Square Enix cancels Hitman pre-orders on PlayStation Store, says 'don't panic'

Some Hitman fans who pre-ordered Agent 47's upcoming game — which is simply called Hitman — received a rather ominous sounding message from Sony today, informing them that their pre-order had been canceled by Square Enix.

Here's the message, posted by Videogamer's David Scammell on Twitter:

Thank you for pre-ordering Hitman. The publisher has notified us that the configuration of the product you pre-ordered has changed significantly. As a result we have withdrawn the current pre-order from PlayStation Store and will cancel all pre-orders. You will receive an email confirmation when your pre-order has been cancelled. A revised pre-order for Hitman will be available on the store soon.

That message matches a notice posted by PlayStation support staff on the company's forums. Videogamer reported yesterday that the European PlayStation Store listing for Hitman had been temporarily pulled.

A statement from Square Enix urges calm and says that Hitman's release date hasn't changed.

"If your Hitman pre-order is cancelled, don't panic," the company said on the official Hitman Twitter account. "Release date is still March 11th. We're adjusting a few things & will update in a few days. Sorry for any confusion."

Hitman's release has undergone a few changes since it was originally unveiled at E3 2015. Square Enix and Io Interactive originally planned to ship a smaller amount of content at launch with the intention to add more — more missions, locations and targets — as time went on. After the game was delayed to March 11, 2016, Io Interactive announced plans to increase the amount of launch content and detailed what was coming post-release. It's not yet clear if that has again changed or if Hitman's unusual content release plan has had an impact on how it's being sold.

The new Hitman is coming to PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.