IO Interactive today announced the Hitman HD Enhanced Collection, a digital compilation of both Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Absolution, newly remastered for 4K resolution. Following the successful revival of the series in recent years, these classic Hitman titles will release on Xbox One and PS4 on January 11, 2019.
In a press release, IO Interactive detailed the technical capabilities of the remastered editions, with improved lighting, updated controls, and gameplay at 60 FPS, in addition to the 4K resolution. The Hitman HD Enhanced Collection was developed to bring these classic games on to modern consoles “with the attention and love they deserve”, upgrading texture resolution and formats, and providing support for upscaling.
Hitman: Blood Money follows the protagonist Agent 47 as he hunts down “The Franchise”, a group of assassins attempting to destroy his organization across America and further abroad. Hitman: Absolution, meanwhile, delves into the story of Agent 47, featuring 20 missions to work through as he pursues redemption.
The developers at IO Interactive are no strangers to remastering previous titles; last year they announced that the levels from 2016’s Hitman would be remastered for Hitman 2. This would later become available as DLC, and would be free for owners of the previous installment.
Since they became independent of Square Enix last year, IO Interactive seems to have focused on cementing the community devoted to the Hitman series. In fact, last year the developer Sven Liebold voiced ambitions to develop future sequels, hinting that they now had the freedom to continue the Hitman timeline in greater scope. While IO Interactive is still releasing updates for Hitman 2, work on a larger sequel in the series could well be underway.
The Hitman HD Enhanced Collection is set to release in digital form only, with no details of a physical release announced so far, and will be available for download on January 11, 2019.
