The release of Hitman: HD Trilogy today on PS3 and PlayStation Network brings Hitman: Blood Money onto the PlayStation format for the first time. With it come two additional classic Hitman games – Silent Assassin and Contracts.

More than anything else IO Interactive has created in the past decade and a half, Hitman has been the defining series for the studio. Five titles in the franchise have been released in the last 12 years, across most AAA platforms available within the same time period.

The combination of the assassin fantasy, game mechanics and freedom of choice makes the Hitman series the most original set of games we have made at IO. Nobody had ever really seen a game like Hitman before — not even the developers who were about to create it. It was a game about a stone-cold killer, but with tongue-in-cheek humor to balance the very mature themes in the game. As Tore Blystad, Game Director on Hitman: Absolution, says: “When dealing with such a dark topic … you need something in there to compensate, to make it less cynical. In the start of Absolution development we tried to say that we wanted to make a serious game rather than a funny one, but within days the humor started creeping back into what we did, and instead of getting rid of it we decided to really embrace it for Absolution.” In many ways, the inherent humor in the Hitman games has been there as a way to balance the very grim, mature themes in the games.

The Hitman games introduced a number of unique gameplay elements including a new type of artificial intelligence, the use of ragdoll physics and the disguise mechanism. Getting those things to work together in a complex system has always been a massive challenge. Crafting the open-ended missions of ‘Codename 47’ along with features such as sniping, disguises and hiding in plain sight took huge amounts of testing and risk-filled development. The result of this development was a game that was extremely difficult to master, which became a staple of the series. The difficulty was made even more dominant by the fact that the team somehow forgot to include a save game feature for the first game, which meant the experience was a lot more punishing (and, it turned out, a lot more exciting) than most other games at that time. With the games that followed, all of which are now part of the Hitman: HD Trilogy, those mechanics and features were further refined.

And then there are all the Easter Eggs. Across all the games there are probably too many to count, but we’re guessing on average it’s probably around 25 in each game. Nobody is really sure because before Absolution, the artists and designers would simply sneak in the Easter Eggs and nobody would really know where they were or who put them there. With Absolution, it all became a little more structured and so things like the Loch Ness Monster, the wearable Blood Money masks, the disco cops, Mini Ninjas references and the appearances of both Kane and Lynch have all been tracked a little better.

One thing that newcomers to the Hitman experience will learn when playing the HD Trilogy is how versatile the different hits really are in these games. There was always a wish to have Agent 47 travel the world, meet interesting people and execute hits on them. So from Silent Assassin to Blood Money you get to go on a variety of different journeys.

Travel to St. Petersburg, attend the German ambassador’s party and assassinate a Russian general. Visit the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and take out a Malaysian electronics tycoon in his Jacuzzi. Of course, there’s also the ‘Gator Gang’, a group of drug dealers moving their merchandise from a tourist riverboat on the Mississippi. And you can always finish off in style by saving the President of the United States, on 47’s hardest assignment yet!

Our hope with HD Trilogy is that fans will get to play their favorites over again, and those who just picked up Absolution and can’t get enough of Agent 47 can experience these classic moments for the first time.

If you pick just one unique, fun element that truly stands out in a Hitman game, it’s got to be the ability to suit up in various disguises in order to fool passersby and infiltrate protected areas undetected. At IO, we’ve always had a lot of fun with disguises, which probably culminated in Hitman: Blood Money’s white suits, clown outfits, and full-body chicken costumes.

With Hitman: Absolution, we’re following up on that tradition and we’re adding new wrinkles as well. Most importantly, we’ve added the ability to “blend in,” which allows you to act out your disguise more convincingly. Whereas a disguise would fool people at a distance in the old games, Agent 47 can now use his Instinct powers to fool people up close. Normally, enemies can detect your disguise if you walk straight up to them and they are wearing similar outfits – for instance, a Chicago police officer will eventually start to question you if you are wearing a police uniform. But by blending in, you can briefly fool a nearby enemy and slip past undetected. To blend in, you simply hold down a button and Agent 47 will pretend to talk into his shoulder radio when dressed as a police officer, as just one example.

Of course, we’ve got a versatile array of disguises, including a large number of crazy outfits. In Absolution, you’ll see everything from regular police uniforms in various shapes and variations to chef’s outfits, judges’ robes and, yes, the chicken outfit. We’ve got more disguises in this game than in any of the previous games, and using them cleverly will be more important than ever as you progress through the game.

In the new trailer up above, you can see a wide range of the outfits available and learn more about the usefulness of shedding the black suit and red tie – just for a little while. We hope you’ll enjoy it and can’t wait to hear about your experiences with the game when it releases on PS3 November 20th.

One of the best things about working with a vibrant and productive community, such as the one attached to the Hitman games, is that you can learn a lot by just watching people play. Going back to the previous games in the Hitman series, we’ve always enjoyed watching videos of how the fans tackle the different levels; both in terms of strategy and approach to the emergent systems within the game but also in terms of how they change the rules by going against the core of the level.

A great example is when we see people trying to set up mission parameters all by themselves. The previous games didn’t really support this – you were supposed to play a level in one of several different ways but targets always remained the same – but the fans pretty quickly started setting up conditions for completion themselves. Kill everyone with a particular weapon. Don’t get spotted by anyone. Only wear the chicken outfit. Kill that waiter in the bar at the Meat King’s party. Sometimes these conditions would be extremely hard to fulfill but equally satisfying when they did get completed. So for Hitman: Absolution, we decided to formalize a lot of that. The result – Contracts mode.

In Contracts, players get to create challenges for themselves and others through the creation of custom hits. All a player needs to do is choose a level, an outfit and a load-out, and, as he or she plays through the level, tag and assassinate up to three different targets – chosen from anyone within the level. The player is free to use any weapon or disguise brought in or found in the level but he must be able to complete the contract himself in order to save it and share it with the world. Contracts, then, is first and foremost a play to create experience where a player can play, create and share a hit and enter into competitions and tournaments (official or unofficial). Players can continually try to one-up their rivals and fight for the top slot on the global, local or friend leader boards attached to each individual contract. Because it’s asynchronous, Contracts can be enjoyed across time zones, and it isn’t dependent on having friends online.

By playing and completing contracts, players will earn in-game currency (amount depending on performance in each individual contract), which can be used to unlock more disguises, weapons and upgrades for specific weapons. IO will set up a number of featured contracts, select ‘best of the week’ contracts and feature those through the in-game notification system, and drop in once in a while to create some fun IO-made contracts as well. But what we’re really excited about is seeing the flood of user-made contracts as people start to wrestle the systems in Absolution to bring out some real brain teasers for us all to enjoy.

So, we’ve basically sat down and looked at how players were crafting new missions out of the ones that already existed in the game, and we’ve built the tools to let them do this in a formalized, organized and rewarding way. It’s going to be a grand experience seeing how much creativity the players can inject into the game once it comes out.

IO Interactive is showing off Contracts at a special event at Gamescom, and later in the week we’re releasing a trailer showing how Contracts works. Hitman: Absolution is out on November 20th, 2012.

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.

IO Interactive has been on quite a ride with the first demo of Hitman: Absolution – touring the world with the code, showing it off to hundreds of thousands of excited people. The response was so overwhelming, we decided to release the full playthrough a few weeks ago. And now, after having captured two of the most busy gentlemen on the team, we are following up with a new video to ensure everyone gets the full experience.

Join Game Director Tore Blystad and Gameplay Director Christian Elverdam as they take us all behind-the-scenes of the award-winning Hitman: Absolution, with a full 17-minute commentary version of the “Run For Your Life” playthrough. The commentary will let you learn first-hand what it takes to create a living and breathing world. The aim is for the fans to gain new insight into the creation and ambition for the game and get a taste of what players can expect when they enter the mindset of the original assassin: Agent 47. We hope you will enjoy it!

At this very moment, an army of hard-working team members are into the second day of presenting what is a true labor of love for IO Interactive – Hitman: Absolution. The knowledge that millions of fans have been waiting for news on Hitman is making the guys give it everything they have to present a game that we’re extremely proud of at IO. Lifting the veil on the development of a new game is always fun but given the connection between the studio and Hitman, this time it’s more exciting than ever.

And the debut trailer? Well, see for yourself. Agent 47, the world’s deadliest assassin, returns to take on his most dangerous contract ever. This time, he finds himself betrayed by the people he trusted and must use every skill and talent he has available to claw his way out of a dark conspiracy, which takes him through a corrupt world of twisted enemies. Thankfully, 47 is a resourceful individual and nothing will stand in his way for long.

When you’re creating a game with the scope of Hitman: Absolution, you don’t just have one finish line at the end of the race – you have lots. In fact, it can sometimes feel like you’re running a relay race all by yourself, constantly handing over and simultaneously receiving the baton to go another lap around the track. It’s exhausting, sure, but every time you complete a lap, a new surge of energy hits and you can run on that high for a long time.

Coming to E3 and delivering this debut trailer for Hitman: Absolution, as well as the presentations on the floor, has provided us with a massive boost of energy, which will come in handy for the next months as we push to make the game the absolutely best it can be. IO and Hitman are intertwined on an almost cellular level and with this game, we’re taking everything to the next level. We trust you will all enjoy the experience.