It’s been a long journey for the new Hitman series, which started with the Hitman reboot in 2016 and will come to a close with Hitman 3 later this month. IO Interactive’s work on the franchise has been interesting since it essentially adopted a live service model for a single-player title. That doesn’t mean it will be the default approach going forward though.
Speaking to VG247, which asked if making these types of “living games” would be the future, communications manager Travis Barbour said, “It could be, but not definitively. I don’t want to say that’s what we’re going to double down on and that’s it – I think it worked for what we wanted to do for Hitman.”
Barbour noted that “it depends on the game. It worked for Hitman; it fit the way we wanted to continue improving it. That’s not to say it’ll be the de facto model for us going forward.” So this approach may not work as well for, say, the developer’s upcoming Project 007.
Hitman 3 is out on January 20th for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PC, PS5 and Google Stadia. There will also be a cloud version for Nintendo Switch. Along with the classic assassination sandboxes that fans have come to love, the sequel offers new mechanics like Persistent Shortcuts which open up new areas and opportunities for future playthroughs. There’s also the new Camera Tool which can be used to garner new details and even gain the trust of a target’s rival by photographing their corpse.
