Hitman 3 gets new maps, PC VR, and more in 2022

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The studio announced on Monday that the first anniversary of Hitman 3 is two months away, and developer IO Interactive has big plans for the game’s second year of existence, including the long-awaited release of new maps and modes.

“New maps, storylines and stories, modes and ways to play in 2022,” IO said in a blog post. That’ll be welcome news for Hitman 3 players, who have expressed frustration since the game’s January release that post-launch downloadable content — the $29.99 Seven Deadly Sins expansion, which IO rolled out in seven parts March through October — is reusing existing maps instead of introducing new products. (The Hitman 2 downloads provided two additional locations: a bank in Manhattan and a resort in the Maldives.)

Details about Hitman 3’s new maps, and about a “major game update” scheduled for this spring, will come later, but IO touched on one of the new modes in its blog post: Elusive Target Arcade, which will offer an “elusive better target formula change challenge.” Established in a fan-favorite game mode.” Most importantly, IO said that everything in Elusive Target Arcade “will be a permanent addition to the game.” This is a big deal for Hitman veterans, since the main downside to Elusive Targets as they currently exist is that they are time-limited events – there’s no way to replay them.

2022 will be a big year especially for people who have played – and are still looking to play – Hitman 3 on their Windows PC. The PC version of the game has been released as an Epic Games Store for 12 months exclusive, so it should be released on Steam and other PC storefronts as soon as the game’s first birthday arrives on January 20, 2022. We’ve asked IO Interactive for confirmation, and we’ll update this Article with any information we receive.

One feature of Hitman 3 that PC gamers have never been able to experience is virtual reality, since VR mode is so far available exclusively on PlayStation VR, whose support is limited to the PlayStation 4 version of the game. IO announced Monday that it will bring VR mode — which allows the World of Assassination trilogy to be played entirely in VR within Hitman 3 — on PC in January. The studio said it will provide details about headphone and platform compatibility later, prior to release.

PC gamers have also been waiting a long time for ray tracing graphics to arrive in Hitman 3. A year ago, two months before the game’s release, IO said it plans to add ray tracing “later in 2021.” But that release window has now shifted, with IO saying on Monday that it will bring ray tracing to the game sometime in 2022. The studio has only mentioned ray tracing as a PC feature — developed through a partnership with Intel — so don’t expect it to reach PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X versions of the game. You can take a look at ray tracing in action at Hitman 3’s Dubai and Chongqing levels in a video that IO released on Monday alongside its blog post. (In terms of specific ray tracing features, the clips seem to show ray tracing reflections to say the least.)

IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak appeared at the beginning of the video to introduce the studio’s plans for Year 2 of Hitman 3, and to provide two anecdotes linked to the game’s success: He said that Hitman 3 is now “the most successful Hitman game of all time,” and that the World of Assassination trilogy, which launched In 2016 with the hitman reboot franchise, it reached 50 million players. IO didn’t provide details about Hitman 3’s success metrics — for example, about whether Abrak was referring to player counts or simply unit sales — so we asked the studio for clarification.

In October, IO announced that sales of Hitman 3 had generated revenue of more than three times the game’s development budget, contributing significantly to the most successful year in the studio’s history. In addition to Hitman 3 content, IO is currently working on an original James Bond video game and an undisclosed project.

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