Hitman III: After a year of Epic Games Store exclusivity, the Danish studio hasn’t been consumer-friendly.

IO Interactive went self-publishing after the first instalment was originally published by Square Enix (in episodic format; the publisher then left them behind, making the studio independent). The second was brought to us by Warner. But the final part of the trilogy (which includes the locations from the first two instalments, essentially making those games redundant…) was self-published by the Danes, and Epic Games paid them to make the final chapter of the Agent 47 reboot trilogy available only on the Epic Games Store for an entire year.

But on January 20 (while the second season of the game launched; we previously reported on its new contents), Hitman III was released on Steam. In the meantime, the trilogy was added to Game Pass on both PC and Xbox consoles. But that’s not the problem; it’s the pricing on Steam. It’s 60 USD/EUR for a game released a year ago. In other words, they’re charging the total price when they should be selling for 20-30-40% less after all this time.

Therefore, the Steam reviews for the game is not the best, but there are legitimate criticisms (server connectivity… which seems like a rather cheeky copy protection move for a single-player title; but the “there are several versions of the game and it’s complicated” line of thinking is not stupid either). No wonder there is a negative review that sums up what’s wrong in a nutshell: “Wonderful game, terrible pricing and microtransactions.”

The Danes have been lying like excrement in the grass for a week, but they have announced their plans: “Our Hitman 3 launch on Steam didn’t go as planned. We were excited to bring Hitman 3 to Steam with new content, and we knew that anticipation and excitement levels amongst our Steam players were high, especially as the game had been an Epic exclusive for a year. Ultimately, we didn’t meet our expectations of a launch experience, and we don’t like that our Steam community is beginning their Hitman 3 journey in this way. Simply launch your Steam copy of Hitman 3, and the new content from your free upgrade will be waiting for you to enjoy.”

Anyone who buys the base game on Steam by February 19 will be upgraded to the Deluxe Edition. Anyone who buys this edition (or maybe bought the Hitman Trilogy on Steam) will get the Seven Deadly Sins Collection (the first year’s worth of DLC) for free. Couldn’t this move have been made by default…?

Source: PCGamer