Hitman 2015 is now Hitman 2016 as it has been delayed to March 2016. As the 6th entry in the long-running series, Hitman 6 – or as it’s officially called, simply “Hitman” – will now get several months of additional development time instead of launching digitally this December as originally planned. Maybe this means a physical release will also come the same time as the digital release, which wasn’t the case previously (it was set to launch digitally several months ahead of a physical release).
Check out this gameplay video of Hitman 2016.
From the developers on the Hitman 2016 Delay:
It’s safe to say Hitman is the biggest venture we’ve ever undertaken at Io-Interactive. Not just in terms of scope and ambition but also in terms of the size of the game world itself. The playable area and density of our locations goes beyond anything we’ve built before. We’re striving to create a series of living, breathing worlds in those locations and we get pretty obsessed about every detail that you’ll experience.
On top of that, we’re going for a new release model where we put out a good chunk of the game when it begins and then release the remaining locations over time. We want to make absolutely sure you all get the best possible experience when you join, so we’ve made the difficult decision to move the initial release date to March 2016. These few extra months will mean we can add more to the launch content of the game, more than we had originally planned, and then follow with a tighter frequency of updates, which ultimately will create a better game for everyone. And in the end, that’s what we’re all looking for.
To give you a sense of the scale when it comes to our various locations, we’ve compared our Paris Showstopper mission to the largest level in Hitman: Absolution. As you can see, lots of challenges, plenty of space to set up death traps, and a huge supply of targets for Contracts mode.
Moving a launch date is never an easy decision, we know it’s frustrating to have to wait a bit longer for the game, but we truly believe it will mean we can deliver a better launch and overall experience. We’ll share more details next week about the full release schedule and scope of Hitman in general so keep a look out for that.
As always, delays can be hard to swallow, but ultimately, they are a very good thing.
This delay will ensure that Hitman won’t run into the kinds of problems we’ve seen with other recent titles, from Skyrim to Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Good on IO Interactive and Square Enix for having the conviction to delay the game.
Hitman 6 was originally a late December release, so it’s not exactly like it would’ve been lost in the shuffle, but it still would’ve had to compete with the holiday lineup, so it’s always better when a game gets pushed back. It will ensure that more people will play Hitman when it launches.
Do you think it is a good thing that Hitman 6 was delayed?