Hitman’s Game of the Year Edition includes new missions and more (update)

Hitman developer IO Interactive is releasing a Game of the Year Edition package with a new four-mission campaign and other bonuses, the studio announced today.

Here’s the synopsis from IO of the campaign, Patient Zero:

After the routine elimination of a target, a contingency plan to unleash a global pandemic is triggered and Agent 47 must race against the clock to prevent a virus from spreading.

Each of the four missions takes place in one of Hitman’s existing locations — Bangkok, Sapienza, Colorado and Hokkaido — but they’ve all been revised for Patient Zero with “new gameplay opportunities, disguises, characters, challenges, gameplay mechanics, AI behaviour and HUD elements,” said IO. The studio added that every location feels different because they’re set at a different time of day from their Season One appearances, and feature new music from composer Niels Bye Nielsen.

The Game of the Year Edition will also include three costumes and themed weapons to match: the Clown Suit (inspired by 2006’s Hitman: Blood Money) and A New Bat; the Raven Suit and the Sieger 300 Ghost; and the Cowboy Suit and The Striker. You can see all three outfits below. In addition, each suit/weapon combination will have its own three-stage Escalation contract associated with it.

IO Interactive

That’s all of the new content in Hitman: Game of the Year Edition, which, of course, also contains everything that IO already released as part of Season One. (Note that that’s not quite the case for the Windows PC and Xbox One versions of the game, since the Sarajevo Six content — a series of six bonus assassination contracts — will forever remain exclusive to PlayStation 4.)

For people new to Hitman, the Game of the Year Edition will cost $59.99 for a digital copy on PC, PS4 or Xbox One. Those who already own Hitman: The Complete First Season (either digitally or on disc) will be able to buy an add-on called the GOTY Upgrade for $19.99 via Steam, the PlayStation Store or the Xbox Store. The add-on will also be available to customers who bought all of the Season One episodes individually, or who purchased the Intro Pack and then the Upgrade Pack. Hitman: Game of the Year Edition is set to be released Nov. 7.

IO Interactive also announced today that it will release a patch alongside the Game of the Year Edition with a number of tweaks, bug fixes and other miscellaneous items (including enhancements for the Xbox One X, which also launches Nov. 7). The main thing to know is that starting in November, IO is reactivating Hitman’s celebrated Elusive Targets, a series of unique assassination missions that were each available for a brief window during Season One. (Until now, the studio had always said that once an Elusive Target went away, it was gone forever.)

For more on Hitman, read our full review of Season One. IO Interactive — which recently became an independent studio after its parent company, Square Enix, decided to drop it — has not yet confirmed a second season of the episodic Hitman, although the studio did retain ownership of the Hitman IP after parting ways with Square Enix.

Update (Nov. 3): IO Interactive announced details of Hitman’s Xbox One X update today, saying that the game will offer multiple display options. In “High Detail Mode,” Hitman will run in a native 4K resolution; in “High Frame Rate Mode,” will run at 60 frames per second. (The game already supports HDR on PS4 and Xbox One.)

Both settings sound like significant upgrades over the PS4 Pro features for Hitman that IO delivered last fall. On Sony’s system, the game offers 1440p resolution, and can run with an unlocked frame rate that rarely comes close to 60 fps.

Hitman’s Xbox One X update will go live on the morning of Nov. 7, the console’s launch date. The patch will be 4-5 GB, depending on the platform. For more, you can check out a trailer showing off the Xbox One X enhancements below.