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Hitman 3 Freelancer update delayed to second half of 2022

IO Interactive has revised a significant portion of the Hitman 3 Year 2 roadmap and one of its biggest additions won't be ready for its original release window.

Ozzie Mejia

May 5, 2022 5:00 AM

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Hitman 3 is in the middle of its Year 2 post-launch content window, but things are going to get shaken up a little bit. On Thursday, IO Interactive offered a clearer idea of what's coming up, but the Freelancer feature that was expected to release around this time won't be ready until much later. Instead, players can expect to see it in the latter half of 2022.

The following message was posted to the Hitman 3 website:

We see Hitman 3: Freelancer as the next evolution of Hitman and an entirely new way to engage with the world and characters that we’ve built into the World of Assassination over the last 7 years. We’ve concluded the main campaign with Hitman 3, but the world has so much more to offer and we didn’t feel as though we’d quite achieved everything we wanted to with Agent 47 in this trilogy.

In short, this mode is quite expansive and involving. It’s built for players that want to dive deeper into what a Hitman game can be and for that reason, we’ve decided to give it more time. The truth is that it’s a luxurious decision for us to make. Hitman 3 has been a success and with that, we’re able to give our team that extra time to tighten the bolts and make sure that the mode is as close to our ambitions as possible. We want it to land well and be a platform for Hitman players to enjoy this game world for a long period of time.

In fact, we’ve had several rounds of internal testing, and we’ve even shared playable builds with some of our trusted and core community members to give feedback and share insights after lengthy playtests. This was all done on their own machines and in their own homes to truly replicate what it will be like when we launch the mode.

The feedback from the playtests was largely positive and the mode is in very good shape. As we’ve said, we’re taking some extra time to tighten the mode up and improve several elements that we think will greatly improve the gameplay experience. Whilst we work on those improvements, we’re also preparing to dive deeper into the mode and share more of what you can expect.

With all of that in mind, we’re now aiming to release the Freelancer game mode to Hitman 3 in the second half of 2022. We think it will be worth the wait.

The continuing work on Freelancer has likewise affected the rest of Hitman 3's Year 2 roadmap. The 3.110 patch that was originally set to hit in April will now hit on May 24, while the Ambrose Island map will now arrive in July. To make up for some of these delays, look for additional Featured Contracts to hit in the weeks ahead.

There isn't much known about the 3.110 patch, except that it will add RayTracing to the PC version of Hitman 3. We'll be on the lookout for patch notes, so keep it here on Shacknews for the latest updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?