Square Enix announced something of a reboot for the*Hitman*series this week. It's just calledHitman*and is coming December 8.
It won't be finished then, though. It will be $60. There will be "no DLC or microtransactions."
Studio head Hannes Seifert explained toVideogamer, "It is fully complete at launch but it is not finished. What we do is we start the journey on December 8 and what we put out there is going to be a big game. But over the course of 2016 we'll add more locations, more missions and we'll have things like targets that only appear for, say, 2 days. That's something you can only do in the live world.
"We're not an Early Access game because Early Access games are unfinished by definition - you're part of the development. Everything we ship on December 8 will be completely finished, it will be a very polished experience. It's also going to be a very big game. There are other products that sell a game for $60 and then try to sell you a Season Pass for another $40 on top, so you spend $100 or $120 for all the stuff that happens later on. We said no, we don't want to do that."
As for what will be available at launch, what will be updated and how often, that's still unclear. But I'm willing to give this model the benefit of the doubt because*Hitman*seems to harken back to*Blood Money*-- it as bigger levels than it and*Absolution, plus up to 300 AI characters milling about at any given time -- and I have a distaste for season pass sort of things. This could make for an okay middle ground.
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