Hitman creators IO Interactive are adapting the way the game is currently sold to the new reality of the studio, after Square Enix decided to retire their support in light of the latest financial results of the company. What IO Interactive is planning to do is dropping all the individual story episodes from digital platforms, pushing new customers to buy the Complete First Season package instead.
The most recent Hitman game was released in separate story episodes containing individual missions. All the episodes were compiled earlier this year in Hitman: The Complete First Season package which received a positive review from us. Now the studio is planning to push new buyers to purchase the full package instead of separate episodes, making a simpler proposition for potential new customers, and maximizing the economic potential of the game.
That doesn’t mean that people who previously purchased some of the individual episodes will need to pay full price again for the content they already own, as the studio is planning some ways for them to either purchase only the episodes they have left, or to receive an equivalent discount for the amount of episodes they already own.
Each digital platform will be affected in a different way by this strategy, but the end result is very similar among all of them. In Steam, the platform will detect which episodes players already own, so when they buy the Complete First Season package they only pay for the content they have left. Xbox One owners of the Intro Pack will be able to buy the Complete First Season at a reduced price, and still be able to purchase individual episodes. As for PlayStation Store, the Complete First Season will be sold at full price, and the individual episodes will remain available for owners of the Intro Pack.
The Studio claims that this new strategy will be the foundation of the “future plans for Hitman,” which definitely seems to indicate that there are new adventures of Agent 47 coming soon.
