimes, and then other times it's just like it costs this much and it took this long because it's just a miracle any of them exist.
It's like magic when it's under the hood. But yeah, it wasn't progressing the way I had hoped. I mean, it was just me and one other guy trying to do it.