Today, IO Interactive announced the Hitman 3 Free Starter Pack, which is available to anyone who wants to check out the insanely addictive stealth gameplay of the Hitman series. There are a couple super cool features in this pack that I think are very much worth your time if you don’t currently own Hitman 3.
First off, you get free permanent access to the ICA facility, which is the game’s tutorial mission (there are actually three main missions across two different maps here). This will show you the ropes and also give you a feel for the series’ sandbox stealth format (which is very fun).
Next, if you own Hitman 1 or 2, you will be able to import all of the content you own into the Hitman 3 Free Starter Pack. This puts all your World of Assassination unlocks in one place, and it gives you backward-compatible access to the VR features of Hitman 3. If you need to know how the import works, you can check out my full guide. Note that anything you unlock in the free version of the game will carry over into the full game if you decide to make the purchase. Yes, this includes all of your XP and a massive list of potential unlocks (you can see the full list here).
On top of this, free players will still have access to some of the game events, as well as rotating access to some maps from the entire trilogy. If you drop in early, you will have access to Hitman 3‘s Dubai map (from now until April 5), as well as Hitman 2‘s Hawke’s Bay map.
Oh, and because Hawke’s Bay is currently free (for a limited time) for Free Starter Pack players, anyone who owns Hitman 3 but not Hitman 2 will also have access to this mission while this offer stands.
At this point, I’ve invested hundreds of hours into the World of Assassination trilogy, and I think the Free Starter Pack is a great entry point into an almost infinitely replayable stealth game. While this free content doesn’t do a lot for me personally, I’m excited for anyone who gets to experience Hitman because of it. If you’ve not checked out the series at all — or even if you bounced off after Hitman 2 — you should definitely give this a download.
You can check out the official 30-second teaser for the Hitman 3 Free Starter Pack below.
