Hitman to return to its roots as IO reveals first details on PS4 & Xbox One project

IO Interactive has revealed the first details on its next-gen Hitman project, confirming that the series will be heading back to its non-linear, sandbox roots for Agent 47's next adventure.

[Hellsvacancy]

"ensuring the game will play out across huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels"

Now that sounds like a Hitman game to me, paint me excited

[US8F]

About time. The only path that fits a Hitman game

[Lord_Sloth]

Maybe there's hope after all.

[SnakeCQC]

I hope they make disguises back to how they were like in blood money too

[Noobz1]

I like this. They are open about it's development unlike many other games shrouded in mystery.

Game sounds good, the last one was just ok.

[SolidStoner]

and hopefully Jesper Kyd will be back..

take everything from previous Hitman games, make it sandbox and put something new in it and boom.. game I wanted is here!

[SilentNegotiator]

It's been a while since I've so much as had cautious optimism for a stealth game.

[thereapersson]

Wow, not a single disagree for any of the comments in this string. Guess people can finally agree on something...

[Raf1k1]

More than this, I'd like to be able to buy and choose weapons between missions.

I nice addition would be to possibly buy information about the local area and people thought that might make it a bit too easy.

[tablav]

This makes me VERY happy. Hitman is easily my favourite game series ever and whilst I do enjoy Absolution, it did lose a little of what made Blood Money so superb.

Shall be following this with great anticipation and, who knows...now that Kane and Lynch has finally gone away, maybe the dev time on this will be a bit more reasonable than last time around.

[DOMination-]

IO had to he one of the worst devs last gen with absolution and kayne and lynch. This sounds promising though so kudos to them for appearing to listen to what fans want and also to SE for allowing them the freedom to do so.

[showtimefolks]

can't wait to find out more

hitman absolution was an excellent game in its own right

[jessupj]

Had a feelings your would be the top comment saying what a good move this is.

Lets hope they don't screw it up some how.

[Hellsvacancy]

Square Enix are involved to some level so yeah, they'll screw something up about it buddy

[DanielGearSolid]

No unnecessary story please

[ShutUpDonny]

It depends what you mean by "unnecessary". The story is one of the most important part. It just need to be a good one. I liked the one in "Absolution".

[DanielGearSolid]

The main reason Absolution was so linear was that story...

Hitman games before it, get in do what you need to do, get out. Missions weren't unnecessarily linear because of some story elements...

For example the mission where the nuns attack 47 at the motel...

its literally Splinter Cell Bald Edition. Maybe Uncharted Barcode Head Edition if you go in guns blazing
Sneak past guards, kill enemy, get to point B
It just kills the open survey the area, plan out your attack, and escape, execute feeling

[ShutUpDonny]

@DanielGearSolid
You are right, but I just like to know why I'm killing someone, see some progression toward an ultimate goal and a plot twist or two. Let me kill the target and escape the way I want, but between the missions, make me care about the characters and what I'm doing. Keep it simple, but make it count.

Edit : I only player Absolution, so I can't really compare with the old ones. Maybe the ratio Freedom/Story telling was perfect. I don't know.

[BLAKHOODe]

@ShutUpDonny

Get yourself a copy of Blood Money. If you liked Absolution, you'll absolutely LOVE Blood Money.

[Moncole]

I liked the grindhouse story in Absolution.

[zyphee]

NO MAGIC POCKETS

[ninjahunter]

Hello citizen, is there a reason your carrying around a sniper rifle in your back pocket?
*I am not the hitman you are looking for*

[Eonjay]

I wonder how much processing power they save by not needing to apply TressFx to his hair?

[GarrusVakarian]

They're going to use it on his tie instead.

[neoMAXMLC]

Funny bubbles to both of you. lol

[oof46]

I would try and top this, but I can't. He's bald.

[Meltic]

This is gona be epic

[--bienio--]

And I do not have to say anthing about where is Pc Version haha nice!!😃

[kx11]

awesome news indeed

i like absolution a lot

[SilentSolid]

Sounds good so far :)

[YellowTempes]

The Hitman franchise will always deserve my money and especially now.

[Salooh]

Day one for sure :)

[LightofDarkness]

Whoa, that came out of left field. There's hope for this industry yet.

I think a lot of pubs and devs are finally going to try giving fans of long-running what they want, instead of trying to tell them what they want. Let's hope this is a sign of good things to come.

[AiirJordann23]

Yes, I love absolution still haven't beat tho. This year will definitely be interesting. Im glad the magic pockets are gone.

[ninjahunter]

Thats nice, now the concern will be dieing haha, Lets face it, hitman is a game of trial and error. Get to the end of a massive sandbox level, with no checkpoints, then die.

[MilkMan]

Let me clear. I was never that much a fan of Hitman, The last game had me mildly interested. But what I hated about the series I hope doesn't make it back and I have been playing them since the beginning.
The truck like movements of the character.
The stiff as hell controls.
The super AI, that knew what you did before you even knew what you did.
Make that disguise stuff optional and make it like it was in Absolution, cause in the other ones I was falling asleep.
I didn't buy new hardware to play the same fuqing games.
Keep the ideas fresh and bouncing and I don't mean "actiony" only I mean fresh. There were VERY good ideas in the last game.

I'm tired of all this bullshit of keep it the same. We are going on 30 years already if you want the same play the old games.

[HarryB]

This game is not fighting dragons, this game is not fighting for a control point getting kills streaks. The game is suppose to be you the hitman with an objective. Contracts was very very fun, absolution was okay. I still liked it. You set the stage in hitman. The first thing I do is guns blazing, and then I beat the game. Nobody left alive to tell the story. The 2nd time around I do things on expert. Each mission is different each time which is why I like it.

If they made DLC maps and missions like the other games bf4 and cod, I would buy them. They should keep putting out stuff, alot of people like doing missions for hitman why not new ones ?

[stavrami-mk2]

now were talking :=)

[CaptainYesterday]

Hopefully it's more like Blood Money less like Absolution, I'm not saying Absolution was terrible I did enjoy it I just wish it was more like the previous games.

[r21]

I will keep my hype low. Its good that they're learned something from Absolution and admitted there were problems. IO, please dont disappoint the Hitman fans this time.

[Zefros]

Make it like Hitman 2, i loved to go to different locations around the world like in Afghanistan etc. Hope they do the same it will be so much fun, can't wait! I think if they pull of everything right and bring it back to Hitman 2- style, it will be a GOTY contender in my book.

[NYC_Gamer]

I'm not going to allow myself to get all hyped after being let down by Absolution

[bigboss1990]

This is great news :-D can't wait! Lol

[Shane Kim]

1. Please don't make the story personal. I want to actually be a hitman again and not go on a personal frenzy killing everybody for some girl or a priest or whatever.

2. Make it open. I like the idea on how you can kill a target in different ways in Absolution, but I want the game to be much more open. Maybe even open world like GTA or something, I don't know.

3. Please screw the current disguise system where you this bar wich drains juice. The whole point to wear a disguise is so you can blend in. I don't want to get a disguise but still continue to sneak and hide to not get cought. It ruins gameplay.

[HeavenlySnipes]

I think I'm the only one that tolerated the Absolution disguise lol

It kinda makes sense that wearing the disguise of a guard won't allow you to magically blend in with them (but you fool people of other occupations). Wouldn't you notice if some random guy you've never seen before ended up on your patrol but he didn't come there with you?

Obviously it needed work, because in some of the situations, the guards/police/etc wouldn't personally know every single other person of the same occupation (like in the level where you escape the hotel fire and have to pass through a building past cops that flooded the area, it would makes sense if they didn't care that they don't recognize you because many cops from different stations converged there)

[MachineGunnTalk]

YES!!!! Im excited!!! As a huge hit man fan i can say Absolution was the biggest dog turd, biggest disappointment of my 360 days

[kornbeaner]

I loved Absolution, not sure what the gripe is about. It was a solid game, did it make a few miscues to possibly make it more causal friendly? Yeah, but even at that it was one of the more solid enjoyable games created last gen.

[urwifeminder]

People will still find something to cry about omg bad cover art or something.

[MasterofMagnetism]

Good news. I enjoyed Absolution but not as much as the older games.

[maniac76]

Back to roots lol. They all say that,once they played out the franchise. Thats like sayin metallicas sound is played out so they going back to wot made metallica,metallica lmfao.lets go bak to grass roots lol

[Ocsta]

This open letter type thing really strikes me. Well done IO.

[RSVater]

Good news. Definitely wasn't too pleased with Absolution. Lets hope they really go back to the roots with this new one. They honestly should have to begin with.

[saimcheeda]

But they over invested in it and tried to make the gameplay different than the one we were used to!