This morning Io-Interactive posted on their official blog that they will be pushing the release date of the up coming Hitman title to March of 2016. While a pushed release date can always be a bit frustrating to us excited gamer folks, it's actually a different part of the blog that gave me a tiny twinge of heartburn. Apparently, the reason for the delay is to make sure that they release a good chunk of the game at first, with plans to release pieces over time. Hopefully this doesn't mean we see happen to Hitman what happened to Destiny. As the optimist that I am, I certainly hope that this "good chunk" is meaty enough to really satisfy my need for elegant, open world assassination. Perhaps Io-Interactive and Square Enix can actually get DLC right and help us feel less burned by finding out the game we're getting isn't the whole game. A boy can dream.
"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."
Along with the blog post, Io-Interactive also released an info graphic comparing the "Paris Showstopper" mission we got a walk-through of earlier this month to biggest mission in Hitman: Absolution.
