IO Interactive Announces Hitman: Game of the Year Edition
Image via IO Interactive Games News Hitman
Hitman lives. Despite being abandoned by their parents at Square Enix, developer IO Interactive picked up the pieces as an independent studio while still retaining the rights to their Hitman franchise. After teasing some new content, IO announced today (via their website) that this will come in the form of a new game of the year edition of the critically acclaimed 2016 stealth game.
The centerpiece of the re-release appears to be the new “Patient Zero” campaign, which IO describes as follows:
After the routine elimination of a target, a contingency plan to unleash a global pandemic is triggered and Agent 47 must race against the clock to prevent a virus from spreading. This four-mission campaign spans different locations in the game, each one re-worked from the original settings with new gameplay opportunities, disguises, characters, challenges, gameplay mechanics, AI behaviour and HUD elements. Bangkok, Sapienza, Colorado and Hokkaido look and feel completely different with a new time of day and new custom music created by the composer for Season One, Niels Bye Nielsen.
New content includes a clown costume (Corky the Clown from Hitman: Blood Money), a “Raven Suit” and a cowboy outfit, all three coming with their own unique weapon and even their own Escalation Contract that utilize these pieces of content.
The re-release will coincide with a free update for all players of the game, which will add graphical enhancements (especially for the Xbox One X), a revamped user interface and an opportunity for players to retry previous Elusive Target missions, specifically for those who are new to the game or missed the events; those who successfully completed or straight up failed these missions cannot replay them.
The Game of the Year Edition includes the full game and all of the aforementioned new content, and will retail digitally for $60—owners of the original game can obtain the new content for $20. The release date for Hitman: Game of the Year Edition is sneaking up on us: It’s out for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC on Nov. 7. Check out the trailer below.