Xbox One ‘Hitman’ To Bring Agent 47 Back To His ‘Globetrotting’ Peak

Xbox One Hitman will bring the infamous Agent 47 back to the peak of his career. The bald killer with no known name will still be bald, but he might be a bit more fun this time around.

For those who don’t know, Agent 47 was an assassin before we ever heard of Desmond Miles and his ancestors, a man who used anything he could find to take out his target. He has some serious competition now, with his wrist-bladed rival who never gets tired of jumping from insane heights into piles of hay or walking up behind Templars and stabbing them in the spine.

IO Interactive is attempting to combat Assassin’s Creed by making Xbox One Hitman‘s star a younger man in his prime. An open letter to fans has been released which explains their intentions:

“In the next game you will experience a globetrotting Agent 47 at the prime of his career – the apex predator stalking his prey across the world, with the support of his long-term handler Diana Burnwood and the whole of the ICA. The game concentrates on the core Hitman fantasy of using a wide range of tools to take out a diverse group of targets across expansive, exotic locations around the world.”

Story-wise, Xbox One Hitman will predate Hitman: Blood Money, where Agent 47‘s own boss turned on him, and he had to fake death to take the man out. Hopefully making him younger won’t result in the same problem that Perfect Dark Zero suffered from.

IO Interactive has confirmed that a non-linear, sandbox Hitman game is in the works for PC, PS4 and Xbox One http://t.co/ZNNwNqQpcV

— MCV India (@MCVIndia) January 16, 2014

IO Interactive is taking that they learned after Hitman: Absolution‘s abysmal sales and attempting to rejuvenate the property, using what they knew worked from previous titles to make the next one worth the next gen dollars. Gamers can look forward to larger, less restrictive environments next time, and more room for experimentation.

Hopefully, they will also tweak the game’s stealth, so an extra split second of a dead body in the hallway doesn’t trigger every guard in the game and result in a massive pile of dead bodies over one mistake.

The letter continues:

“That means we’re packing in an extreme level of detail on the largest levels we have ever built for a Hitman game. We’ve adopted an open, non-linear level design approach to the game, ensuring the game will play out across huge, checkpoint-free, sandbox levels. Our aim is to create living, breathing and believable levels which will allow gamers to play around with the AI to create those unique moments every fan of the Hitman franchise loves.”

In general, we can expect Xbox One Hitman to be a much more detailed and open world than was offered last time.