Fans of the Hitman series have no doubt been quite excited about the next installment in the franchise. Those same fans have likely been a bit confused about just how and when they are going to get to play that next installment, thanks to the way the developers have handled the launch. The good news is, IO Interactive and Square Enix both seem to be aware they’ve caused some confusion and are genuinely sorry about it.
IO Interactive head Hannes Seifert has said he is sorry about the way the game has been rolled out, though according to Videogamer.com he still believes the episodic launch is the right way to go for this game. In a recent interview, Seifert says the team started out thinking this game would be at least “sort of” episodic and then ventured away from that. The team wanted to make sure they were launching a AAA game but then eventually decided launching an unfinished work and bringing DLC wasn’t the way to go.
“All of these things combined I think made us detour from our original vision a few times, and now we’ve landed back on it [Episodic]. This detouring caused some of the confusion that I’m personally really sorry for. I think we should have stuck to our guns longer, although it’s controversial, but now we’ve ended up on what absolutely feels right. The game is written in a way that it’s episodic, the gameplay itself is that, and our technological platform to allow us to actually make the game better is built for that.”
It should be pointed out that the launch isn’t the only thing causing a bit of confusion. The company has said that anyone who digitally preorders the game will get access to a closed beta coming this month. Apparently those who preorder a physical copy of the full game, will not get access to the beta. We hope all this confusion gets cleared up by the time Hitman launches on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC this March.