Io-Interactive have this week revealed that HITMAN - launching March 11 on PS4, PC and Xbox One - has had a major change to its release structure, with the title now becoming a true episodic AAA game experience with live components.
Credit: Square Enix
Players will be tasked with performing contract hits on powerful and high-profile targets across the world, with exotic locations and gameplay on offer.
A prologue missions and Paris location is where gamers will begin, following by the next location in Italy which will come a month later in April, followed by a third, in Morocco, in May.
From that point HITMAN will strive to deliver monthly content updates including three additional locations - Thailand, Japan and America - until the entire season concludes in Japan in late 2016.
Head of Studio at Io-Interactive, Hannes Seifert commented: "We decided to take the full leap and publish HITMAN as a truly episodic game experience.
"Part of that decision is for that little bit of extra time to ensure every location we release is at the quality level fitting for a HITMAN game. But the main driving reason is that this will allow us to create a living game that will expand and evolve over time to establish a foundation for the future - this is the first game in a storyline which will continue and expand with future Hitman games."
Weekly live events and additional content is also planned to go inbetween monthly updates.
The Intro Pack, containing both the Prologue and Paris levels will be released at $15 or local equivalent, with each location priced at $10 as an add-on to the Intro Pack.
The Full Experience can also be bought immediately for $60, including the entire year's content. The disc version ships at the end of 2016.
PlayStation users will also gain access to The Sarajevo Six. 6 Bonus Contracts, one of which will be released with each location and sees Agent 47 travel the world in pursuit of six former members of a paramilitary unit called CICADA in this self-contained side-story exclusive for PlayStation 4 users.
HITMAN beta begins February 12 on PS4 and February 19 on PC - guaranteed access comes to players who pre-order the Full Experience or new Intro Pack.