Developer IO is drawing a lot of ire from gamers after the Steam release of Hitman 3. Main reason: the pricing policy.
After a year of Epic exclusivity, the highly acclaimed Hitman 3 was released on Steam on 20 January 2022. But many gamers who had been eagerly awaiting the release punish the game mercilessly in the reviews. This results in a merely balanced rating average with currently 50 percent positive scores.
This is in stark contrast to our Hitman review, or even the average press rating of 87 on (Metacritic). Even the player ratings on Metacritic, which are often motivated by business policy during the controversial Epic release, come out much better than on Steam with 7.4 out of 10 points. So what’s the problem?
Significant rejection
Once again, a clear picture emerges that the negative (Steam ratings) relate to business decisions made by developer IO Interactive. Numerous users justify their thumbs down with the pricing policy for Hitman 3 and the new Trilogy collection.
Hitman 3 is far from finished, by the way, as the new content for 2022 reveals:
What the players criticise
Hitman 3 costs the full price of 60 euros on Steam in the Standard Edition. Apparently, many players expected a price reduction, since the game has already been on the market for a year.
Critics also attack the complicated pricing model of Hitman 3 and the also freshly released Hitman Trilogy, which are available in different editions. It gets really confusing for players who already own one or both of the predecessors and are now scratching their heads wondering which price might be ideal for them. Oh yes, DLCs are also available:
Some players also transparently state that they think the Hitman titles are very good games and that their negative rating only relates to the business model. For user (Flavor Savior), Hitman is one of my favourite brands, but he criticises the sales model, the online connection and the complicated transfer process:
[…] If IO Interactive wants to charge the price of a full re-release (or four re-releases) for a title that was released a year ago on another store, that’s their right. In the meantime, potential customers still have to consult a flow chart to determine what they’ll get with what purchase, deal with server issues for a single-player game that doesn’t require a constant online connection, and deal with an unnecessarily cumbersome progress transfer process that could have easily been replaced by importing a local save file from Hitman 1/2. […]
The author is apparently writing from the soul of many gamers. His review received over 1,000 Helpful ratings and dozens of Rewards. This is an extremely high number for Steam reviews. The total number of reviews for Hitman 3 is currently 562.
But we can send you off into the weekend with at least one piece of good news, because if you can get through the complicated purchase process, you’ll get a very good sneaking game for it.
