After spending most of his previous time wandering around Paris, Agent 47 has moved on to the fictional Sapienza, Italy for a new Hitman trailer.
The big curiosity surrounding IO Interactive’s upcoming Hitman (the sixth entry in the Hitman series) is variety. IO has stated that Hitman boasts levels many times the size of the largest ones from Hitman: Absolution, but we know little of how the game will play. Will it be the largely scripted set of encounters in the style of Absolution, where options were many but actual paths were extraordinarily linear and more narrative focused, or the more free-form style of Hitman: Blood Money and Contracts, with levels more geared toward exploration and discovery?
This is something that I think the new trailer for Hitman is attempting to answer. First gameplay footage only really explored the fashion show mission in Paris, which hinted at much more variety for player agency but never really granted a sense of the open world IO Interactive has been hinting at for this installment of the series.
The new trailer takes Agent 47 to the fictional Italian coastal city of Sapienza, and consists of zero story or narration – outside of Agent 47’s great “Check, please” at trailer’s end. It follows Agent 47 as he…walks around Sapienza scouting out murder locations to the tune of The Glitch Mob’s “Between Two Points.” It is certainly a great showcase for Hitman’s visuals, but also represents the type of design that IO is trying to implement for Hitman. Build a living world, and let Agent 47 (and the player) walk around in it and find their own way to the target – be it from that clock tower, around the dilapidated building, by the pool side, or from the sunny pavilion with a sniper rifle.
Hitman will, technically, be available on March 11th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, but thanks to its bizarre release schedule that isn’t exactly true. On March 11th, an “Intro Pack” of the full Hitman, containing Paris, Sapienza, and a third area, will be released for $35. Also available is the “full game” for $60 – the three areas from the Intro Pack, plus three other areas that won’t be available at launch and instead released in monthly updates. This is following a delay that pushed the game into March from December 2015.
Also, why is this game called Hitman and not Hitman: A World of Assassins? They keep using that tagline and it would be way less confusing.
