New 'Hitman' Game Set For March 11 Release, Will Include Intro Pack For $34.99

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By Rexly Peñaflorida
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Last week, IO Interactive announced that its reboot of the Hitman franchise was delayed until March 2016 to provide more content at launch. The developers are taking a different approach to this current iteration in the series by only making a small portion of the full game available at launch, with the rest of the content popping up in the following months. Now, the team is revealing not only a timeline for the content, but also pricing for different versions of the game.

At the top of the list is a definitive release date. We knew that it was coming out sometime in March, but now we know the exact date: March 11, 2016. Starting November 2015, players can pre-order the Intro Pack of the game for $34.99, which will contain all of the content set for release in March. This includes six campaign missions, three sandbox locations (Paris, France; Sapienza, Italy; and Marrakesh, Morocco), and 800 targets in the "Contracts" mode. Weekly content, which includes limited-time targets set by developers and promoted content from the community, is also included.

At the end of March, those who bought the Intro Pack will continue to get weekly content and Contracts for the initial three sandbox areas. However, they will miss out on three new sandbox levels set for consecutive release in April, May, and June, new campaign missions, and even more Contracts targets. To get all of this they can buy access to the full game for an additional $29.99.

Those who feel confident about buying the full game at $59.99 can pre-order it now to get access to the beta on PlayStation 4 or PC. There is no beta planned for Xbox One.

The creation of the Intro Pack is a sound move, considering that some consumers are skeptical about the fact that the full game won't be available at launch. This way, they can see if the first month's offering is worth an extra $29.99 upgrade. If not, they can walk away knowing that they didn't pay full price for a game that didn't deliver to their expectations.

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Rexly Peñaflorida
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • clonazepam
    I won't be supporting this. They just want to boost their numbers before the end of the fiscal year before actually having a complete product for that year. Besides that, I doubt it'll be worth as much to me anyway. Sorry for negativity ;) I should go finish the last one, but I keep getting distracted.
    Reply
  • Somasonic
    I just don't get the model, it's like it's DLC but if it's the single player campaign (among other things) being released later then they're just holding back the core game...? I don't think I can get behind this either. I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Hitman games so I guess this is the one I finally say no to.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    Just more anti-consumer pre-order wank designed to embarrass an incredible franchise. First Deus Ex, now Hitman. And it'll just keep getting worse until people stop pre-ordering.
    Reply
  • RCguitarist
    16703996 said:
    Just more anti-consumer pre-order wank designed to embarrass an incredible franchise. First Deus Ex, now Hitman. And it'll just keep getting worse until people stop pre-ordering.

    And what is the point of pre-ordering these days? It still baffles me that people do it. It's not like the boxed copies on the shelf at the local game store are going to sell out like in the old days. If they sell 1 billion copies in the first hour of launch...there will still be copies for anyone else to buy.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    16704016 said:
    16703996 said:
    Just more anti-consumer pre-order wank designed to embarrass an incredible franchise. First Deus Ex, now Hitman. And it'll just keep getting worse until people stop pre-ordering.

    And what is the point of pre-ordering these days? It still baffles me that people do it. It's not like the boxed copies on the shelf at the local game store are going to sell out like in the old days. If they sell 1 billion copies in the first hour of launch...there will still be copies for anyone else to buy.

    Yeah, exactly. There is no benefit to it, except for the DLC the marketing team tacked on as a pre-order bonus. And I suppose that's not even inherently evil, the same as DLC itself isn't inherently evil. If the pre-order bonus is just a bunch of skins or other cosmetic addons, cool, whatever. That doesn't make the game greater or lesser depending on when you bought it. But, when you start gating core content behind a pre-order wall, then yeah, you're doing the evil thing and people should not encourage this with their wallets. But they do.

    Besides that, I wonder how many people pre-order a game and then actually play it on day one, at midnight, the instant it launches. Probably not a lot of them. I bet the majority of pre-orders are played on Day 2 or Day 3, when they could've just bought it that day for no difference.

    Whatever.
    Reply
  • Alec Mowat
    I just don't get the model, it's like it's DLC but if it's the single player campaign (among other things) being released later then they're just holding back the core game...? I don't think I can get behind this either. I've always had a love/hate relationship with the Hitman games so I guess this is the one I finally say no to.

    They are charging less for an incomplete pre order in order to get out of the accountability of pre-order gone bad.
    Reply
  • clonazepam
    16704016 said:
    16703996 said:
    Just more anti-consumer pre-order wank designed to embarrass an incredible franchise. First Deus Ex, now Hitman. And it'll just keep getting worse until people stop pre-ordering.

    And what is the point of pre-ordering these days? It still baffles me that people do it. It's not like the boxed copies on the shelf at the local game store are going to sell out like in the old days. If they sell 1 billion copies in the first hour of launch...there will still be copies for anyone else to buy.

    Pre-orders were never really about how they benefit the customer. It's done for the company's financials. They want as many of the sales to count during this fiscal year as possible. (Japan's fiscal year ends March 31)
    Reply
  • torka
    I see nothing wrong with this.

    You pay full price, you get the full game. You pay less, you still get the game, just less of it.

    This is infinitely better than EAs "pay $60 for 1/8th of a game, and buy the rest later for $10/per increment" strategy.
    Reply
  • Shiseiten
    16703996 said:
    Just more anti-consumer pre-order wank designed to embarrass an incredible franchise. First Deus Ex, now Hitman. And it'll just keep getting worse until people stop pre-ordering.

    unless gamers want the pre-order stuff so badly or they want to quickly complete the game and re-sell it while it still has value.
    Reply
  • Achoo22
    I really liked the last Hitman game and if this one is anything like the last, even the description of the introductory pack sounds like a ton of content. Even so, I despise serialized games (the first Walking Dead showed me how much worse five one hour episodes separated by a month each are than one five hour experience), so I will be quite content to wait until the whole game is available at a steep discount.
    Reply