Hitman out March 11, new locations to follow in April, May and June

Hitman absolution 2

Hitman's unusual release schedule has finally been detailed. The 'Hitman Intro Pack' will be available March 11 for $34.99, and will comprise three 'sandbox locations'—France, Italy and Morocco—along with six missions, 800 targets for the game's Contracts mode, 40 'signature kills', plus weekly events to keep Agent 47 busy until April.

There will be three additional sandbox locations arriving in April, May and June: Thailand, the USA, and Japan, respectively. Plus more missions, and more of everything else really. You'll be able to upgrade the Intro Pack for an additional $29.99—or buy everything upfront for $59.99. You can pre-order 'The Full Experience' now, which will give you guaranteed beta access, though it's not clear yet how limited the beta will be. As ever, it's probably best to wait.

It's certainly an interesting way to release a big-budget game, one that will hopefully give the developers more time to work on Hitman before launch. You can see a pizza-like infographic explaining the release schedule below.

Hitman release schedule

Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.