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IO Interactive announced today that Hitman 3 will be a one year timed exclusive to the Epic Games Store. This unfortunate news came about today after IO Interactive announced that pre-orders are scheduled to go live later this month.
The studio, now operating independently of any publisher, says that Hitman 3 pre-orders go live later this month for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Stadia, and PC via the Epic Game Store. The studio does confirm that it is only exclusive for a period of one year. This news goes along with the earlier announcement that Hitman 3 will get VR but only through PlayStation VR.
IO Interactive does justify their move. As they are now a truly independent studio, they say that their "partnership" with Epic has allowed them to "create Hitman 3 exactly as (they) imagined and self-publish the game to (their) players directly."
There is some good news for those that own the previous entries on Steam.
We are pleased to confirm that PC players will be able to carryover their current progression and unlocks from HITMAN 2 on Steam into HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store. It will also be possible for PC players to import locations from the previous two games into HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store. We want to make it a seamless process for our PC players to enjoy HITMAN 3 on a different PC platform and continue to enjoy the benefits of our World of Assassination.
I hope you are prepared for a bit of a murder mystery, because it sounds like IO Interactive poured a lot of TLC into this mission.
HITMAN 3’s second mission location takes you to a historical part of England known for its grassy meadows, rocky hilltops, winding rivers and dense wetlands. Dartmoor also has a reputation for myths, legends and mysteries – and Thornbridge Manor lives up to that!
The Thornbridge Mystery trailer focuses on just one of the Mission Stories available to players in Dartmoor. Besides playing detective and piecing the mystery together, you’ll have full freedom to explore and create your own plans. Today, we’re focusing on the ‘murder mystery’ element of the mission because it’s unique and something we’ve always thought about doing ‘one day’. We’ve even talked about HITMAN games as a ‘reverse murder mystery’ in the past. Typically, a murder mystery tasks you with figuring out how someone has died, whereas in Hitman, you need to figure out how to kill someone. In HITMAN 3’s Dartmoor location, those worlds collide as you can take on the role of detective to solve a murder and eliminate your target. Two birds, one disguise.
To tell you more about what it’s like working on the Dartmoor location, here’s Nick Price, Lead Writer on HITMAN 3:
“HITMAN missions are very complicated affairs with plenty of moving parts and lots of characters you are able to interact with in a huge variety of ways. In Dartmoor’s murder mystery, we are dialing all of that up to 11.
Every member of the family is a possible suspect and it’s been quite the challenge to make sure everything doesn’t fall apart just because the player wants to play around. In fact, that sort of behaviour should be rewarded in a HITMAN game, so we have been working hard on making sure that depending on what a player discovers during their investigation, outcomes might differ. It’s going to be great fun to see how everyone tackles this particular problem next year.â€
The Thornbridge Mystery trailer focuses on just one of the Mission Stories available to players in Dartmoor. Besides playing detective and piecing the mystery together, you’ll have full freedom to explore and create your own plans. Today, we’re focusing on the ‘murder mystery’ element of the mission because it’s unique and something we’ve always thought about doing ‘one day’. We’ve even talked about HITMAN games as a ‘reverse murder mystery’ in the past. Typically, a murder mystery tasks you with figuring out how someone has died, whereas in Hitman, you need to figure out how to kill someone. In HITMAN 3’s Dartmoor location, those worlds collide as you can take on the role of detective to solve a murder and eliminate your target. Two birds, one disguise.
To tell you more about what it’s like working on the Dartmoor location, here’s Nick Price, Lead Writer on HITMAN 3:
“HITMAN missions are very complicated affairs with plenty of moving parts and lots of characters you are able to interact with in a huge variety of ways. In Dartmoor’s murder mystery, we are dialing all of that up to 11.
Every member of the family is a possible suspect and it’s been quite the challenge to make sure everything doesn’t fall apart just because the player wants to play around. In fact, that sort of behaviour should be rewarded in a HITMAN game, so we have been working hard on making sure that depending on what a player discovers during their investigation, outcomes might differ. It’s going to be great fun to see how everyone tackles this particular problem next year.â€
