Hitman Delayed until March 2016

Hitman Delayed until March 2016

 

It has been announced that Hitman will be delayed until March 2016 and that even with the delay that the game will not ship with all of the games content, with only a “chunk” of the game coming out at launch and the rest being released over time. 

This game is said to be the most ambitious Hitman game to date, offering locations which are not just larger than it’s predecessor but is also filled with much more detail, challenges and options in how to complete you contracts. 

 

we’re going for a new release model where we put out a good chunk of the game when it begins and then release the remaining locations over time.

 

This can be looked at in two ways, that the game is being launched in an incomplete state or that additional free post launch DLC will become available for the game in the future. Right now we do not know how the missing locations and other content will affect players of the game at launch, so we cannot say for sure how much players will be affected by this new “release model”. 

  

It’s safe to say HITMAN is the biggest venture we’ve ever undertaken at Io-Interactive. Not just in terms of scope and ambition but also in terms of the size of the game world itself. The playable area and density of our locations goes beyond anything we’ve built before. We’re striving to create a series of living, breathing worlds in those locations and we get pretty obsessed about every detail that you’ll experience.

On top of that, we’re going for a new release model where we put out a good chunk of the game when it begins and then release the remaining locations over time. We want to make absolutely sure you all get the best possible experience when you join, so we’ve made the difficult decision to move the initial release date to March 2016. These few extra months will mean we can add more to the launch content of the game, more than we had originally planned, and then follow with a tighter frequency of updates, which ultimately will create a better game for everyone. And in the end, that’s what we’re all looking for.

 

 

In therms of scale Hitman is much better than it’s predecessor, Hitman: Absolution, with it’s largest level being dwarfed by Hitman’s Paris level. 

 

To give you a sense of the scale when it comes to our various locations, we’ve compared our Paris Showstopper mission to the largest level in Hitman: Absolution. As you can see, lots of challenges, plenty of space to set up death traps, and a huge supply of targets for Contracts mode. 

Moving a launch date is never an easy decision, we know it’s frustrating to have to wait a bit longer for the game, but we truly believe it will mean we can deliver a better launch and overall experience. We’ll share more details next week about the full release schedule and scope of HITMAN in general so keep a look out for that.

 

Hopefully this delay will result in a much better release, but the announcement of the games new “release schedule” does leave me concerned about how much content will be available for this game when it does launch. 

 

You can join the discussion on Hitman’s Delay on the OC3D Forums.