Hitman Officially Becomes Episodic?

<p>Io-Interactive announces today that the Hitman title will have <em><strong>&&num;8220&semi;a change to the release structure&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;em> meaning that the title will be a <em><strong>&&num;8220&semi;truly episodic AAA game experience&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game will release on <strong>March 11th<&sol;strong> with just a single <strong>Prologue mission and a Paris<&sol;strong> location&comma; followed by <strong>Italy<&sol;strong> set to release in <strong>April<&sol;strong> and then <strong>Morocco<&sol;strong> releasing in <strong>May<&sol;strong>&period; The developers hope to deliver content updates every month&period; Three additional locations have been announced &lpar;unclear if they were already known&rpar; <strong>Thailand&comma; the US<&sol;strong> and finally ending the release schedule with <strong>Japan<&sol;strong> in late <strong>2016<&sol;strong>&period; On top of having monthly content they plan to release smaller content every week&comma; possibly cosmetic items&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This is what Hannes Seifert&comma; Head of Studio at Io-Interactive&comma; had to say about this new business decision&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em><strong>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We decided to take the full leap and publish HITMAN as a truly episodic game experience&period; Part of that decision is for that little bit of extra time to ensure every location we release is at the quality level fitting for a HITMAN game&period; But the main driving reason is that this will allow us to create a living game that will expand and evolve over time and establish a foundation for the future – this is the first game in a storyline which will continue and expand with future Hitman games&period;”<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The <strong>&&num;8220&semi;Intro pack&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong> which includes the <strong>Prologue and Paris<&sol;strong> levels will cost <strong>&dollar;15 USD<&sol;strong> &lpar;or regional equivalent&rpar;&period; Every other location pack will cost <strong>&dollar;10 USD<&sol;strong> each as an add on item to the <strong>&&num;8220&semi;intro pack&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong>&period; If you would prefer to buy the full experience it will cost <strong>&dollar;60 USD<&sol;strong> &lpar;or regional equivalent&rpar;&comma; the full experience cost will include all of this years content as the content becomes available&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Alternatively you can wait for the disc version which is set to release at the end of this year&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;For those of you lucky enough to own a Playstation 4 you will also gain access to <strong>&&num;8220&semi;The Sarajevo Six&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong> bonus contracts which includes one contract per location&comma; totaling to six contracts&period; These missions will see Agent 47 travelling the world in <em><strong>&&num;8220&semi;pursuit of six former members of a paramilitary unit called CIDADA&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;em>&period; These missions are exclusive side missions that have no tie into the main story and are exclusive to Playstation 4 users&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If you can&&num;8217&semi;t wait to get your hands on HITMAN early then you would be happy to know that there will be a beta which starts on <em><strong>&&num;8220&semi;<&sol;strong><strong>February 12th on Playstation 4 and February 19th on PC&period; <&sol;strong><strong>Players can guarantee access to the beta by pre-ordering the Full Experience or the new Intro Pack&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&ast;Note if players purchase the Intro pack and want to get the full experience you can choose the upgrade pack which is &dollar;50USD &lpar;or your regional equivalent&ast;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Let us know in the comments below if you think this was a smart move or not to release the game in parts&period; Does it show lack of faith in the franchise or are they under financial trouble&quest; Who knows but this idea seems like a weird last minute change&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Source&colon; Press Release&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;hitman&period;com&sol;news&sol;hitman-new-year-update" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank">Hitman News<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;