Excitement around Hitman: Absolution has been building at an impressive rate over the last year. In fact, today it’s exactly one year ago we came out and announced that we were working on Absolution and we’ve had a great ride. From sharing the first gameplay at E3 2011 and releasing the full 16 minutes for everyone to see afterwards to showing off the gorgeous orphanage level, revealing the fate of 47’s long-time handler Diana, showing off new features like Instinct and introducing exciting new gameplay series of videos called ‘Introducing’, we can safely say the fans have been with us through quite a ride thus far.
And now it’s time to kick it up another level. Today, we announce two new things. One is the Hitman: Sniper Challenge pre-order bonus and the other is the release date of Absolution. Let’s start with the release date – November 20th, 2012 is the day the game will hit PS3. So get your behind to Mars, er, GameStop and pre-order the game. Why? Well, that’s where this Sniper Challenge comes in.
You see, the Sniper Challenge is a way for us to say “thanks and we love you” to all the dedicated fans who have been waiting these last few years for a new Hitman experience. We’ve taken our time in creating a great game for fans, new and old alike, and we’ve tried out many different things in the process. One of those things was an early prototype for sniper gameplay in the game. It started out as two grey boxes with 47 on top of one and a target way off in the distance on the other. A few more items were added and the thing was shared internally to see if it worked. Pretty soon, it went viral at IO Interactive. Leaderboards were built, people started spending more and more time on it and we realized that this was something awesome. So we decided to expand upon it and make it into something that wasn’t Absolution – it was never going to go in the game as it just didn’t fit anywhere – but a few guys scrounged up some internal resources and started building the level out as a bonus to the fans that had been waiting for so long already.
So, here’s the deal – the Hitman: Sniper Challenge is a standalone hit, only available for Hitman: Absolution pre-orders. As the original assassin, you’ll unpack your Agency Kazo TRG sniper rifle, scope out the penthouse balcony of one Mr. Richard Strong Jr., CEO of Stallion Armaments and soon-to-be dead guy. And here’s the great thing: you get to play it immediately upon pre-order starting May 15th! Take out Mr. Strong Jr. and his entire staff of bodyguards, score big on the leaderboards and you’ll unlock equipment upgrades that carry over to Hitman: Absolution when the game comes out on November 20th. All you need to do is pre-order the game with GameStop, obtain the redeem code, boot up your PS3 and grab the Sniper Challenge from PlayStation Store starting May 15th. That’s it!
We truly hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we have. And don’t forget – November 20th is the day of Absolution.
Awesome to find out the release date!
Sad the preorder stuff is only for Gamestop (like Starhawk). As a person that has lots of Amazon credit, I was hoping this would be extended to them as well.
This is great news, thank you. I think I can survive until Nov 20th. Will there be a digital release on PSN? I am sure many fellow gamers would appreciate it. I hope you take in into consideration.
Hi Nick, nice bonus. Sorry for interloping on the US blog but are there any plans to mirror this bonus for EU gamers? I’m an original PC Hitman fan and will be preordering this straight away if this bonus is available in the UK.
Can you confirm if the Sniper Challenge is exclusive to GameStop? Amazon is far superior to GameStop, so I’d hate to have to pre-order this at GameStop, download the game, cancel my pre-order at GameStop, and then pre-order it at Amazon instead. But I’ll do it if I have to.
Yay, a release date!!!
yay i been an Agent 47 fan since it was on ps2 i thought i would never say this i want this summer to end so the release date will get here quicker today’s to do list put game on preorder . thank you
I just started my day to hear some good news on hitman. But what i wanna know is will the other hitman games be downloadable on the ps3 network
Another question i just preorderd it with game stop on the redeem code will they email it to us?
its been awhile since i’ve played hitman
And yet, this scenario doesn’t support Move… seriously?
For anyone asking about UK:
It will be the same way to get it but you don’t have to go all the way to the US to get it, just check out http://www.hitmansniper.com from the 15th.
I appreciate the fan service here, but unfortunately, I do not do business with GameStop due to some of their shady policies. If you guys would have made this available through Amazon, I would have been all over it. Please make future preorder bonuses available through other retailers.
As a Hitman fan since the beginning of the franchise, I’m still looking forward to the game.
The trailer says it’s an early unlock from GameStop. I guess that means the mode is available for everyone through some other in-game unlock without having to deal with GS?
Fantastic incentive to preorder. Hope now that Hitman is done, we’ll also be getting a Kane & Lynch 3 within a year or so. K&L2 is still very active and fun
Looks fun, but not going anywhere near Gamestop. I’ll keep my Amazon preorder, and wait for this to release after some “timed exclusive” is up.
Oh, and the not-so-subtle Assassin’s Creed reference at the end was awesome!
Thats a really kewl concept to release the mini-game to pre-orders, and to have it this early just adds to that.
What about us boys and girls in the UK where can we get the pre order bonus??? please answer as i want to pre oreder NOW. ;-)
Is this the game where people pretend to be a badass bald guy that isn’t Kojak and off people for the Catholics?
This is exciting news but i thought it was coming in August 31st and when is there going to be a demo.
This looks awesome! Move support please?
Well I think I have commented on every other post 2day so I just thought I’d stop in and say hello!
PS: Gamestops the devil!
:D
So much hate on Gamestop …… relax guys. You can always put 5 bucks for a preorder to get this and if you want later down the road, you can cancel it and get your 5 dollars back. Basically getting a free game.
Very Nice! Can’t wait for this! >_< Going to pre-order before the 15 :D !!
EU people,
you can get the “Sniper Challenge” code by pre-ordering from the hut group.
Thehut.com
or
Zavvi.com
cheers!!
@23 Amen to that, I’ll probably just end up transferring the $5 later on and getting the game for free, but Hitman does catch me eye….
I hope someone can answer this, as it’s going to determine whether I pre-order the game or not: Does the Sniper Challenge have trophies? If so, does it have a platinum?
Comment 27
From what I read on the Gamestop.com site, it says transfer your stats, achievements, and so on to the full game. I believe with achievements, it also considers trophies imo so I do think this does have trophies but I highly doubt it’ll have platinum.
Can some plz explain the grip with Gamestop? It’s hard to understand why their so hated…
Some dude on 4chan told about this sniper challenge pre order bonus months before this announcement, i see he was right which worries me because the other things he said about the game might be right too, it is not pretty
Looks like I’ll be pre-ordering then cancelling so I can go with Amazon. Gamestop is a terrible company so I don’t know why they keep getting these exclusive bonuses. Nobody likes them.