A Hitman 3 Epic Games Store exclusive deal has just been announced by IO Interactive, killing any chances of a Hitman 3 Steam release for at least one year.
“[You’ll] be able to play HITMAN 3 on [consoles and PC], where the game will be available exclusively via Epic Games Store for 12 months,” IO Interactive said in an announcement (via Gematsu).
“As an independent studio, our partnership with Epic has given us the freedom to create HITMAN 3 exactly as we imagined and self-publish the game to our players directly,” the announcement continued. “It’s also important to us that we honour the time our existing PC players have spent in our previous games.”
On that note, progression and unlocks from Hitman 2 will carry over to the Hitman 3 Epic Games Store exclusive release according to IO’s announcement. Players will also be able to import locations from the previous two games of the modern trilogy onto the Epic Games Store version. IO Interactive wants this to be a “seamless process” so that players aren’t too troubled by the transition.
Hitman 3 will launch on consoles and PC via the Epic Games Store sometime in January 2021. If you’d like to wait for the Steam version, however, you won’t be able to get it until sometime in January 2022.
