IO Interactive releases a cinematic trailer for the free Hitman 3 game mode Freelancer, explaining some of the narrative for the roguelite experience.
Hitman 3 developers IO Interactive have released a cinematic trailer for the upcoming Freelancer update. The free Hitman 3 game mode is set to release on January 26, and the video offers more narrative insight into how it will play.
The Freelancer game mode for Hitman 3 was initially announced in early 2022, with a Spring release date. Regretfully, the mode had been pushed back to an undisclosed time, and only recently more Hitman 3 Freelancer details were revealed. Now that the date is confirmed and drawing ever closer, fans are eager to start playing the roguelite game mode. IO Interactive has now released a cinematic trailer to help bolster the building hype.
The stylish trailer offers a “sneak peek into the world of international crime syndicates” and how they are using social profiling to recruit criminals. Voiced by Agent 47’s handler, Diana Burnwood, the trailer is set like a pre-mission briefing replete with the high-quality writing that is synonymous with the recent Hitman trilogy. Diana explains how the structure of the crime syndicates will be difficult to unravel due to their recruiting systems and how the crimes may be set to help their “riches, radical belief, or twisted pleasure.” Agent 47 is set to track down the syndicates by starting with low-level members and working his way up to the top in a way reminiscent of Crackdown or Shadow of Mordor. Given that the Hitman trilogy is set to rebrand as a single package, Freelancer will have a lot of room for variety across the plethora of maps.
After Hitman Absolution experimented with changing the core Hitman experience to mixed reception in 2012, the concept of changing gameplay in the franchise has been met with some trepidation. Absolution did however offer the Contracts game mode, which saw players creating their own custom objectives for any of the maps in the base game and sharing them with other players online. This game mode continues to be a feature in the World of Assassination trilogy and is quite popular. The game mode is as important as the many Easter eggs in the Hitman trilogy for creating the overall atmosphere of the franchise. Its success reinforces the idea of free-form gameplay being viable in the series.
Even the World of Assassination trilogy was met with some apprehension as it was initially released episodically. While each episode offered a lot of variation, tight gameplay, and hours of content, the trilogy found a better response when released as a complete package and has since gone on to win plenty of awards continuing to very recently with a win for Hitman 3 in the Steam awards. If all goes well, Freelancer may keep the World of Assassination relevant for a long time to come.
Hitman 3 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
