Square Enix and Io-Interactive announced today that Hitman Episode 3: Marrakesh will be released on May 31 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Set in a location that’s “both teeming with life and with things to do,” Marrakesh includes alleys, a café, the Swedish Consulate building, and more. The mission this time around offers two targets – private banker Claus Strandberg and army General Reza Zaydan:
The “Gilded Cage” mission challenges players to eliminate private banker Claus Strandberg, holed up inside the secure Swedish Consulate, and army General Reza Zaydan, protected by his elite squad of soldiers at a temporary headquarters in the heart of the city. Both targets will be challenging to reach and both will of course have some entertaining special moments attached to them that will allow players to dole out some poetic justice.
Additionally, Episode 3 comes with lots of new live content, including a new setting for Contracts mode, Elusive Targets, and Escalation Contracts.
In an interview with GameSpot, Lead Online Designer Torben Ellert revealed that the most significant improvement since Hitman launched is server performance:
It blindsided us that it would happen. I feel we were diligent in trying to hunt these things down, but it underlines the strength and perhaps the challenge of being a game like this. You go, and then your game has been played for tens of millions of hours within the first couple of days. And you can’t test it to that scale. So for all the cases that you think you simply don’t see in your tests, suddenly become major clusters of events. So, I’m really happy that we’ve reduced it, we’ve put in place countermeasures that have improved performance across the board. Do I wish that that hadn’t happened? Absolutely, but I feel we’ve done everything in our power to improve and are continuing to improve it, but it’s a consequence of the creative decision that we’ve made.
Ellert added that they aren’t sure how often Elusive Targets will be available, and they’ll look at whether 48 hours is the right time for them.
Expect more Hitman episodes throughout the summer.
