Following its sudden pulling of pre-orders from the PlayStation Store late last week, Square Enix and Io Interactive are altering their release plans for their new Hitman title once again. The game will now be “a truly episodic AAA game experience, with a major live component.” So what exactly does that mean?It means when you grab the game on day one you’ll get a prologue mission and then one story mission (or location) set in Paris. That will run you US$15.
Hitman‘s second location, Italy, will arrive in April and a third, Morocco, drops in May. According to Square, Io Interactive will “deliver regular monthly content updates, including three locations; Thailand, the US and Japan until the season concludes in Japan later in 2016.”
The press release goes on to state that there will be weekly live events and “additional planned content” releasing in between the main monthly content drops.
“We decided to take the full leap and publish Hitman as a truly episodic game experience,” reads a statement from Io’s studio head Hannes Seifert. “Part of that decision is for that little bit of extra time to ensure every location we release is at the quality level fitting for a Hitman game. But the main driving reason is that this will allow us to create a living game that will expand and evolve over time and establish a foundation for the future – this is the first game in a storyline which will continue to expand with future Hitman games.”
As mentioned above, the Intro Pack, which will get you the aforementioned prologue and Paris location and will set you back US$15. Further locations will be $10 a pop. If going month-to-month doesn’t appeal, you can grab the whole game with the full year’s slate of content included for US$60. Or you can wait for the disc version that will release during the 2016 holiday crush.
Hitman is set to release March 11 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC. There will also be a beta kicking off February 12 for PS4 and February 19 for PC if you’re a Hitman fanatic just itching to get started.
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