Developer IO is drawing a lot of anger from gamers after the Steam release. Main reason: the pricing policy. In the meantime, there is compensation.
Update of 29 January 2022:
After the loud criticism of the pricing policy at the release of Hitman 3, IO Interactive is now trying to smooth the waters. Buyers will receive considerable compensation. Namely, all buyers will get a free upgrade of their respective edition, as the team (on Steam) announced.
Those who have already bought the Standard Edition on Steam or will still be buying it until 19 February 2022 will automatically receive a free upgrade to the Deluxe Edition. This contains, among other things, special escalation missions, the soundtrack to the game and the digital book World of Hitman.
On the other hand, those who have already purchased the Deluxe Edition or will purchase it until 19 February 2022 will receive the upgrade to the Seven Deadly Sins Collection. The Collection grants you access to seven additional missions, each of which deals with one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The upgrade to the Seven Deadly Sins Collection is also available to purchasers of the Hitman Trilogy.
According to the developer, the upgrade process should start automatically and is already underway. So those who have purchased Hitman 3 on Steam can already look forward to an enhanced edition.
Original news on 22 January 2022:
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, turn out to be 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 on another store a year ago, 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 easily have been replaced by importing a local save file from Hitman 1/2. ”
The writer 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 all reviews for Hitman 3 currently stands at 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 will at least get a very good sneaking game for it.
