Hitman's Launch Is Spread Over Four Months

Square Enix has provided the full details on Hitman's launch. The game's content will be released in batches throughout Spring 2016.

Hitman's initial release will occur on March 11th, 2016 following a recent delay. Players will be able to travel to Paris, Sapienza and Marrakesh to undertake six campaign missions. The Contracts mode, which allows players to create and share custom missions, will offer 800 potential targets between these three locations.

Right after launch, IO Interactive will start the game's live events. The live content will include weekly contracts created by the time, promoted community creations, and time-limited targets. Hopefully these events will tide you over while IO Interactive finished up the remaining missions. The full game is expected to be available by June:

Following March, we will release one new sandbox location per month in April, May and June. Each location will come with additional missions, signature kills and more Contracts targets – and of course new disguises, weapons and ways of taking out your target. April takes you to Thailand, May will see you visiting the United States of America and June sends you across the globe to Japan.

As previously announced, you can buy Hitman for $59.99 at launch to get access to the release version along with all of the post-launch additions. You'll also be guaranteed access to to the PS4 and PC. beta.

Some consumers weren't pleased with the idea of paying full price for an incomplete game. To accommodate those players, Square Enix is also offering a $34.99 Intro Pack on March 11th. This will include the launch content of the game as well as the live events and Contracts for those three initial locations.

If you want the rest of the game, you can upgrade to the full version for $29.99. It's a little annoying that Square Enix is going to charge $5 extra to players who would rather play it safe but at least you're saving yourself some money if you end up not liking the initial $34.99 version of the game.

Hitman sounds really good on paper. It's a step away from the smaller levels of Hitman: Absolution and a return to the large, sandbox maps of older games. These maps are said to be around 6-7 times the size of the largest Absolution levels and contain around 300 non-player characters. The checkpoints from Absolution will be ditched in favor of a save-anywhere system.

Pete Haas

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.