Hitman's GOTY edition brings four new missions, elusive encores and more
Agent 47, created in a secret clowning lab
More Hitman is always nice, especially now that Io Interactive are a fully independent studio, no longer shackled to monolithic publishers. Starting their journey into independence, Io are reconfirming their ownership of the license by re-launching 2016's once-episodic murder simulator as the Game Of The Year edition, detailed here, adding a slew of new content including missions and escalation contracts.
Among the juicy extras will be a re-run of the one-time Elusive Targets for anyone who missed them first time round. Hitman will officially be returning on November 7th, and while a full retail price hasn't been announced, existing owners of the game will be able to upgrade to the new edition for $20. Check out the trailer as well as some extra details after the jump.
While some technical upgrades are coming in this new version of the game (revised lighting, reworked UI elements), the most exciting part of this relaunch/expansion is the Patient Zero mini-campaign. A new story arc consisting of four missions set in remixed versions of existing locations. Presumably something similar to The Icon, a free mission released some ways into Hitman's life, tasking you with the assassination of a vainglorious actor on the set of his sci-fi action movie in Sapienza.
Among the new content is three new outfits - the Raven, the Cowboy and the Clown as pictured above, each of which has an Escalation mission chain associated with them. I can only hope they're on par with the weird and wonderful antics you could get up to disguised as the mysterious Vampire Magician. Completing these costume-themed missions will also unlock new weapons to be used in other missions as you see fit.
While I'm sure some will be disgruntled at the idea of paying $20 to upgrade to the GOTY version, keep in mind that most of the sales of the game thus far had gone through Square-Enix, who almost certainly took the lion's share of the profits. Now independent, Io need some way of staying afloat until they can deliver a whole new Hitman game or second season of content for the first (Game Of Another Year edition, perhaps?). Given how cheap I got the game in the first place, I personally don't mind.
Lastly, one thing that Io have not made clear is whether this GOTY version will finally bring the PS4-exclusive Sarajevo Six missions to PC as well, or whether they'll forever be sweetening the pot for console owners.