New Hitman is episodic, will ‘begin’ on December 8th

This year’s Hitman game will be a ‘digital first’ episodic release, although developer Io Interactive prefers not to use that term itself.

We’re doing things a bit differently,” the studio said. Hitman will launch on PS4, Xbox One and PC on December 8th this year as a digital download. That’s when the experience will begin. And it’s really important to us that this is understood as a ‘beginning’.

What we release on December 8th is not the full game. It’s a sizeable chunk of it. Throughout 2016 we’ll release more locations and missions until the story arc is done and finished.”

The developer won’t use the term ‘episodic’, however, as that model sets up the expectation that we will sell individual content drops for individual prices but that’s not something we’re planning to do”. The game will retail for $60, and while digital-only at launch will be released on disc at some point in 2016.

Io is also keen for gamers not to mistake the release for an Early Access title.

Early Access can often mean something unfinished or unpolished. That’s simply not the approach we’re taking,” it added. All of the content we release live to our players will be complete and polished, whether that’s the locations and missions we release on December 8th, the live events or the locations and missions that we will release in 2016.

It will always be a polished Hitman experience.”