It's a big day for splendid sandbox stealth stabber Hitman 3, now entering its second year of content and support. The developers, Io Interactive are going hard out the gate by adding the new Elusive Target Arcade mode and bringing VR support to PC. It's also ending Epic exclusivity today, hitting not only Steam but Game Pass too, with the full trilogy coming to Microsoft's subscription service. Busy busy.

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Launch day log in issues aren’t a thing I’d expect to hear about surrounding a single player stealth romp but hey, it’s 2021. There are no rules. Hitman 3 is out today and it seems that the website meant to import your prior hitmaning progress into the newest murder fest is having a bit of a struggle. That wouldn’t be so bad, except waiting to make that import is effectively keeping players from starting in on Hitman 3. Io Interactive say they’re on the case.

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Ian Hitman’s current trilogy of sandbox stealth-o-murder games wraps up today with Hitman 3, which launched just a few minutes ago. As he fights a vast conspiracy, he’ll do murders in new levels everywhere from England to Dubai, and get into a few of his trademark daft situations. One mission is just a murder mystery potentially starring Ian, an actual murderer, as the detective. Unfortunately, the promised ability for owners of the previous two games to connect and play them inside 3 is delayed.

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Last week, IO Interactive said players would need to own Hitman 2 on the Epic Games Store if they wanted to import its levels to Hitman 3. That was pretty rubbish – for owners of the game on Steam, it meant you either couldn’t have those levels, or you’d need to buy it again. Thankfully, IO are looking for a solution, and guarantee players won’t need to rebuy the game after all.

“We are continuing to work with our partners to allow PC players who own Hitman 1 or Hitman 2 to import locations from those games at no additional cost,” they said on Sunday.

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Hitman 3

will no longer offer the ability to import levels from Hitman 2 when it launches later this month, unless players re-purchase Hitman 2 on the Epic Games Store first. Near the bottom of a long and complicated pre-launch guide, developers IO Interactive said the change in plans was “due to various circumstances out of our control.” Hitman 1 and 2 were both released on Steam, while Hitman 3 is launching as an Epic Games Store exclusive.

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Obviously, it’s wonderful when you plan out airtight approaches and execute them without breaking a sweat, but that isn’t true joy. Hitman happiness is found in plan B, when you have to react to the mistakes you’ve made and the situations you’ve put Agent 47 in.

Sure, being spotted by someone and discovering that your only defence is a squeaky toy you’ve stuffed into your seemingly very large pockets isn’t ideal, but the story of how you pulled back that nailed-on failure of a mission is going to be worth it in the end.

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Hitman: Codename 47

was released 20 years ago today. In all that time, IO Interactive have crafted an entertaining seven-game series (not including spin-offs), with the eighth aiming for the heart in January 2021. The subject matter might be grim, but from the very first game, IO Interactive were always happy to fold information and easter eggs into their immersive sim (don’t @ me) to a ridiculous degree. The games all have murderdeathkills, but they also have hauntings, mythical creatures, and real-world actors as targets.

I’ve had a blast digging up some forgotten facts and 47’s more bizarre moments (this does mean this list contains some spoilers, so beware). There are so many that this could have been 200 facts for 20 years, but I stuck with 20. It seemed right. Enjoy!

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Ultrawide gaming monitors are the kind of hardware that might seem too excessive, maybe even a bit too gamer> to bother with for playing games on PC, especially when their demanding resolutions often require powerful graphics cards to make the most of them. Once you try one, though, there’s no going back. I’ve been a big fan of ultrawide gaming monitors for years now, mostly because supported PC games just look fantastic on them. And that’s why I’ve put together this list of the best ultrawide games on PC – to show you exactly what they look like in the flesh, complete with GIFs and photos of them running on an ultrawide monitor so you can see them in motion with your own peepers.

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Ray tracing is the big buzz word of 2020 in PC gaming, and more ray tracing games have just been announced during today’s big [cms-block] RTX 3000 reveal. To help you keep track of them all, we’ve created this list of all the confirmed ray tracing games you can play on PC right now, as well which this year’s [cms-block] will get ray tracing support in the future. And because ray tracing tends to go hand in hand with Nvidia’s performance-boosting DLSS tech these days, we’ve also listed all the current and upcoming games that support DLSS, too.

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The 1v1 PvP murder competition, Ghost Mode will not return in Hitman 3. Developers Io Interactive say they’re focusing on other parts of the game instead. Not only will Ghost Mode be absent from the next game, Io will shut down the Ghost Mode servers in Hitman 2 at the end of this month. Sniper Assassin’s co-op mode is also getting shut down. Goodbye, ghosts. Walk towards the light.

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