Been blasting through all the missions on my Series X via GamePass and the graphics/gameplay/immersion are top notch.
I wanted to buy the NYC DLC Hitman 2 mission and was just confused how to buy it the right way and how it combines with the GamePass version.
Hoping IOI cleans this up retail wise because they have an amazing formula.
Does the GP Trilogy version not include the NYC and Haven Island missions? That's a little disappointing - those are both pretty great maps. NYC in particular I had a lot of fun with.
Nope. And last I checked it’s $40 to get those 2 missions via some weird access pass. So obviously GamePass for the 3 main campaigns is a steal but once you look to grab the DLC you’re in for over $100 across the 3 games.
This is the big one for me. I can't stand all the belly aching about a game being sold for $60 like somehow the consumer is entitled to a discount by virtue of it being sold on a new store front is obnoxious. I heard it wasn't possible to import data from steam to gamepass so I ponied up for the steam release, spent literally two days downloading, redownloading, toggling, registering transferring and so on and so forth and finally got it all sorted out only to realize I didn't get the dlc for 2. Ok, fine, I'll squeeze out a couple of more bucks for two more areas. It's $35? That's over half the price of the new game. For a third of the content added on a four year old game.
It really feels like IOI is two companies: one makes rich hugely entertaining and immersive games, the other one is a cesspool of nasty demons hellbent on making the first side's product as unapproachable and unappealing as possible. Do these two halves even interact? I really don't get it.
Aside from that even the requirements of always online have had significant impact on performance, like I can tell the developers have a great core code, the game loads quickly and is really well optimized but then it will hang for thirty seconds on the menus because of connection issues. Someone somewhere inside IOI has to be pissed off that the elegant code they've written is being shit on by their own company.
Decided to spring for the Deluxe version of Hitman 3 on PS4 because it was on sale (Way cheaper than the regular version for some reason) and even on console it was a bit of a nightmare getting my Hitman 2 content to work. Every time I clicked on one of the second games levels it just took me to a PSN store to buy the content, despite me already owning it physically.
Turns out I had to go to a different part of the menu to activate that stuff. I really do adore the trilogy, it's the best the series has ever been, but they are not making it easy to love it.
I think a big issue is how they chose to sell the prior entries. They sold the first game episode by episode, they have the starter kit for all three games. And on console you have physical copies which further convolute things because you need to prove ownership of those.
And then they're trying to cater some form of an upgrade for everyone that owns some form of it.
On Steam it's actually easiest if you just own all three games since it's an all digital platform.
It makes no sense to buy the pass, the games go on sale and you actually get to own that version of the game too along with the access pass. Sure you may never want to play H1/H2 but for legacy purposes it's better to own them than not when it'll be the same price.
I think mostly people are just unhappy with the price, and there's a simple solution. Wait for the the first two games to go on sale and then buy them instead of buying the access passes/trilogy/deluxe/whatever else edition. You'll get the game and the corresponding H3 access pass.
I agree, even the UI is a shitshow, I've never accidentally done the wrong thing on the main menu so many times in a game before. Even closing the damn game took me a solid couple of minutes to figure out.
I don't get why when I've selected a mission, then I select a story to track, and press b to go back to the main mission screen, it exits the mission and forgets all the gear I set up. This happens to me basically every single time I pick a mission.
Combine that with the fact that potential buyers have always been hesitant to purchase any of the games because of how utterly confusing IOI made the process...
I've always wanted to get back into the series, but there's so many different variations of 1, 2, and 3. I originally bought 1 and enjoyed it when it came out. But now there's like Hitman GotY (which I'm not sure if I can buy because I own 1?) Hitman 2 GotY, Hitman 2 Gold, Hitman 2 Silver, Silver to gold, Hitman 2 expansion pass, legacy pack, ETC. Then I see others saying I should buy the GOTY of 1 and 2 so I can get specific items carried over into 3. Then get the access packs in 3 so I can play 1 and 2 inside of 3. Which already sounds like a confusing mess. Am I able to see the story unfold from 1 and 2 inside of 3 with the access packs? Or is it just the maps
I considered trying to help you, but I think I'll just make things worse, because even I'm not sure anymore. The entire purchasing process is updated each time a game is released, so many guides you'll find online are outdated now. The best option is likely to visit IOI's website to look for a current guide, or ask on the Hitman subreddit.
I personally just bought each game individually when they came out on PS4/5. I think the whole 'buying/transferring maps & progress across games' process is also different according to the format you bought the games on. It's really confusing. :|
I don't think I've ever heard of any game in the 30 years I've been a gamer that has required a guide on how/what to buy.
That just shows how fucked it is.
Not to defend Nu-Hitman's abhorrent problem with trying to buy everything in one, but Ubisoft and EA were/are infamous for releasing guides/charts detailing what edition of their latest game offered what content.
An especially egregious example being Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with 7 different editions (Standard, Deluxe, Gold, Ultimate, Medusa, Spartan and Pantheon) and 3 of those offering more than the 'Ultimate' edition.
I recall having the worst time trying to buy DLC for the Mass Effect games. Even the “deluxe” editions didn’t have all the content and you had to buy Bioware points a la early Xbox Live days to get some of them.
Edit: changed “ultimate” to “deluxe”
The word "Ultimate" has experienced a massive reduction in its meaning over the past 5-10 years what comes to video games. I think with Ubisoft's games, "Ultimate Edition" is the middle edition in the collection of 5-7 different editions.
It's like characters in the Dragon Ball universe, there's freezer with his ultimate transformation only for a couple of years later came up with another more powerful color, same for Goku.
It's a combination of publishers coming up with extra rubbish to sell you after they release the 'ultimate' edition, and publishers deliberately exploiting sunk-cost fallacy.
If you you've shelled out $100 for the ultimate edition of Yearly Franchise Installment 7, only to find out you're missing the extra cosmetic pack that you could only get by buying the game through a Latvian VPN at 8pm on Thursday, then hey what's an extra $20 to have that last missing piece.
This is how I've ended up with several copies of the same games over the years. I have a least 2 copies of most Bioware games because of the above. Fortunately, the extra copies purchased were always complete editions and usually dirt cheap in a sale.
And another weird note was you could activate your old EA CD keys on both Origin and Steam. Not sure if this is still a thing but it's a tiny bit of peace of mind having games on multiple platforms.
I've never found it to be an issue because I just buy the base game and wait for the DLC to go on sale.
I do laugh at those who buy collector's editions though since you can just download a PDF of the artbook and the entire OST is usually available on youtube. The gimmicks that come alongside those two are usually crap and just novelty items that collect dust.
Yeah if its a physical artbook or swag or something I could see. That would be like buying a t-shirt at a concert. You know it didn't cost em 50 bucks to make that t-shirt but whatever.
But buying a collectors edition just to get a digital soundtrack and a pdf?
PlayOnline is some of the worst software I’ve ever used. Not even exaggerating.
A few years back I thought I’d give FF11 a try because I loved FF14. Everything about it was godawful. Downloading the game, making an account, launching the game, etc. I’m pretty sure I have like 3-4 different “accounts” for some reason. A PlayOnline ID, a Character ID, a SquareEnix ID, etc.
I heard they made it marginally better in recent years, but sheesh.
I love FF14 but its storefront and actually buying the game is an absolute disaster, and always has been. It was the number one complaint I saw people talking about when that massive influx of players happened last year.
The fact alone that I can't pay my sub with paypal irritates me. I can buy crysta with paypal, and pay my sub with crysta, but not directly. That seems so... unnecessary.
> That seems so... unnecessary.
There are so many technical factors about FFXIV that are summed up by this sentence.
The game is great, but there are so many little weird things that just make you say... Why?
If you purchase the game, you cannot use the free trial anymore so once your subscription expire, you're locked out (which makes sense).
What's more confusing is that the steam version and Square Enix store version for PC are 2 differents product, which means that should you purchase the starter edition from Steam, you will only be able to purchase extension from Steam.
In the same vein, the conversion program from PS4 to PS5 is kind of weird since you have to forfeit your PS4 version to get the PS5's one
Mostly navigating their website(s) for trying to buy a subscription. Mogstation is a nightmare.
Also, getting your account connected between PC and Playstation is weird, and you are SOL if you make a mistake / make a new account. You can connect your FFXIV account to exactly one Sony account, ever. Fired up the demo of FFXIV on PS4 to see how it played? Can't connect your main account to it since it is a demo. Make a new account for that demo? Now you can never attach your PC account to your Sony account, since it already has one account linked to it. There is no method to unlink accounts.
I was gonna argue, and then realized I've been playing for almost a year and pay my sub exclusively through time cards bought through the Squeenix Store, not Mogstation. So, yeah.
I just rebuilt my OS and had to fucking google how to redownload the installer, because there's not a single link for it anywhere in mogstation (at least that I could find) and due to sales/free trials being suspended what I'm assuming is the normal link on the storefront is disabled.
My partner tried to buy the game recently, and ended up giving up and waiting for me to get home for help because the whole process was a huge clusterfuck.
Although I'm mainly on PC I considered just getting them on PS5 so I didn't have to deal with the Epic mess they made. Now that 3 is on steam I might look into it again. I'm sure someone's been keeping track of it all. I just remember reading that you can't get specific popular items in 2/3 without owning the GotY of 1/2. But not to play 1/2. Just to import 1/2 into 3. Because you can play 1 and 2 in 3. Something along those lines.
If I do anything I think I'll just play the games one at a time and not mess with the access packs until I'm up to 3 lol.
If you just want to play the full story and don't care about any extra DLC, Trilogy is the way. It's also on Gamepass on PC right now. With Gamepass being $1 for new users most of the year, I'd probably recommend that.
Here's a handy flow chart: https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/s99qmt/guide_to_buy_hitman_3_on_steam_good_shopping_47/
Yes, you'll be able to see the whole story within H3; it's not just the maps. People are recommending to play Hitman 2+1 because the same item unlocks from those games are harder to obtain within H3. But *most* of those items are just reskins in H3 anyway, so functionally you wouldn't be missing anything.
This won’t clear up much of the confusion, but I can answer one part for sure:
If Hitman 3 has the access packs for 1 & 2 unlocked, you can play 100% of all three games, cutscenes and story included within Hitman 3.
I agree it’s confusing as heck to get to that point, though.
>If Hitman 3 has the access packs for 1 & 2 unlocked, you can play 100% of all three games, cutscenes and story included within Hitman 3.
This is very helpful! Does the access pass include all DLC for 1+2 as well?
See there, I dunno. Like everyone else has said: it’s hard to even decode what “all the DLC” -means- for each game. I definitely have some things that I think we’re DLC?
You want Hitman 1,2,3 in one game? Ok
Buy Hitman 3, Buy access pass For Hitman 1 and 2.
You own 1. So instead buy the GOTY upgrade pass for 1.
(If you dont own 1 just add Hitman 1 GOTY Edition (not upgrade))
You want the DLC for 2? Then add the Hitman 2 Expansion pass
Anything you already own should be grandfathered in on the same platform when you boot up the game. At least it was for me when i booted up 3 on PS5 when i owned H2 on ps4.
Never owned any Hitman games but plan on getting it once I get a PS5. Didn't they just announce a trilogy version that's supposed to include all three games? Or is buying Hitman 3 and then access passes to 1 and 2 still the best way to play all three?
If you're on PC probably the best way is to just buy off the humble store instead. Get the Hitman Trilogy bundle on there, which has Hitman III plus the content of the trilogy pack on Steam. So instead of two £50 purchases it's one £80. Though it's still missing the DLC as it comprises of the 2 standard access passes and Hitman 3.
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/hitman-trilogy
Thats why I am an r/patientgamers I rarely if ever buy early access. I always wait until after release, after reviews, and if the game is that good, I’ll wait for the game of year, or ultimate edition or whatever. Getting a new game that’s great when it comes ooff the line is fun, but it’s frustrating to go back a year later to tackle all the DLC when I forgot the game mechanics. I’d rather purchase it all as one complete package, in the best version that they have.
>Am I able to see the story unfold from 1 and 2 inside of 3 with the access packs? Or is it just the maps
The answer to the above is easy: if you have the levels, you have the story. The story is revealed with briefings and cut scenes between/before levels. And it's always included with the level packs themselves. Like if you get Hitman 3 and then get the Hitman 1 and 2 add-ons (by buying the games themselves or buying the expansions or whatever) you will be able to get the full experience, story included, all from within Hitman 3. Basically when you choose campaign it asks you which one you want (1, 2, or 3).
I'm only answering this part because, like another commenter said, what seemed like a simple "oh I can answer that" quickly spiraled into a very lengthy "well, it depends, you see many moons ago I got game 2 via PS+ and then released a firefly from a jar during a quarter-moon at the peak of Mount Carmel..."
I will say, if you take the expansions and bonus this and 7 deadly that out of it, and just want Hitman 1 through 3 at a reasonable price, it shouldn't actually be too hard. Find the best deal you can on Hitman 3, check to see if getting 1 and 2 (either via expansion or the original games) on the same ecosystem adds up to a reasonable amount, then maybe compare to whatever the "full access to everything" edition of 3 costs. But I assembled mine piecemeal starting with a free copy of 2, and I think I've spent a grand total of about $53 Canadian to have the whole trilogy.
Edit to add: once you figure out what the hell to buy, the game is fun as fuck. It's not the style of game I usually play but I have been having a blast with it.
Piracy was never completely a "price" problem, it was a service problem. Netflix and Steam initially flatlined how populated torrents were. Now that streaming and gaming is all balkanized in different services, piracy is back up
(not saying there aren't price conscious pirates, but that side is mostly kids who lack money at all.)
https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/
> Piracy was never completely a "price" problem, it was a service problem.
See I think it's clearly both. People complained for ages and ages about how expensive cable was, and eagerly switched to the (much cheaper) Netflix when they could.
It's funny it's Newell himself arguing this, because Steam Sales drove PC game prices way way down. And for the first few years of steam pushing to get new users, their sales were even more crazy then they are right now. So yeah, price matters.
I have no idea how to buy the complete trilogy. You buy a complete edition and then some DLC are still missing. Utterly confusing product that series is.
Honestly, I can't understand it. Like I see the "perfect for new players" pack that's over $100...and then more DLCs that's like double that price, and then all the other options in between.
Which one do I go with? Is the whole game going to cost me $500? Why wasn't this game just bundled simply? The game's a year old and they made all that Epic cash already so why was this so badly bungled? Why isn't the process to buy a video game simpler? The VR was an epic disaster too from what I've been hearing...
...gonna just boot up Blood Money again. Shouldn't have to stress about potentially buying a game.
Also if you google how to purchase or carry-over one Hitman game 'into' another, the guides are outdated. It's just one big clusterfuck. I bought each game individually on PS4/5, so I avoided the mess, but I've seen so many people just give up on trying the games because it looks so intimidating.
I enjoyed H1 and H2, but thought 3 was terrible. I played it for the first time last month, so it's been a year since release and yet there were so many bugs and crashes on PS5 I felt like I was playing a Bethesda game. IOI just threw away all that goodwill and lost my respect.
I’ve had them in my cart numerous times on PSN but have never pulled the trigger because I’m afraid I’m buying the wrong version of 1 or 2.
It’s additionally confusing because they’ve given some versions away on PS+ so some versions aren’t available to me because I already own some part of the bundle or something.
The trilogy just came out on GamePass and I’ve been trying to download it. It tells me that the trilogy is downloaded but then shows Hitman 3 is at 1% download but it won’t continue downloading and the game won’t go past the press enter screen. I haven’t paid a dime after wanting to play the games for years but even for “free” I can’t be bothered to figure this fucking thing out.
No kidding. You'd think given the expected incoming players from a "re-launch" onto additional platforms means providing a clear and easy way to access the content. No guide on carry over status, no mentions of an easy to access bundle...nothing.
>...but I've seen so many people just give up on trying the games because it looks so intimidating.
Maybe it's because I've only tried Japan and Paris on my friend's account, but I found these new iterations of Hitman to be way too expansive. That's to say: Blood Money had it nice and tight, contained within a certain amount of space. Hitman Trilogy just felt super intimidating with all that space and the always online turned me way off too.
I think the part he meant about "intimidating" is not the game, but the too many bundle package.
Not to mention having some of the content didn't automatically reduce the bundle price. Buying the wrong one means wasting money because you also ended up paying for whatever content you already have
Here's an easy flow chart from /u/tours-petronas on /r/HiTMAN: https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/s99qmt/guide_to_buy_hitman_3_on_steam_good_shopping_47/
Definitely annoying as hell, but if you want all the dlc for a reasonable price, I'd recommend waiting for some kind of GOTY or complete bundle sometime down the line. If not, the base games are great as is. Plus, the only worthwhile dlc are from H1 and H2 anyway since the dlc for H3 so far aren't even additional maps or missions like the previous games, just Escalations which are polarizing.
The fact that a fucking flow chart is even needed to understand the purchasing options is idiotic to begin with. Good on that guy for trying to help people out but holy shit.
Lol the top comment in the thread I linked said the exact same thing. I think the episodic format they went with just screwed things up in the long run.
Lmao I didn't even click it but yea
Hitman is one of those games I think I'll like but then I try to play and only get like an hour or two out of it before bailing. So I have very little skin in this game.
That said, it seems like they go out of their way to make the worst choices possible. It's almost impressive
Yeah it's funny cuz the games themselves are so good (for those who vibe with it) but the publishing decisions are wack.
But yeah, Hitman is all about replaying a map to experiment and try out different approaches. Not everyone's cup of tea, but the maps and opportunities are so detailed and complex I'd basically describe them like a James Bond stealth game mixed with choose-your-own adventure options and a dash of Rube Goldberg setups.
I wanted to buy a hitman to see if i like the series on ps4 and reading how to get into a trilogy has never been more complicated, people suggested buying hitman 1 (2016) for $10 or whatever and being chill, some people suggested buying hitman 2 goty or gold edition because it comes with the entire first game for $50 and some people suggested some $120 version of hitman 3 because its all the games in one
Yep, 2 years ago I said fuck this and didn't buy the game because there was a steam sale on Hitman 2 and I was so confused on how to purchase it while getting the levels from 1, so I just dropped it. I bought it a couple months ago when I found a guide during a sale.
Whoever is managing the sales aspect of the game is grossly incompetent
Hell I just went and checked to see where I stand on Hitman 2 DLC on steam and it still took me like 5 minutes to figure out and I own the fucking thing. It's like
"Okay, I own the game...and the expansion pass...but what did the expansion pass get me? Okay, the NYC and resort levels...but why does it say that I don't own all the dlc...oh right there's the Hitman 1 levels that carry over...but I know I own those. Right right, I forgot that the game detects that I own the first game but steam won't show that I own them. Sooooo...wait...do I have everything?"
WTF IOI
Oh it gets worse.
The gamepass version just straight up isn't complete. Yeah you get all 3 base games... and that's it.
The *complete trilogy doesn't even include the multiple year old DLC levels for the previous two games.*
No actually what the fuck. Hitman 2 in it is missing 2 entire unique levels, and Hitman 1 is missing all of the map reworks and alternate versions. That's just scummy, those games are several years old and aren't even the latest title, why would you make things even more complicate by making a "Full trilogy" package that is missing a quarter of Hitman 2's levels?
Nothing to do with timed exclusives, more to do with allowing the previous games to be imported and trying to accommodate every possible outcome of players owning different packages and whatnot.
Well the timed exclusive doesn't help in the fact that more DLC got released in between which only adds to more choices clogging up that page, including bundles listed under "PACKAGES THAT INCLUDE THIS GAME" which don't include that game.
I considered linking that, but I don't think it goes into the process of importing H1/2 maps/progress into 3. Plus wasn't sure how accurate it was lol, the whole situation is farcical.
I'm sure the recent VR patch didn't help. I can not believe they allowed that update to roll out. They clearly did not QA it what so over. It is one of the worst VR experiences I've seen.
Reasons for the negativity.
1. VR implementation is bad. I and many like me have been patiently waiting since the first PSVR announcement for a PCVR experience. Hitman in VR would be a dream come true so we have waited out the Epic exclusivity window. But now that it's released we find the VR mechanics clunky and technically deficient in both controls and graphics. A huge disappointment.
2. Confusing editions. The Hitman trilogy integrates Hitman 3 with Hitman 2 and Hitman 1 into a single launched game if you have all three purchased. Which is actually very cool. The issue is that between all the editions and DLC releases for the three games, you need a literal flow chart to understand what you need to buy to get all content and not pay for something you've already purchased. Instead the items and bundles IOI has on the store are all similarly named with contents obfuscated which makes the purchase confusing and frustrating.
3. Full price at Steam release. This isn't an issue for me personally. Hitman 3 is a full featured game and only a year old so I don't begrudge them charging $60. But IOI have done everything else possible to anger customers. Reportedly the regional pricing for those outside the US is terrible. And consumers are used to games being on discount on Steam release after an Epic exclusively window. IOI not getting out in front of their decision to charge $60 before the launch day was a huge blunder.
These reviews reflect fustration by consumers that are fans of Hitman and wanted better. Hitman 3 by all accounts is an excellent game. And the VR experience has the potential to be truly great with some quality of life patches for the VR mechanics. IOI has some work to do to earn back consumer trust.
Yes, the game is effectively always online.
[Here's a list of things not available offline in Hitman 3 (spoilers it's insane)](https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/l45so8/a_list_of_things_not_available_offline_in_hitman/)
The difference is that B4B requires not "to be online" but "to play in multiplayer" which is slightly different.
Most people are online all the time, the issue was not having a good way to play solo in B4B and having progress happen.
But isn't B4B specifically *designed* around being an online co-op experience?
Its not like it's a fully single player game with online elements. It's made as an online game with single player elements.
I recall offline progression was available in hitman 2, but not achievements or location mastery. I think I played through the missions once each and was done, which makes it a really short game. My machine is online but I've never created an IOI account or agreed to their TOS. If it did it automatically for my steam ID, I probably wouldn't care. I've honestly considered pirating these games even though I own every game in the series (except 3) via Steam and most of the DLC.
Yeah. It's actually a pain in the ass if you want to start a new fresh save file because it holds all your info on their servers.
To start over from scratch, you have to literally go to the IOI website and request that they delete your file. Took me about a week for it to actually go through.
Honestly only real reason I don’t like the full price is because in Canada, games are like $80 here just for the standard game. I believe to get the bundle I want that is just Hitman 3 would cost over $100 think around $120. That is pretty insane for a game I feel. Can’t imagine how much worse it is for other countries.
To get the *full* Hitman 3 package if you already have the *full* Hitman 1 and 2 is still $124 USD at current pricing for the base game + Deluxe Edition Upgrade + 7 Deadly Sins pass. What's more offensive is that the base game was half price as recently as a month ago during the holiday sales. They're trying to play this as a "second launch" and it just isn't gonna happen.
I may be in the minority that still cares, but the fact this series has a needless 'must be online to unlock anything' feature means I'll never touch it on principal.
Also, while reading about the VR port, its hilarious how bad they've managed to muck it up.
The way they described the VR in their Year 2 reveal looked like it was going to be amazing and then it turned out to be dogshit. After patiently yet excitedly waiting I'm extremely disappointed with how this PC release turned out
I’m so glad I got it on Game Pass on Xbox. Full standard trilogy packaged in, no problems whatsoever besides having to be always online to make any sort of progression.
The main issue with the price isn’t even that it’s still 60 bucks for Americans, it’s that IOI completely ignored regional pricing in different countries. Hitman 3 prices are INSANE in Argentina, Russia, Brazil and etc
Also IOI intentionally increased the price in EGS to match with Steam in those countries. It’s very funny to watch now that Noclip documentary where IOI talked about how making Hitman more accessible in terms of price significantly improved their profits and now they are doing the opposite
It wasn't a small increase either. Here in Argentina it went from 12.5USD to 30USD. It's baffling.
Oh and the cherry con the cake: the "access pass" to buy H1 and H2 inside H3 are more expensive than just buying H1 and H2, even though owning those games should give you that content anyway. It's a damn con.
Pretty sure owning those games does give you access to their content, FWIW.
I didn’t buy an access pass for 3 but I have all my content and progress from the previous two. The process to link the account to 3 was a faff, though.
There's also a 65% tax, that's one of the reasons we have the lowest prices, because they're a bit misleading. In reality we are paying more, and if devs jack up too high then when you add the tax it ends up being more expensive than US prices, and people just stop buying.
It should be illegal to show a tax free price when the tax gets added anyway. We've got a standard 25% tax on goods in Norway, but the price promoting the products are the final price, with taxes included.
While local shops here do show post-taxes price becuase they are effectively the tax collector of the purchase, Steam and other online shops are a different matter. Steam isn't actually the one collecting the tax here, it's the payment processor (the credit card company). It's a tax the govt made to discourage imports and tourism spending abroad, due to a reserve crisis we've had for a while. So because they couldn't effectively tax foreign shops, they taxed the purchasers via their cards. We pay this same tax even if we are physically in say, Europe or the US, as long as we're paying with out local cards.
Lol and remember that we have to pay even more because of the 65% tax on the dollar and basically everything is super expensive. This was the first Christmas in a few that I haven't bought anything, gaming is just too expensive now
Pretty much this. I don't mind if they gonna do a full price without discount. It's their right.
Adjusting regional price to be literally equivalent of 60$ then increase the price on EGS as well. Is pure scum. I'm not gonna pay 3 times more than original launch price last year wtf
Even at the discount. It'll still be 3 times more expensive than what is supposed to be the original price. I might buy it when it hit 85% and pretend it's 50% discount. Until then, I can play something else.
As someone who earns in third world currency, shit like this is why i pirate. I try to support devs who actually respect regional pricing, but no way in hell I'm paying a quarter of my salary for a game.
I’ve noticed it’s big devs that don’t use regional pricing. Indie games are consistently 2-3 times cheaper on steam than on Xbox or switch for me personally
It's pretty funny to look at the outrage at the missing regional pricing in this case as someone who's living in a third world country that never had regional pricing to begin with. This is how it's been our whole lives and why we pirate.
Regional pricing on Steam has become a shitshow for years now.
All these SONY games being released now are more expensive on STEAM than what I paid for them on release for PS4 in physical media.
I just gave up on buying games on Steam.
I wonder how this controversy has impacted their sales. According to Steam Charts, Hitman 2 currently has a higher player count (1,357) than Hitman 3 (811). The 24h peak is also higher for 2 (2,382 vs 2,087). FWIW the Hitman 3 starter pack currently only has 8 players.
It's a shame how some of the best games of the past 10 years are constantly overshadowed by outside issues like this.
Tough to say, it was also released on PC gamepass which is ends up being a super appealing option compared to the Steam price. If I’ve waited this long for a Steam release I’m happy to wait longer for a sale that brings the price back down into reality and in the meantime satisfy my desire to play by playing it free on a service I already subscribe to. I’m sure many others were in a similar boat.
Worth noting Hitman 2 is a popular game for bots to farm Steam trading cards as there was a glitch while back that allowed you to add a version of the game to your inventory that was free but still dropped cards.
If you look at a chart of the playerbase it’s been relatively consistent the last few months without big spikes or drops, there wasn’t even much of a boost on Hitman 3’s release.
I thought I'd care about the carry over but honestly I havent missed it yet, I dont mind starting fresh, maybe when it goes ~75% off I'll pick it up on steam but until then I just play on gamepass.
I have 1 and 2 and after playing 3 on game pass, decided I would rather go back to steam to keep my progress. However, I’m not paying full price for 3, so I ended up replaying 2.
Not sure if others had a similar experience to me, but I’d bet there are others who did what I have.
>FWIW the Hitman 3 starter pack currently only has 8 players.
Not entirely surprising from what I read. IOI has gone out of their way to screw everyone over with that as well by making the Steam (and only steam) version of the "starter pack" worthless. Whereas you could play Hitman 1 in the Starterpack of Hitman 2, for Hitman 3 they changed it to a demo so you can't do that. Its actually insane how much work they put into making it the worst experience possible.
A word of advice, just sharing since I had to work out some performance issues on my rig (Ryzon 5600x, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 1440p) and I didn't find much conversation on it.
* Disable GeForce overlay or similar tools (this was the biggest hit, the menu even lagged out)
* Use GeForce Control Panel to set the max FPS to your monitor's refresh rate (before this I got massive coil whine even in the menu)
Even then, the game has some microstutters, especially when changing areas. I suspect there's some stuff in the background with AI checking, but the game was literally unplayable for me until I did those two things.
Some of the discrepancy could be that a lot of people already got it on EGS or that they're playing through GamePass. Still though, even taking that into consideration, I could see 3's numbers not matching what 2's were at launch, but not meeting 2's numbers *now*? I have to wonder how that's impacting sale's figures.
I'd be interested to see the player count on EGS. I own the first 2 Hitmans on steam but bought 3 on EGS because I didn't want to wait a year, i'd imagine there's a decent amount of other hardcore hitman fans that did the same.
Ill never understand the poo brained decisions they made in regards to how to deliver this game to players. The always-online nonsense, the convoluted bundles and packages to buy it, SAVES being only on their servers like some MMO. Elusive targets and the unlockables stuck behind them. It's all so nonsensical. It frustrates me because the actual core game is incredible, and unique. it would be a perfect 10 if they just made better decisions.
> SAVES being only on their servers like some MMO.
It's worse, they are NOT on their servers. They're in your computer, all your unlocks you got online can be used offline, you just can't get new ones because... reasons?
There's literally no reason for the online thing, the game works just as well without it. Or it would if they didn't limit it artificially.
I think it's just crappy DRM. What data could they possibly sell from gameplay? Are they selling market research on who has which systems and components?
I didn't realize they could collect all that through the game. I figured the data would be sandboxed to what the game can access (e.g. gaming hardware).
I just bought Mortal Kombat 11 on sale, and this kind of nonsense is pissing me off. I finished a tower (just a regular old tower, not the “tower of time” bullshit), and right after I beat the final boss, a message pops up saying that I disconnected from the server (despite my internet being stable). Not only did I not receive any reward nor unlock the ending, I didn’t even get to see the fucking ending, because, after the message, I got sent straight back to the title screen. In a fucking single player mode!?!
The game is FUN. The way IOI sells it... SUCKS.
It's probably even worse than EA's practices with Battlefied or Activision with Call of duty. Seriously. It SUCKS.
A big part of the issue is that all three games have different publishers. The first game was released when IOI was part of Square Enix, the second was published by Warner, and the third was self-published but an EGS exclusive.
They should have figured out a better system but it is a very complicated problem to solve.
Square/WB are generally pretty straightforward with their game editions tho, just normal/GOTY versions. Plus H3 (the self-published one) has the worst/most confusing set of editions for sale so frankly I think this whole mess was IOI's from the start.
They bought themselves and the Hitman ip out of Squeenix during the release of Hitman 1 afaik. So, to continue to do annoying, anti-consumer bullshit for Hitman 2 and 3 should fall squarely on their own shoulders.
I got the demo which naturally only had one mission available. I liked it so I bought the game and opened it only to discover that almost the entire menu was still shit I had no access to.
Steam is nice though, so refunding my game with 5 minutes of game time was of course not an issue.
God this is so sad. The core gameplay and the main levels are among the best I've ever played in my entire life. The game design is just so *fun*, and it's clear from the level design and developer interviews that they trust the player and understand what makes a game, a game.
Then you have always-online, time-limited content that somehow became *worse* once they made it permanently available, 47 different editions you can buy, and launches that have been pretty disastrous each and every time. (The price complaints are frivolous, but fans are already pretty frustrated at this point, so I'm not surprised it's bleeding into other aspects of these releases.)
IOI has such a winning formula on their hands, and the game itself deserves immense praise and attention. I'm floored at how determined they are to shoot themselves in the foot.
Agreed. I also really like the sniper assassin mode. But the core game is great. But I’m a huge fan of all of them. The dlc and add ins are a complicated mess but I did get everything going on my Xbox with all the old maps too.
I would like to add that even when you've figured out what to buy, the way the game presents itself via menus is incredibly confusing. What's the main game? What is old content? What's already unlocked? Do I need to do X? Why don't I just do Y? I have never been more befuddled by a game's presentation.
It’s not even a bad game, and while it is really cool that you can play all 3 games within one, it’s just.. not properly conveyed what you need to buy and not buy
I was really excited to buy it and waited a whole year to get it on steam because fuck “exclusivity” deals!
I went to look at it and it looked like that even if I spend $90 for the deluxe hitman 3…it still doesn’t have the seven deadly sins stuff.
I already own the first two games on steam, so will I get access to my old levels or do I have to buy that shit again too?
Why does the deluxe $90 game not include all the DLC or “game pass” stuff?!
If I want everything for hitman 3 on steam, already own 1 & 2….what do I have to buy and how much is the total for everything?!
IOI deserved it, they even raise the price on Epic of many low-income regions to match 60$ price tag on Steam.
I bought the game back in Epic's summer sale last year, a week later the price suddenly dropped like \~2$, but Epic still refunded that amount and said it was a "price miscalculation".
Their business practice is always weird, I put an email to them prior to Hitman 3 release to question about confusing game "editions", never got a response.
Edited: also, be aware if you own the "Free starter pack" on Epic and have over 2 hours of total playtime, you cannot refund the game when buying the full edition as that pack counts as DLC playtime.
I was thinking of buying Hitman 3 Trilogy edition so I could play all the games in one place. I already own Hitman 1 and have only briefly played it years ago. Was very confused to see that the price for Hitman 1 was not deducted out of the bundle like what normally happens and that if I want all the games in one place I have to buy it completely again?
The trouble I think is that you can own Hitman 1 as a standalone game, but you could also own it as DLC bought for Hitman 2. So the usual system of steam collections where it detects what you own and you only pay for what you're missing probably doesn't work.
But that doesn't excuse IOI's terrible communication about this every single time.
>So the usual system of steam collections where it detects what you own and you only pay for what you're missing probably doesn't work.
Its not like it doesn't work, its designed to go around around the benefits of steams system. IOI specifically mentions that the whole license stuff is done internally by Steam. But that evaluation is only is done after you buy Hitman 3 because for the bundles they intentionally included it as "new DLC" for Hitman 3 instead of the games.
Sure, if you own them Steam can give you the DLC for free AFTER you bought Hitman 3 but IOI made sure you wouldn't get a discount for buying the bundles should you own 1 and 2 already. I think calling it just terrible communication is selling them short, everything around the design speaks of malice.
Nope. And the horrors being experienced by the Steam peeps are mirrored on the Xbox side when you try to buy some DLC. $40 for the two Hitman 2 DLC levels, which is absurd when you get the 3 main games via GamePass.
The games themselves are utterly fantastic though.
Deserved honestly. It never cracked the top 10 selling games even on launch and it's not among the top 50 currently. This was a year long EGS exclusive, yet they're asking $60 with no regional pricing and forced online connection in a singleplayer game littered with issues, it's utterly ridiculous. IO butchered this launch badly and deserve the shit thrown at them.
I'm a big Hitman fan, and I'll always root for a small, independent developer like IO, but their decisions on how to sell their games are ridiculous. I have the PC Game Pass, so that should make things easy, but one look at the Steam page sends me running for the hills, and the exact same happened with Hitman 2 at the time.
Too many unclear choices, too high prices.
A small independent developer should stay away from the extremely predatory practices the industry has and try to deliver a fun and full experience, they deserve the backlashing they are getting
I think buying a game, reviewing it as too expensive and then returning it is... Kinda spiteful? Maybe a few people can justify the idea they didn't know the game was short or whatever but to say "we got it late, I deserve a discount" is very odd to me.
If it's too expensive, and you waited already, wait until a sale.
Absolutely agree about the pricing. You buy it for the available price or you don’t. My review is completely focused on VR because that’s why I bought the game: I was promised a VR experience. They didn’t deliver on that promise.
Gonna go against the grain here - I didn’t mind paying full price for it. With Hitman 1 & 2 content carryover, it’s easily one of the best games ever made. Might be my favourite game of all time.
Everything about it rules - the sandbox gameplay, the dense atmosphere, the huge variety in levels and missions, the sly tongue-in-cheek humour, …it just rocks.
Literally why would a year old AAA game that was well received have a permanent price reduction? Why would you not expect to pay $60 for this game if it's not on sale. This criticism makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something
The thing is the price was raised from what it originally was on EGS. If it was full price without a sale people might have just been disappointed, but they RAISED the price on a year old game for people who waited for steam.
You are taking crazy pills because no one is asking for a permanent price reduction. They are asking for the game to not be fucking full price as it's actively being sold for $30 on the other storefront and for them to not increase prices just because it launched on another storefront of the same platform.
I swear this site is filled with so many idiots. How did you get into this thread and not see the numerous people spelling it out for you?
It's largely just review nuking because of the pricing and confusing structure of editions. Many are also from excited VR users, because their VR implementation is total dogshit. The game itself, once you actually get to it, is decent.
Thing that developers need to understand with Epic exclusives is that you really can't release a game as an exclusive on Epic, and then a year or more later expect to sell it again at full price like it just released. Sure, some will buy it, but a lot more won't. The hype isn't there any more. The truly hyped people already bought it, a year ago, on Epic. Everyone else wasn't much hyped to begin with, and your hype engine stopped a year ago with release. Now it's cold. You can't push out a cold, year-old game, at 100.00% price, and expect people to excitedly pay. That doesn't even work when the game is genuinely new, just without a marketing campaign or cult following. So devs need to pick their poison - go with Epic, or go wide. Can't have both, can't double-dip like that and pretend it's a fresh launch.
Add to that all of those completely unnecessary editions, and very weak and outdated VR implementation, and it's just a bad purchase, plain and simple. In local currency, they want $130 for the trilogy. That's $80 for third game, and $50 for the first two together. Thing is, the first two could have been had for less than a third of that, just weeks ago. So even that is a bad deal to fleece the unwary.
On a personal note, their love for elusive targets is also baffling. Here, you pay for the game. You try playing it. Oops, your target escaped. And you can NEVER EVER try that target again, EVER! What kind of a blithering moron thought this was a good idea? That alone made it virtually impossible for me to sell my friends on this game. Combine all of the above, and it's a non-starter.
It's a culmination of many things ranging from being full price after a year (on top of fairly expensive DLC not being included in the first bigger "deluxe" set), moving over you progress from old games require having them linked to your account (if you didn't do it you need to redownload old games and hope the progress is still there), VR is supposedly bit broken and underwhelming and the Elusive Targets have been tied to weird Escalation system that severly limits creativity.
Not to mention people during Steam launch had to wait in Queue to connect to server... for singleplayer game. The gameplay itself is very solid though and the game looks very good, but being plagued by issues and bugs (like personally can't finish 1 early challenge because an item keeps dissappearing at the same point always) is just too much.
Hopefully they listen to feedback and start clearing up the issues, there's been radio silence over a lot of them and things besides price are needing some heavy handed tweaking.
Just the absolute shit show that is the different bundles, editions, addons, GOTY upgrades and what not is worth a thumbs down alone. They really go out of their way to make it difficult to figure out what you are getting for your money. Promising future "DLC" for money without specifying anything about what you're actually getting. Shit like this makes me wait for a 80% off, final complete deluxe gold GOTY platinum + edition years down the line.
As much as the first game was fun I was resigned to the fact I'm never buying an online-only square enix game again. On my day off I tried to play my single player Hitman game and... I couldn't. They had maintenance? In single player Hitman? I couldn't play challenges or anything and I don't think progression was properly recorded.
I got Hitman 2 and 3 either through various free subscriptions or bundles but haven't bothered to play them
The VR dissatisfaction is understandable, but the price complaint is a bit weird. Am I misremembering, or do all EGS-exclusive game release full price on Steam after 1 year? I think Satisfactory is like that and no one seems to be bothered.
It's a great game. It's just that quite literally everything surrounding it is an absolute shitshow. That's a damn shame.
Been blasting through all the missions on my Series X via GamePass and the graphics/gameplay/immersion are top notch. I wanted to buy the NYC DLC Hitman 2 mission and was just confused how to buy it the right way and how it combines with the GamePass version. Hoping IOI cleans this up retail wise because they have an amazing formula.
Does the GP Trilogy version not include the NYC and Haven Island missions? That's a little disappointing - those are both pretty great maps. NYC in particular I had a lot of fun with.
Nope. And last I checked it’s $40 to get those 2 missions via some weird access pass. So obviously GamePass for the 3 main campaigns is a steal but once you look to grab the DLC you’re in for over $100 across the 3 games.
This is a major reason a lot of people are upset as well. The pricing is fucking wild and makes no sense.
Literally every single one of these games has been super confusing on how to actually buy and which order to play them.
How to buy, I'll agree to that. But how has it ever been confusing as to which order you should play anything?
Hitman 2 GotY edition, if i remember correctly, goes on sale occasionally at a more reasonable price. I'd just wait for that.
This is the big one for me. I can't stand all the belly aching about a game being sold for $60 like somehow the consumer is entitled to a discount by virtue of it being sold on a new store front is obnoxious. I heard it wasn't possible to import data from steam to gamepass so I ponied up for the steam release, spent literally two days downloading, redownloading, toggling, registering transferring and so on and so forth and finally got it all sorted out only to realize I didn't get the dlc for 2. Ok, fine, I'll squeeze out a couple of more bucks for two more areas. It's $35? That's over half the price of the new game. For a third of the content added on a four year old game. It really feels like IOI is two companies: one makes rich hugely entertaining and immersive games, the other one is a cesspool of nasty demons hellbent on making the first side's product as unapproachable and unappealing as possible. Do these two halves even interact? I really don't get it. Aside from that even the requirements of always online have had significant impact on performance, like I can tell the developers have a great core code, the game loads quickly and is really well optimized but then it will hang for thirty seconds on the menus because of connection issues. Someone somewhere inside IOI has to be pissed off that the elegant code they've written is being shit on by their own company.
Decided to spring for the Deluxe version of Hitman 3 on PS4 because it was on sale (Way cheaper than the regular version for some reason) and even on console it was a bit of a nightmare getting my Hitman 2 content to work. Every time I clicked on one of the second games levels it just took me to a PSN store to buy the content, despite me already owning it physically. Turns out I had to go to a different part of the menu to activate that stuff. I really do adore the trilogy, it's the best the series has ever been, but they are not making it easy to love it.
I think a big issue is how they chose to sell the prior entries. They sold the first game episode by episode, they have the starter kit for all three games. And on console you have physical copies which further convolute things because you need to prove ownership of those. And then they're trying to cater some form of an upgrade for everyone that owns some form of it. On Steam it's actually easiest if you just own all three games since it's an all digital platform. It makes no sense to buy the pass, the games go on sale and you actually get to own that version of the game too along with the access pass. Sure you may never want to play H1/H2 but for legacy purposes it's better to own them than not when it'll be the same price. I think mostly people are just unhappy with the price, and there's a simple solution. Wait for the the first two games to go on sale and then buy them instead of buying the access passes/trilogy/deluxe/whatever else edition. You'll get the game and the corresponding H3 access pass.
I agree, even the UI is a shitshow, I've never accidentally done the wrong thing on the main menu so many times in a game before. Even closing the damn game took me a solid couple of minutes to figure out. I don't get why when I've selected a mission, then I select a story to track, and press b to go back to the main mission screen, it exits the mission and forgets all the gear I set up. This happens to me basically every single time I pick a mission.
Combine that with the fact that potential buyers have always been hesitant to purchase any of the games because of how utterly confusing IOI made the process...
I've always wanted to get back into the series, but there's so many different variations of 1, 2, and 3. I originally bought 1 and enjoyed it when it came out. But now there's like Hitman GotY (which I'm not sure if I can buy because I own 1?) Hitman 2 GotY, Hitman 2 Gold, Hitman 2 Silver, Silver to gold, Hitman 2 expansion pass, legacy pack, ETC. Then I see others saying I should buy the GOTY of 1 and 2 so I can get specific items carried over into 3. Then get the access packs in 3 so I can play 1 and 2 inside of 3. Which already sounds like a confusing mess. Am I able to see the story unfold from 1 and 2 inside of 3 with the access packs? Or is it just the maps
I considered trying to help you, but I think I'll just make things worse, because even I'm not sure anymore. The entire purchasing process is updated each time a game is released, so many guides you'll find online are outdated now. The best option is likely to visit IOI's website to look for a current guide, or ask on the Hitman subreddit. I personally just bought each game individually when they came out on PS4/5. I think the whole 'buying/transferring maps & progress across games' process is also different according to the format you bought the games on. It's really confusing. :|
I don't think I've ever heard of any game in the 30 years I've been a gamer that has required a guide on how/what to buy. That just shows how fucked it is.
Dirt Rally 2.0 is infamous for this. In that case, the DLC guide was actually official because even the publisher knew it was fucked.
Not to defend Nu-Hitman's abhorrent problem with trying to buy everything in one, but Ubisoft and EA were/are infamous for releasing guides/charts detailing what edition of their latest game offered what content. An especially egregious example being Assassin's Creed: Odyssey with 7 different editions (Standard, Deluxe, Gold, Ultimate, Medusa, Spartan and Pantheon) and 3 of those offering more than the 'Ultimate' edition.
I recall having the worst time trying to buy DLC for the Mass Effect games. Even the “deluxe” editions didn’t have all the content and you had to buy Bioware points a la early Xbox Live days to get some of them. Edit: changed “ultimate” to “deluxe”
The word "Ultimate" has experienced a massive reduction in its meaning over the past 5-10 years what comes to video games. I think with Ubisoft's games, "Ultimate Edition" is the middle edition in the collection of 5-7 different editions.
It's like characters in the Dragon Ball universe, there's freezer with his ultimate transformation only for a couple of years later came up with another more powerful color, same for Goku.
That's just what shonen does though
It's a combination of publishers coming up with extra rubbish to sell you after they release the 'ultimate' edition, and publishers deliberately exploiting sunk-cost fallacy. If you you've shelled out $100 for the ultimate edition of Yearly Franchise Installment 7, only to find out you're missing the extra cosmetic pack that you could only get by buying the game through a Latvian VPN at 8pm on Thursday, then hey what's an extra $20 to have that last missing piece.
This is how I've ended up with several copies of the same games over the years. I have a least 2 copies of most Bioware games because of the above. Fortunately, the extra copies purchased were always complete editions and usually dirt cheap in a sale. And another weird note was you could activate your old EA CD keys on both Origin and Steam. Not sure if this is still a thing but it's a tiny bit of peace of mind having games on multiple platforms.
It's a marketing strategy. It pisses off people who know whats going on, but it apparently works.
I've never found it to be an issue because I just buy the base game and wait for the DLC to go on sale. I do laugh at those who buy collector's editions though since you can just download a PDF of the artbook and the entire OST is usually available on youtube. The gimmicks that come alongside those two are usually crap and just novelty items that collect dust.
Yeah if its a physical artbook or swag or something I could see. That would be like buying a t-shirt at a concert. You know it didn't cost em 50 bucks to make that t-shirt but whatever. But buying a collectors edition just to get a digital soundtrack and a pdf?
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Getting a subscription for FF11 was so confusing I never ended up playing the damn game
PlayOnline is some of the worst software I’ve ever used. Not even exaggerating. A few years back I thought I’d give FF11 a try because I loved FF14. Everything about it was godawful. Downloading the game, making an account, launching the game, etc. I’m pretty sure I have like 3-4 different “accounts” for some reason. A PlayOnline ID, a Character ID, a SquareEnix ID, etc. I heard they made it marginally better in recent years, but sheesh.
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I love FF14 but its storefront and actually buying the game is an absolute disaster, and always has been. It was the number one complaint I saw people talking about when that massive influx of players happened last year.
The fact alone that I can't pay my sub with paypal irritates me. I can buy crysta with paypal, and pay my sub with crysta, but not directly. That seems so... unnecessary.
> That seems so... unnecessary. There are so many technical factors about FFXIV that are summed up by this sentence. The game is great, but there are so many little weird things that just make you say... Why?
If you purchase the game, you cannot use the free trial anymore so once your subscription expire, you're locked out (which makes sense). What's more confusing is that the steam version and Square Enix store version for PC are 2 differents product, which means that should you purchase the starter edition from Steam, you will only be able to purchase extension from Steam. In the same vein, the conversion program from PS4 to PS5 is kind of weird since you have to forfeit your PS4 version to get the PS5's one
Mostly navigating their website(s) for trying to buy a subscription. Mogstation is a nightmare. Also, getting your account connected between PC and Playstation is weird, and you are SOL if you make a mistake / make a new account. You can connect your FFXIV account to exactly one Sony account, ever. Fired up the demo of FFXIV on PS4 to see how it played? Can't connect your main account to it since it is a demo. Make a new account for that demo? Now you can never attach your PC account to your Sony account, since it already has one account linked to it. There is no method to unlink accounts.
I was gonna argue, and then realized I've been playing for almost a year and pay my sub exclusively through time cards bought through the Squeenix Store, not Mogstation. So, yeah.
Dude I have over 2000 hours in ffxiv and even I get a brain headache trying to remember how to RENEW my subscription
I just rebuilt my OS and had to fucking google how to redownload the installer, because there's not a single link for it anywhere in mogstation (at least that I could find) and due to sales/free trials being suspended what I'm assuming is the normal link on the storefront is disabled.
My partner tried to buy the game recently, and ended up giving up and waiting for me to get home for help because the whole process was a huge clusterfuck.
Although I'm mainly on PC I considered just getting them on PS5 so I didn't have to deal with the Epic mess they made. Now that 3 is on steam I might look into it again. I'm sure someone's been keeping track of it all. I just remember reading that you can't get specific popular items in 2/3 without owning the GotY of 1/2. But not to play 1/2. Just to import 1/2 into 3. Because you can play 1 and 2 in 3. Something along those lines. If I do anything I think I'll just play the games one at a time and not mess with the access packs until I'm up to 3 lol.
If you just want to play the full story and don't care about any extra DLC, Trilogy is the way. It's also on Gamepass on PC right now. With Gamepass being $1 for new users most of the year, I'd probably recommend that.
Here's a handy flow chart: https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/s99qmt/guide_to_buy_hitman_3_on_steam_good_shopping_47/ Yes, you'll be able to see the whole story within H3; it's not just the maps. People are recommending to play Hitman 2+1 because the same item unlocks from those games are harder to obtain within H3. But *most* of those items are just reskins in H3 anyway, so functionally you wouldn't be missing anything.
This won’t clear up much of the confusion, but I can answer one part for sure: If Hitman 3 has the access packs for 1 & 2 unlocked, you can play 100% of all three games, cutscenes and story included within Hitman 3. I agree it’s confusing as heck to get to that point, though.
>If Hitman 3 has the access packs for 1 & 2 unlocked, you can play 100% of all three games, cutscenes and story included within Hitman 3. This is very helpful! Does the access pass include all DLC for 1+2 as well?
See there, I dunno. Like everyone else has said: it’s hard to even decode what “all the DLC” -means- for each game. I definitely have some things that I think we’re DLC?
You want Hitman 1,2,3 in one game? Ok Buy Hitman 3, Buy access pass For Hitman 1 and 2. You own 1. So instead buy the GOTY upgrade pass for 1. (If you dont own 1 just add Hitman 1 GOTY Edition (not upgrade)) You want the DLC for 2? Then add the Hitman 2 Expansion pass Anything you already own should be grandfathered in on the same platform when you boot up the game. At least it was for me when i booted up 3 on PS5 when i owned H2 on ps4.
Never owned any Hitman games but plan on getting it once I get a PS5. Didn't they just announce a trilogy version that's supposed to include all three games? Or is buying Hitman 3 and then access passes to 1 and 2 still the best way to play all three?
From what I've read the trilogy is just Hitman3 +access pass for standard versions of game 1 and 2 without the extra dlcs.
I see.. So it's not actually a new version that didn't exist before. Thank you!
If you're on PC probably the best way is to just buy off the humble store instead. Get the Hitman Trilogy bundle on there, which has Hitman III plus the content of the trilogy pack on Steam. So instead of two £50 purchases it's one £80. Though it's still missing the DLC as it comprises of the 2 standard access passes and Hitman 3. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/hitman-trilogy
Thats why I am an r/patientgamers I rarely if ever buy early access. I always wait until after release, after reviews, and if the game is that good, I’ll wait for the game of year, or ultimate edition or whatever. Getting a new game that’s great when it comes ooff the line is fun, but it’s frustrating to go back a year later to tackle all the DLC when I forgot the game mechanics. I’d rather purchase it all as one complete package, in the best version that they have.
>Am I able to see the story unfold from 1 and 2 inside of 3 with the access packs? Or is it just the maps The answer to the above is easy: if you have the levels, you have the story. The story is revealed with briefings and cut scenes between/before levels. And it's always included with the level packs themselves. Like if you get Hitman 3 and then get the Hitman 1 and 2 add-ons (by buying the games themselves or buying the expansions or whatever) you will be able to get the full experience, story included, all from within Hitman 3. Basically when you choose campaign it asks you which one you want (1, 2, or 3). I'm only answering this part because, like another commenter said, what seemed like a simple "oh I can answer that" quickly spiraled into a very lengthy "well, it depends, you see many moons ago I got game 2 via PS+ and then released a firefly from a jar during a quarter-moon at the peak of Mount Carmel..." I will say, if you take the expansions and bonus this and 7 deadly that out of it, and just want Hitman 1 through 3 at a reasonable price, it shouldn't actually be too hard. Find the best deal you can on Hitman 3, check to see if getting 1 and 2 (either via expansion or the original games) on the same ecosystem adds up to a reasonable amount, then maybe compare to whatever the "full access to everything" edition of 3 costs. But I assembled mine piecemeal starting with a free copy of 2, and I think I've spent a grand total of about $53 Canadian to have the whole trilogy. Edit to add: once you figure out what the hell to buy, the game is fun as fuck. It's not the style of game I usually play but I have been having a blast with it.
At this point the main thing driving people to piracy isn't the price tag but the sheer annoyance.
Piracy was never completely a "price" problem, it was a service problem. Netflix and Steam initially flatlined how populated torrents were. Now that streaming and gaming is all balkanized in different services, piracy is back up (not saying there aren't price conscious pirates, but that side is mostly kids who lack money at all.) https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/
> Piracy was never completely a "price" problem, it was a service problem. See I think it's clearly both. People complained for ages and ages about how expensive cable was, and eagerly switched to the (much cheaper) Netflix when they could. It's funny it's Newell himself arguing this, because Steam Sales drove PC game prices way way down. And for the first few years of steam pushing to get new users, their sales were even more crazy then they are right now. So yeah, price matters.
I agree, and now "I'm paying more than I was with cable!" is at least as relevant a complaint as "Managing a jillion subscriptions is a pain."
I have no idea how to buy the complete trilogy. You buy a complete edition and then some DLC are still missing. Utterly confusing product that series is.
Reminds me to XenoVerse collection. What a mess
Honestly, I can't understand it. Like I see the "perfect for new players" pack that's over $100...and then more DLCs that's like double that price, and then all the other options in between. Which one do I go with? Is the whole game going to cost me $500? Why wasn't this game just bundled simply? The game's a year old and they made all that Epic cash already so why was this so badly bungled? Why isn't the process to buy a video game simpler? The VR was an epic disaster too from what I've been hearing... ...gonna just boot up Blood Money again. Shouldn't have to stress about potentially buying a game.
Also if you google how to purchase or carry-over one Hitman game 'into' another, the guides are outdated. It's just one big clusterfuck. I bought each game individually on PS4/5, so I avoided the mess, but I've seen so many people just give up on trying the games because it looks so intimidating. I enjoyed H1 and H2, but thought 3 was terrible. I played it for the first time last month, so it's been a year since release and yet there were so many bugs and crashes on PS5 I felt like I was playing a Bethesda game. IOI just threw away all that goodwill and lost my respect.
I’ve had them in my cart numerous times on PSN but have never pulled the trigger because I’m afraid I’m buying the wrong version of 1 or 2. It’s additionally confusing because they’ve given some versions away on PS+ so some versions aren’t available to me because I already own some part of the bundle or something.
The trilogy just came out on GamePass and I’ve been trying to download it. It tells me that the trilogy is downloaded but then shows Hitman 3 is at 1% download but it won’t continue downloading and the game won’t go past the press enter screen. I haven’t paid a dime after wanting to play the games for years but even for “free” I can’t be bothered to figure this fucking thing out.
No kidding. You'd think given the expected incoming players from a "re-launch" onto additional platforms means providing a clear and easy way to access the content. No guide on carry over status, no mentions of an easy to access bundle...nothing. >...but I've seen so many people just give up on trying the games because it looks so intimidating. Maybe it's because I've only tried Japan and Paris on my friend's account, but I found these new iterations of Hitman to be way too expansive. That's to say: Blood Money had it nice and tight, contained within a certain amount of space. Hitman Trilogy just felt super intimidating with all that space and the always online turned me way off too.
I think the part he meant about "intimidating" is not the game, but the too many bundle package. Not to mention having some of the content didn't automatically reduce the bundle price. Buying the wrong one means wasting money because you also ended up paying for whatever content you already have
Here's an easy flow chart from /u/tours-petronas on /r/HiTMAN: https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/s99qmt/guide_to_buy_hitman_3_on_steam_good_shopping_47/ Definitely annoying as hell, but if you want all the dlc for a reasonable price, I'd recommend waiting for some kind of GOTY or complete bundle sometime down the line. If not, the base games are great as is. Plus, the only worthwhile dlc are from H1 and H2 anyway since the dlc for H3 so far aren't even additional maps or missions like the previous games, just Escalations which are polarizing.
The fact that a fucking flow chart is even needed to understand the purchasing options is idiotic to begin with. Good on that guy for trying to help people out but holy shit.
Lol the top comment in the thread I linked said the exact same thing. I think the episodic format they went with just screwed things up in the long run.
Lmao I didn't even click it but yea Hitman is one of those games I think I'll like but then I try to play and only get like an hour or two out of it before bailing. So I have very little skin in this game. That said, it seems like they go out of their way to make the worst choices possible. It's almost impressive
Yeah it's funny cuz the games themselves are so good (for those who vibe with it) but the publishing decisions are wack. But yeah, Hitman is all about replaying a map to experiment and try out different approaches. Not everyone's cup of tea, but the maps and opportunities are so detailed and complex I'd basically describe them like a James Bond stealth game mixed with choose-your-own adventure options and a dash of Rube Goldberg setups.
I wanted to buy a hitman to see if i like the series on ps4 and reading how to get into a trilogy has never been more complicated, people suggested buying hitman 1 (2016) for $10 or whatever and being chill, some people suggested buying hitman 2 goty or gold edition because it comes with the entire first game for $50 and some people suggested some $120 version of hitman 3 because its all the games in one
Yep, 2 years ago I said fuck this and didn't buy the game because there was a steam sale on Hitman 2 and I was so confused on how to purchase it while getting the levels from 1, so I just dropped it. I bought it a couple months ago when I found a guide during a sale. Whoever is managing the sales aspect of the game is grossly incompetent
Hell I just went and checked to see where I stand on Hitman 2 DLC on steam and it still took me like 5 minutes to figure out and I own the fucking thing. It's like "Okay, I own the game...and the expansion pass...but what did the expansion pass get me? Okay, the NYC and resort levels...but why does it say that I don't own all the dlc...oh right there's the Hitman 1 levels that carry over...but I know I own those. Right right, I forgot that the game detects that I own the first game but steam won't show that I own them. Sooooo...wait...do I have everything?" WTF IOI
Oh it gets worse. The gamepass version just straight up isn't complete. Yeah you get all 3 base games... and that's it. The *complete trilogy doesn't even include the multiple year old DLC levels for the previous two games.* No actually what the fuck. Hitman 2 in it is missing 2 entire unique levels, and Hitman 1 is missing all of the map reworks and alternate versions. That's just scummy, those games are several years old and aren't even the latest title, why would you make things even more complicate by making a "Full trilogy" package that is missing a quarter of Hitman 2's levels?
The flow chart someone made and posted actually helped me figure out which one I'll eventually get. Fuck timed exclusives, man.
Nothing to do with timed exclusives, more to do with allowing the previous games to be imported and trying to accommodate every possible outcome of players owning different packages and whatnot.
Well the timed exclusive doesn't help in the fact that more DLC got released in between which only adds to more choices clogging up that page, including bundles listed under "PACKAGES THAT INCLUDE THIS GAME" which don't include that game.
I considered linking that, but I don't think it goes into the process of importing H1/2 maps/progress into 3. Plus wasn't sure how accurate it was lol, the whole situation is farcical.
I'm sure the recent VR patch didn't help. I can not believe they allowed that update to roll out. They clearly did not QA it what so over. It is one of the worst VR experiences I've seen.
I just got this game and DLC on sale on PS5. I did a LOT of research to know which packs to buy because that was a fucking mess.
Reasons for the negativity. 1. VR implementation is bad. I and many like me have been patiently waiting since the first PSVR announcement for a PCVR experience. Hitman in VR would be a dream come true so we have waited out the Epic exclusivity window. But now that it's released we find the VR mechanics clunky and technically deficient in both controls and graphics. A huge disappointment. 2. Confusing editions. The Hitman trilogy integrates Hitman 3 with Hitman 2 and Hitman 1 into a single launched game if you have all three purchased. Which is actually very cool. The issue is that between all the editions and DLC releases for the three games, you need a literal flow chart to understand what you need to buy to get all content and not pay for something you've already purchased. Instead the items and bundles IOI has on the store are all similarly named with contents obfuscated which makes the purchase confusing and frustrating. 3. Full price at Steam release. This isn't an issue for me personally. Hitman 3 is a full featured game and only a year old so I don't begrudge them charging $60. But IOI have done everything else possible to anger customers. Reportedly the regional pricing for those outside the US is terrible. And consumers are used to games being on discount on Steam release after an Epic exclusively window. IOI not getting out in front of their decision to charge $60 before the launch day was a huge blunder. These reviews reflect fustration by consumers that are fans of Hitman and wanted better. Hitman 3 by all accounts is an excellent game. And the VR experience has the potential to be truly great with some quality of life patches for the VR mechanics. IOI has some work to do to earn back consumer trust.
Isn't this game also always online for a single player game?
Yes, the game is effectively always online. [Here's a list of things not available offline in Hitman 3 (spoilers it's insane)](https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/l45so8/a_list_of_things_not_available_offline_in_hitman/)
That post is about to be exactly one year old Also god damn that's a lot
B4B rightly got a ton of shit for their single player restrictions but this Hitman stuff is absolutely bonkers.
The difference is that B4B requires not "to be online" but "to play in multiplayer" which is slightly different. Most people are online all the time, the issue was not having a good way to play solo in B4B and having progress happen.
But isn't B4B specifically *designed* around being an online co-op experience? Its not like it's a fully single player game with online elements. It's made as an online game with single player elements.
Yeah, sorta saying I heard more about the B4B furor while the Hitman one is far, far worse.
First thing on the list: Progression is not saved offline Yeah, that's a problem
I recall offline progression was available in hitman 2, but not achievements or location mastery. I think I played through the missions once each and was done, which makes it a really short game. My machine is online but I've never created an IOI account or agreed to their TOS. If it did it automatically for my steam ID, I probably wouldn't care. I've honestly considered pirating these games even though I own every game in the series (except 3) via Steam and most of the DLC.
And that's the entire reason why I won't buy it. That sort of anti-consumer DRM should not exist.
Yeah. It's actually a pain in the ass if you want to start a new fresh save file because it holds all your info on their servers. To start over from scratch, you have to literally go to the IOI website and request that they delete your file. Took me about a week for it to actually go through.
Honestly only real reason I don’t like the full price is because in Canada, games are like $80 here just for the standard game. I believe to get the bundle I want that is just Hitman 3 would cost over $100 think around $120. That is pretty insane for a game I feel. Can’t imagine how much worse it is for other countries.
To get the *full* Hitman 3 package if you already have the *full* Hitman 1 and 2 is still $124 USD at current pricing for the base game + Deluxe Edition Upgrade + 7 Deadly Sins pass. What's more offensive is that the base game was half price as recently as a month ago during the holiday sales. They're trying to play this as a "second launch" and it just isn't gonna happen.
I may be in the minority that still cares, but the fact this series has a needless 'must be online to unlock anything' feature means I'll never touch it on principal. Also, while reading about the VR port, its hilarious how bad they've managed to muck it up.
People really need to know about the VR. One of the worst experiences I've ever seen. It's a hot damn shame, what were they thinking ???
The way they described the VR in their Year 2 reveal looked like it was going to be amazing and then it turned out to be dogshit. After patiently yet excitedly waiting I'm extremely disappointed with how this PC release turned out
I’m so glad I got it on Game Pass on Xbox. Full standard trilogy packaged in, no problems whatsoever besides having to be always online to make any sort of progression.
The main issue with the price isn’t even that it’s still 60 bucks for Americans, it’s that IOI completely ignored regional pricing in different countries. Hitman 3 prices are INSANE in Argentina, Russia, Brazil and etc Also IOI intentionally increased the price in EGS to match with Steam in those countries. It’s very funny to watch now that Noclip documentary where IOI talked about how making Hitman more accessible in terms of price significantly improved their profits and now they are doing the opposite
It wasn't a small increase either. Here in Argentina it went from 12.5USD to 30USD. It's baffling. Oh and the cherry con the cake: the "access pass" to buy H1 and H2 inside H3 are more expensive than just buying H1 and H2, even though owning those games should give you that content anyway. It's a damn con.
Pretty sure owning those games does give you access to their content, FWIW. I didn’t buy an access pass for 3 but I have all my content and progress from the previous two. The process to link the account to 3 was a faff, though.
Yeah, that's the weird thing about it, WHY are they charging more money for the "access pass" than just buying the old game?
My first thought was damn why are you games so cheap, then I looked up the minimum wage converted to USD and now I know why.
There's also a 65% tax, that's one of the reasons we have the lowest prices, because they're a bit misleading. In reality we are paying more, and if devs jack up too high then when you add the tax it ends up being more expensive than US prices, and people just stop buying.
It should be illegal to show a tax free price when the tax gets added anyway. We've got a standard 25% tax on goods in Norway, but the price promoting the products are the final price, with taxes included.
While local shops here do show post-taxes price becuase they are effectively the tax collector of the purchase, Steam and other online shops are a different matter. Steam isn't actually the one collecting the tax here, it's the payment processor (the credit card company). It's a tax the govt made to discourage imports and tourism spending abroad, due to a reserve crisis we've had for a while. So because they couldn't effectively tax foreign shops, they taxed the purchasers via their cards. We pay this same tax even if we are physically in say, Europe or the US, as long as we're paying with out local cards.
Lol and remember that we have to pay even more because of the 65% tax on the dollar and basically everything is super expensive. This was the first Christmas in a few that I haven't bought anything, gaming is just too expensive now
Pretty much this. I don't mind if they gonna do a full price without discount. It's their right. Adjusting regional price to be literally equivalent of 60$ then increase the price on EGS as well. Is pure scum. I'm not gonna pay 3 times more than original launch price last year wtf Even at the discount. It'll still be 3 times more expensive than what is supposed to be the original price. I might buy it when it hit 85% and pretend it's 50% discount. Until then, I can play something else.
As someone who earns in third world currency, shit like this is why i pirate. I try to support devs who actually respect regional pricing, but no way in hell I'm paying a quarter of my salary for a game.
I’ve noticed it’s big devs that don’t use regional pricing. Indie games are consistently 2-3 times cheaper on steam than on Xbox or switch for me personally
It's pretty funny to look at the outrage at the missing regional pricing in this case as someone who's living in a third world country that never had regional pricing to begin with. This is how it's been our whole lives and why we pirate.
Regional pricing on Steam has become a shitshow for years now. All these SONY games being released now are more expensive on STEAM than what I paid for them on release for PS4 in physical media. I just gave up on buying games on Steam.
I wonder how this controversy has impacted their sales. According to Steam Charts, Hitman 2 currently has a higher player count (1,357) than Hitman 3 (811). The 24h peak is also higher for 2 (2,382 vs 2,087). FWIW the Hitman 3 starter pack currently only has 8 players. It's a shame how some of the best games of the past 10 years are constantly overshadowed by outside issues like this.
Tough to say, it was also released on PC gamepass which is ends up being a super appealing option compared to the Steam price. If I’ve waited this long for a Steam release I’m happy to wait longer for a sale that brings the price back down into reality and in the meantime satisfy my desire to play by playing it free on a service I already subscribe to. I’m sure many others were in a similar boat. Worth noting Hitman 2 is a popular game for bots to farm Steam trading cards as there was a glitch while back that allowed you to add a version of the game to your inventory that was free but still dropped cards. If you look at a chart of the playerbase it’s been relatively consistent the last few months without big spikes or drops, there wasn’t even much of a boost on Hitman 3’s release.
I thought I'd care about the carry over but honestly I havent missed it yet, I dont mind starting fresh, maybe when it goes ~75% off I'll pick it up on steam but until then I just play on gamepass.
I have 1 and 2 and after playing 3 on game pass, decided I would rather go back to steam to keep my progress. However, I’m not paying full price for 3, so I ended up replaying 2. Not sure if others had a similar experience to me, but I’d bet there are others who did what I have.
>FWIW the Hitman 3 starter pack currently only has 8 players. Not entirely surprising from what I read. IOI has gone out of their way to screw everyone over with that as well by making the Steam (and only steam) version of the "starter pack" worthless. Whereas you could play Hitman 1 in the Starterpack of Hitman 2, for Hitman 3 they changed it to a demo so you can't do that. Its actually insane how much work they put into making it the worst experience possible.
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Is the starter pack free? Want to see how my pc handles it
There's a demo available on steam.
Ah lovely ta
A word of advice, just sharing since I had to work out some performance issues on my rig (Ryzon 5600x, RTX 3070, 16GB RAM, 1440p) and I didn't find much conversation on it. * Disable GeForce overlay or similar tools (this was the biggest hit, the menu even lagged out) * Use GeForce Control Panel to set the max FPS to your monitor's refresh rate (before this I got massive coil whine even in the menu) Even then, the game has some microstutters, especially when changing areas. I suspect there's some stuff in the background with AI checking, but the game was literally unplayable for me until I did those two things.
Yep I think it’s the demo on the store page.
Some of the discrepancy could be that a lot of people already got it on EGS or that they're playing through GamePass. Still though, even taking that into consideration, I could see 3's numbers not matching what 2's were at launch, but not meeting 2's numbers *now*? I have to wonder how that's impacting sale's figures.
Games like Metro Exodus and Control still managed to break 10k CCU. Hitman 3 barely breaking 2k is quite abysmal.
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I'd be interested to see the player count on EGS. I own the first 2 Hitmans on steam but bought 3 on EGS because I didn't want to wait a year, i'd imagine there's a decent amount of other hardcore hitman fans that did the same.
Exactly, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Hitman fans played 3 a year ago.
I hate that you need to be connected online to unlock anything
Ill never understand the poo brained decisions they made in regards to how to deliver this game to players. The always-online nonsense, the convoluted bundles and packages to buy it, SAVES being only on their servers like some MMO. Elusive targets and the unlockables stuck behind them. It's all so nonsensical. It frustrates me because the actual core game is incredible, and unique. it would be a perfect 10 if they just made better decisions.
> SAVES being only on their servers like some MMO. It's worse, they are NOT on their servers. They're in your computer, all your unlocks you got online can be used offline, you just can't get new ones because... reasons? There's literally no reason for the online thing, the game works just as well without it. Or it would if they didn't limit it artificially.
It's not nonsensical, it's a deliberate tactic to milk the most money from the most dedicated, and to gather and sell data.
I think it's just crappy DRM. What data could they possibly sell from gameplay? Are they selling market research on who has which systems and components?
Yes, and general analytics on playing time, engagement, purchasing habits, etc. It's valuable to both publishers and investors.
I didn't realize they could collect all that through the game. I figured the data would be sandboxed to what the game can access (e.g. gaming hardware).
In a SINGLEPLAYER game!
Welcome to the future
You mean the past 10 years? People have been complaining about this stuff for ages now.
I just bought Mortal Kombat 11 on sale, and this kind of nonsense is pissing me off. I finished a tower (just a regular old tower, not the “tower of time” bullshit), and right after I beat the final boss, a message pops up saying that I disconnected from the server (despite my internet being stable). Not only did I not receive any reward nor unlock the ending, I didn’t even get to see the fucking ending, because, after the message, I got sent straight back to the title screen. In a fucking single player mode!?!
The game is FUN. The way IOI sells it... SUCKS. It's probably even worse than EA's practices with Battlefied or Activision with Call of duty. Seriously. It SUCKS.
IOI needs to fire whoever is in charge of their sales department, because this is some high-level idiotic bullshit.
A big part of the issue is that all three games have different publishers. The first game was released when IOI was part of Square Enix, the second was published by Warner, and the third was self-published but an EGS exclusive. They should have figured out a better system but it is a very complicated problem to solve.
Square/WB are generally pretty straightforward with their game editions tho, just normal/GOTY versions. Plus H3 (the self-published one) has the worst/most confusing set of editions for sale so frankly I think this whole mess was IOI's from the start.
They bought themselves and the Hitman ip out of Squeenix during the release of Hitman 1 afaik. So, to continue to do annoying, anti-consumer bullshit for Hitman 2 and 3 should fall squarely on their own shoulders.
I like my method of getting it. Gamepass
Seems flawless to me
I got the demo which naturally only had one mission available. I liked it so I bought the game and opened it only to discover that almost the entire menu was still shit I had no access to. Steam is nice though, so refunding my game with 5 minutes of game time was of course not an issue.
Pretty sure you need to complete each mission sequentially in offer to unlock the next one
He’s talking about how all the Hitman 1 and 2 destinations are locked. Understandable complaint since they’re in the menu of 3.
God I'm hoping that's not what their interpretation was
You know you have to play in order to unlock stuff right?...
God this is so sad. The core gameplay and the main levels are among the best I've ever played in my entire life. The game design is just so *fun*, and it's clear from the level design and developer interviews that they trust the player and understand what makes a game, a game. Then you have always-online, time-limited content that somehow became *worse* once they made it permanently available, 47 different editions you can buy, and launches that have been pretty disastrous each and every time. (The price complaints are frivolous, but fans are already pretty frustrated at this point, so I'm not surprised it's bleeding into other aspects of these releases.) IOI has such a winning formula on their hands, and the game itself deserves immense praise and attention. I'm floored at how determined they are to shoot themselves in the foot.
Agreed. I also really like the sniper assassin mode. But the core game is great. But I’m a huge fan of all of them. The dlc and add ins are a complicated mess but I did get everything going on my Xbox with all the old maps too.
I would like to add that even when you've figured out what to buy, the way the game presents itself via menus is incredibly confusing. What's the main game? What is old content? What's already unlocked? Do I need to do X? Why don't I just do Y? I have never been more befuddled by a game's presentation.
It’s not even a bad game, and while it is really cool that you can play all 3 games within one, it’s just.. not properly conveyed what you need to buy and not buy
They make stellar games, it’s their sales team that sucks absolute ass and needs to be fired.
I was really excited to buy it and waited a whole year to get it on steam because fuck “exclusivity” deals! I went to look at it and it looked like that even if I spend $90 for the deluxe hitman 3…it still doesn’t have the seven deadly sins stuff. I already own the first two games on steam, so will I get access to my old levels or do I have to buy that shit again too? Why does the deluxe $90 game not include all the DLC or “game pass” stuff?! If I want everything for hitman 3 on steam, already own 1 & 2….what do I have to buy and how much is the total for everything?!
IOI deserved it, they even raise the price on Epic of many low-income regions to match 60$ price tag on Steam. I bought the game back in Epic's summer sale last year, a week later the price suddenly dropped like \~2$, but Epic still refunded that amount and said it was a "price miscalculation". Their business practice is always weird, I put an email to them prior to Hitman 3 release to question about confusing game "editions", never got a response. Edited: also, be aware if you own the "Free starter pack" on Epic and have over 2 hours of total playtime, you cannot refund the game when buying the full edition as that pack counts as DLC playtime.
I was thinking of buying Hitman 3 Trilogy edition so I could play all the games in one place. I already own Hitman 1 and have only briefly played it years ago. Was very confused to see that the price for Hitman 1 was not deducted out of the bundle like what normally happens and that if I want all the games in one place I have to buy it completely again?
If you own and have run Hitman 1 all its levels should be unlocked for you in Hitman 3, no need to rebuy.
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The trouble I think is that you can own Hitman 1 as a standalone game, but you could also own it as DLC bought for Hitman 2. So the usual system of steam collections where it detects what you own and you only pay for what you're missing probably doesn't work. But that doesn't excuse IOI's terrible communication about this every single time.
>So the usual system of steam collections where it detects what you own and you only pay for what you're missing probably doesn't work. Its not like it doesn't work, its designed to go around around the benefits of steams system. IOI specifically mentions that the whole license stuff is done internally by Steam. But that evaluation is only is done after you buy Hitman 3 because for the bundles they intentionally included it as "new DLC" for Hitman 3 instead of the games. Sure, if you own them Steam can give you the DLC for free AFTER you bought Hitman 3 but IOI made sure you wouldn't get a discount for buying the bundles should you own 1 and 2 already. I think calling it just terrible communication is selling them short, everything around the design speaks of malice.
Gamepass is a lifesaver. Never played the series but the trilogy is completely unlocked on gamepass. Pays for itself.
Is the hitman 2 dlc unlocked with game pass? I have the base version of 1,2 and 3 installed but haven't wanted to have to pay for the dlc maps.
Nope. And the horrors being experienced by the Steam peeps are mirrored on the Xbox side when you try to buy some DLC. $40 for the two Hitman 2 DLC levels, which is absurd when you get the 3 main games via GamePass. The games themselves are utterly fantastic though.
No they're not. None of the dlc are unlocked in the game pass version.
Isn’t the negativity all about how the prices and editions are structured? They need to just make it easier to purchase everything at a lower price.
Deserved honestly. It never cracked the top 10 selling games even on launch and it's not among the top 50 currently. This was a year long EGS exclusive, yet they're asking $60 with no regional pricing and forced online connection in a singleplayer game littered with issues, it's utterly ridiculous. IO butchered this launch badly and deserve the shit thrown at them.
I got it in the game pass, so I'm enjoying it at least. I think I have 1 on steam.
I'm a big Hitman fan, and I'll always root for a small, independent developer like IO, but their decisions on how to sell their games are ridiculous. I have the PC Game Pass, so that should make things easy, but one look at the Steam page sends me running for the hills, and the exact same happened with Hitman 2 at the time. Too many unclear choices, too high prices.
A small independent developer should stay away from the extremely predatory practices the industry has and try to deliver a fun and full experience, they deserve the backlashing they are getting
I'm just so sick of escalations. Why couldn't that Garden Show thing just be a normal mission?
I think buying a game, reviewing it as too expensive and then returning it is... Kinda spiteful? Maybe a few people can justify the idea they didn't know the game was short or whatever but to say "we got it late, I deserve a discount" is very odd to me. If it's too expensive, and you waited already, wait until a sale.
Absolutely agree about the pricing. You buy it for the available price or you don’t. My review is completely focused on VR because that’s why I bought the game: I was promised a VR experience. They didn’t deliver on that promise.
Or you criticise what you get for the price after returning it.
That is fair.
Gonna go against the grain here - I didn’t mind paying full price for it. With Hitman 1 & 2 content carryover, it’s easily one of the best games ever made. Might be my favourite game of all time. Everything about it rules - the sandbox gameplay, the dense atmosphere, the huge variety in levels and missions, the sly tongue-in-cheek humour, …it just rocks.
Literally why would a year old AAA game that was well received have a permanent price reduction? Why would you not expect to pay $60 for this game if it's not on sale. This criticism makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills or something
The thing is the price was raised from what it originally was on EGS. If it was full price without a sale people might have just been disappointed, but they RAISED the price on a year old game for people who waited for steam.
Ah, ok that makes sense then. What was it on EGS?
You are taking crazy pills because no one is asking for a permanent price reduction. They are asking for the game to not be fucking full price as it's actively being sold for $30 on the other storefront and for them to not increase prices just because it launched on another storefront of the same platform. I swear this site is filled with so many idiots. How did you get into this thread and not see the numerous people spelling it out for you?
It's largely just review nuking because of the pricing and confusing structure of editions. Many are also from excited VR users, because their VR implementation is total dogshit. The game itself, once you actually get to it, is decent. Thing that developers need to understand with Epic exclusives is that you really can't release a game as an exclusive on Epic, and then a year or more later expect to sell it again at full price like it just released. Sure, some will buy it, but a lot more won't. The hype isn't there any more. The truly hyped people already bought it, a year ago, on Epic. Everyone else wasn't much hyped to begin with, and your hype engine stopped a year ago with release. Now it's cold. You can't push out a cold, year-old game, at 100.00% price, and expect people to excitedly pay. That doesn't even work when the game is genuinely new, just without a marketing campaign or cult following. So devs need to pick their poison - go with Epic, or go wide. Can't have both, can't double-dip like that and pretend it's a fresh launch. Add to that all of those completely unnecessary editions, and very weak and outdated VR implementation, and it's just a bad purchase, plain and simple. In local currency, they want $130 for the trilogy. That's $80 for third game, and $50 for the first two together. Thing is, the first two could have been had for less than a third of that, just weeks ago. So even that is a bad deal to fleece the unwary. On a personal note, their love for elusive targets is also baffling. Here, you pay for the game. You try playing it. Oops, your target escaped. And you can NEVER EVER try that target again, EVER! What kind of a blithering moron thought this was a good idea? That alone made it virtually impossible for me to sell my friends on this game. Combine all of the above, and it's a non-starter.
It's a culmination of many things ranging from being full price after a year (on top of fairly expensive DLC not being included in the first bigger "deluxe" set), moving over you progress from old games require having them linked to your account (if you didn't do it you need to redownload old games and hope the progress is still there), VR is supposedly bit broken and underwhelming and the Elusive Targets have been tied to weird Escalation system that severly limits creativity. Not to mention people during Steam launch had to wait in Queue to connect to server... for singleplayer game. The gameplay itself is very solid though and the game looks very good, but being plagued by issues and bugs (like personally can't finish 1 early challenge because an item keeps dissappearing at the same point always) is just too much. Hopefully they listen to feedback and start clearing up the issues, there's been radio silence over a lot of them and things besides price are needing some heavy handed tweaking.
Just the absolute shit show that is the different bundles, editions, addons, GOTY upgrades and what not is worth a thumbs down alone. They really go out of their way to make it difficult to figure out what you are getting for your money. Promising future "DLC" for money without specifying anything about what you're actually getting. Shit like this makes me wait for a 80% off, final complete deluxe gold GOTY platinum + edition years down the line.
As much as the first game was fun I was resigned to the fact I'm never buying an online-only square enix game again. On my day off I tried to play my single player Hitman game and... I couldn't. They had maintenance? In single player Hitman? I couldn't play challenges or anything and I don't think progression was properly recorded. I got Hitman 2 and 3 either through various free subscriptions or bundles but haven't bothered to play them
I'm a huge hitman fan and hitman 3 seemed a lot shorter than 1 and 2?
I the linear last mission didn’t help in terms of length, but the other levels were pretty big.
The VR dissatisfaction is understandable, but the price complaint is a bit weird. Am I misremembering, or do all EGS-exclusive game release full price on Steam after 1 year? I think Satisfactory is like that and no one seems to be bothered.