Square Enix and developer Io-Interactive have today confirmed that their upcoming HITMAN video game will be episodic rather than a single standalone game. Despite the episodic nature of this game, it will feature a major live component.
HITMAN is set to launch on March 11th for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC gaming platforms. The first release will cover the prologue and Paris mission, and will be followed by the next location (Italy) in April, and another location (Morocco) in May.From there, HITMAN will strive to deliver monthly content updates, including three additional locations (Thailand, US and Japan) until the season concludes later in 2016. These updates will be complemented by weekly live events and additional planned content.
The ‘Intro Pack’ containing the Prologue and Paris levels will be available at a new price of $15 USD or local equivalent. Each subsequent location will be priced at $10 as an add-on item to the Intro pack. Alternatively, it is possible to buy the Full Experience up front for $60. This includes all of this year’s content as it’s released. At the moment this is locked to digital distribution channels (ie. PlayStation Store, Xbox Marketplace etc), but will be followed up by a Disc version by the end of 2016.
Hannes Seifert | Head of Studio at Io-Interactive
We decided to take the full leap and publish HITMAN as a truly episodic game experience. 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 and expand with future Hitman games.
