No time like the present to announce that all PC players will have to pay to import Hitman 1 and 2 levels on Epic

Despite announcing that progression and levels from Hitman 1 and 2 would carry over into Hitman 3 for free, IO announced today that that actually is only the case on Xbox and Playstation - even if you own both games on Steam, you'll have to pay to access those levels when purchasing through the Epic Games Store on PC. While they do "acknowledge that the process is different to our initial plans for PC players", they really should update their homepage.

Kind of a bummer! At least you can easily cancel Epic pre-orders, but still, hell of a time to announce that this is now a paid thing. Hitman 1 will be free if you purchase the game within 10 days of launch, and the base and Gold editions of Hitman 2 will be 80% off for two weeks, but it sounds like the expansion pass will still be full price. It's all in here, and, as someone who was until now very very excited for Hitman 3, kinda sucks.

Yea that does kinda suck. I also wish the IOI account would just follow your progress from platform to platform. I mostly played 1 & 2 on PC and I'll be playing 3 on PS5. Would be nice to just have all my unlocks ready for me.

This is very shitty. I bought this damn game on console and then later on PC like I don't want to buy Hitman 2 again. I can't get a PS5 so it's kind of just like here I am either forking over more money or waiting I guess. Thanks for the heads up less than a week from launch, IOI.

I already was choosing to wait to play this in a year when it comes to steam, but now I am wondering if I am ever going to play this game... ever.

Already planned on waiting for the steam release, one would have to assume Steam Hitman 1&2 would transfer into Steam Hitman 3 will be free like the consoles when that eventually releases...right?

Why does IOI suck so hard at the management of this game series? Are they intentionally trying to make me feel like a fool for buying their games?

Does anyone know how this works on consoles? If I have 1 and 2 physically can I still carry them over?

I *think* based on their FAQ the process to get the Hitman 1 stuff is the same as it was to get it into too(Legacy pack), and to get 2 you'll have to go into the in game store for 2 and download another Legacy pack.

This is really gross. They can track your progress on their site, so they know if you have access to them. But you have to buy them again, just because it's a different storefront? This is a bad look.

It's especially bad since it's like PC to PC. I get that maybe if you're transferring over stuff from Hitman 2 on Xbox to Hitman 3 on PC there is some funny business or whatever but c'moooon. In the past I would somewhat defend Epic as just another storefront so use it or don't, but these sort of moves really make it hard to say anything good about them.

This is a bummer. I was going to buy Hitman 3 on Epic, but not if i have to pay $10 extra to rebuy the content I already had.

Was honestly thinking of grabbing it on Epic until I saw the news. I already brought Hitman multiple times and don't really want to buy the second again. I think I'll chip away at my backlog and wait for it to hit Steam instead

There goes any chance of me buying this through EGS I suppose. Epic gave Hitman 1 away for free at one point though I can't recall if they've ever done so for 2, but in any case the EGS isn't nearly special enough that I'm going to give them a premium to access content through their service.

Plenty of other games in the backlog left to play, so I'll just hold off on playing this until it's on Steam so that I don't need to re-buy Hitman 1/2.

Is it confirmed that you won’t have to pay anything for the old levels when the game releases on Steam? Assuming you have the previous content, at least.

I just don't get why given how often Hitman 1/2 go on sale they'd push this so hard. They could literally give all the levels of Hitman 1/2 away for free, and as someone else in this thread mentioned tie the unlocks to their own website/service for progression carry over. I'm sure there may be a technical reason why it's only the Steam unlocks/progression that doesn't carry over as well, but you'd figure the least they could to users who bought 1/2 on Steam is give them the levels for free when they purchase 3 on EGS.

Right... Lets see if a close reading of the web page posted up top can reveal anything (no, I'm not saying this is a good deal for PC players, but...)

1) If you get H3 during the first 10 (ten) days you get all the H1 levels and content free (since the H1 GOTY access pass is free for that time) OR if you got H1 GOTY when it was free a while back on the EGS.

2) You're going to have to buy either the H2 standard or H2 Gold (regular levels or regular levels plus the expansion stuff) pass. This puppy will be 80% off for the first 14 days after H3 release.

3) WE DON'T KNOW WHAT 80% OFF MEANS. If you go by the H2 Gold Edition price on Steam then that means it's gonna be $20, but this isn't the game just the access pass. Shrug. Assume $20 to be safe.

4) I'm going with 99.9% that levels you own on Steam will come into H3 when it launches there, becase of this quote: "...we detect what you already have installed for HITMAN 2 and can make the corresponding Access Pass available for no additional cost on the same store."

I, personally, am going to kill my EGS preorder and get it on my XBOX (since I'm a crazy man who has all the same progression on both platforms)... will I miss all the pretty things my video card can do... yeah, but I'll see them in a year (actually a bit longer as I'll get it on Steam during a sale)...

IOI is a little(ish) studio who bought themselves out of a company that didn't seem super psyched about what any of their non-core studios were doing and I cannot imagine that this is really the way they WANTED to do this, but, here we are.

Um that's extremely dumb.

I mean I can't complain too much since I'm going to pay anyway because it's not like I'm gonna buy all 3 games on console.

Also it looks like for most people hitman 1 levels will be free. As I assume anyone that is buying hitman 3 on epic will likely get it well within those 14 days.

So while it's not great, it could be worse.

I mean personally I don't like how they're releasing the game period. I wish they would go back to the seasonal style like they did with 1.

I'm ok with waiting for the Steam version then. There's tons of optional challenges that I never got around to doing in Hitman 2 so I could just do that stuff if I get the itch in the meantime.

This does seem like a really dumb business decision though. I mean pulling in the old levels is just supposed to be a selling point. If you're going to alienate people by putting weird constraints on it then you'd almost be better off scrapping the feature altogether.

This is remarkably shitty. This is going to hurt them more than they gain from it. It is so strange when they are publishing their own game to go with a business model like this. If there are some technical issues going from Steam<->Epic they should have just made the H1 & H2 levels free for everyone who bought H3 on Epic within the first week or so. I guess their deal with Epic is too good and Epic are being shitty somehow but this is not good for the company.

I was 100% going to pre-order the game on Epic but I think I might just wait in protest for the Steam version.

Complete clusterfuck but if the price of the h2 upgrade is "reasonable" I am fine with throwing a few more bucks at that. Series is worth it

Still very curious as to what the hell happened. Clearly IOI thought they could do this when they took the giant dump truck of money for an EGS exclusive. And for some reason Hitman 2 STILL is not up for sale on EGS (my money was on "here is Hitman 2 'for free'. This will be useful later" like with H1). Something seems to be a bit wonky with that release.

Like, I know it is easy to blame Epic but... how would that make sense in this case? They have given H1 away "for free" multiple times and are doing so again at the launch of Hitman 3. Are we now going to say that they actively refused to sell hitman 2 so that they could sell the DLC instead? While still giving away H1? I mean, if you want to go back to blaming them for giving ioi a humongous school bus full of cash for a one year exclusive then... okay. But this clearly seems like some behind the scenes bullshit related to H2 specifically

Just picked up the complete version of 2 for cheap on steam and am loving it. Was considering buying 3 at launch but I'm more than happy to wait if they wanna do this. And I'm otherwise loving what epic is doing, you can really work their coupons and sales for cheap new games. But this is just silly, creating unnecessary backlash for themselves.

I still think they should release this stuff episodically. I would devour individual levels if I only had one at a time.

@gundato : This kind of feels like Epic is the one blocking them from letting games owned on Steam being counted for the levels unlocking, like when you couldn't buy fortnite shit on android and use it on Playstation.

I can't say its that for sure, but IOI do have their own account system independant of Epic and Steam and as someone who worked in Games Backend as a Service, this is a prime example of why you'd have your own independant backend, to make cross progression easier.

1. So it's either a big fuck you from IOI, which seems unlikely given they are allowing console players to have the levels they've already bought accessible.

B. Or it's Epic saying they don't want stuff bought in one place to be used in theirs.

3. Something else entirely...

Given that Steam has an open APi which GOG has used to give you free GOG copies of your Steam games for many years at this point, this definitely seems like either an Epic or IOI decision.

@fisk0: The key there is that you can only get games that are in both the Steam and GOG stores (and a limited subset of those likely based on GOG and/or the devs taking a hit)

I am not going to rule out some weird crap where Epic's infrastructure is just that bad (in fact, I would wager money on that) but... they already and continued to demonstrate the workaround for that ("here is some free Hitman. Please for the love of god actually install our launcher"). Similarly, they are already obviously not cheaping out as their exclusivity deals are known to be pretty lucrative for devs and we all have the story of that one game that made us actually install EGS.

Which gets back to: Why is Hitman 2 not on EGS? I forget when exactly 1 launched but it has at least been a few months (if not a year or so). And we know that, because of IOI's tumultuous past few years, there are a LOT of messes with respect to how they have continued to release great games.

I dunno. This definitely reeks of some weird ass licensing hell to me. I can't imagine why "just" giving a freebie or using the steam public API to verify ownership would not be an option but I can definitely remember similar debacles on the console side. I always like to cite the hilarious messed up (and probably misremembered specifics of) Tomba. I think it was 2 that could be played as a disc on PS3, a digital copy on PSP, and a japan only digital copy on vita? Or some crazy bullshit along those lines?

And while I would rather Epic catch the flak for weird license shenanigans than IOI (assuming IOI aren't the ones being weird which... I can't think of a single benefit to that) because Epic being dicks won't change anyone's mind on them, this reeks of a "bitch eating crackers" kind of scenario where folk are just so eager to attribute all forms of malice to epic even when there is no scenario that makes any god damned sense. Even if epic DID want to nickel and dime people while giving out giant wheelbarrows of cash... why would they have not encourage/required ioi to release hitman 2 on their store too?

Epic store is showing if you get the game before the 30th, you get hitman 1 for free and can still import hitman 2 data. Kind of splitting down the middle in an odd way.

What about Warner Brothers? As they are publisher on record for Steam version of Hitman 2. IO Interactive is publisher of Hitman on Steam/Epic.

What are the odds that this might be Warner Bros wanting their cut?

Not ideal but I enjoy these games enough that I’ll pay the Hitman 2 Access Pass price to see it on my PC, as well as getting it for PS5 and XSX with the free imports. I hope that for those who have it on Steam and choose to wait, they’re not just hit with the same deal in a year.

Wow, bad form waiting this long to annoucne this. That's really crappy.

@d3adend: While this is bad, I am thinking it is somehow related to this. Hitman 1 was published by Square Enix and Hitman 2 was published by WB, so I think it is just everyone wanting to get their cuts.

I guess we'll see, but the way I am reading it is the Hitman 2 passes (normal and gold(?)) will be 80% off for 14 days. Since it's not the full game, just a pass, hopefully it's like $20/$30 base price, so $4/$6 at 80% off? That's not too bad. Still disappointing they are kind of backtracking on what they originally said.

What a mess, I might just get the console version now, I was thinking about waiting but I do want to support the studio, what a way to drop the ball, I hope they can figure something out.

Yes, this is shitty. But the fact that they call it an "Access Pass" makes me think this is going to be something a lot cheaper than the actual game. I wish they just put out the price for these things along with the info, if it's cheap enough to obviously just be some sort of "because of licensing issues we had to put a price tag on this" fee I don't care that much. I am happy to support IOI more. I have no beef with the Epic Store myself, so I am playing this day one there.
This is something they should have said a lot earlier though, but from how IOI has done things before this doesn't feel like something they had control over.

It's pretty bad, seems a bit like they were promising something they thought was possible rather than something they knew was possible and then got burned right at the last minute. I feel a bit hypocritical to complain about having to re-buy a game
(or access pass) on another system/launcher when I do that all the time with other games - Minecraft, Fallout 3, Steamworld games I've purchased on at least 3 systems each. I think I would be less peeved if in my head the need to re-purchase was always the case, rather than a last minute by-the-way...

In an interesting aside, because previously IOI announced it would be free to transfer your previously bought levels over, and this is on record, on PC from Steam there's been a flurry of complaints to ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) in the UK - twitter seems to be giving the fact that this can be submitted a bit of traction among those feeling lied to. Might be something that causes even more regional disparity, or post purchase refunds if they could be proved as deliberate misleading. However, I'm no lawyer so I've no idea how likely it is this will effect any change.

Nothing says fan appreciation quite like shunning the platform they were using, cheers.

I really don't think they care though.

Is nutjob Tim Sweeney's and Tencent's (not at all) "righteous crusade" (See: multiple lawsuits) against Apple and Google (all to increase their own profits) getting to be too expensive???

I was already gonna get this game for PS5. I can wait for a Steam / PC.

They're giving away Hitman 1 for free and doing an 80% discount on Hitman 2 content, which was published by WB games. Which is still not on EGS. I don't think the fault is with Epic or IOI here, but it still ends up sucking ass for the end user.

Also FWIW, I just installed Solitairica on EGS for the first time, and it retained all of the progress from when I had played on Steam, which I don't even have installed at the moment. So there is nothing going on with the game files between Steam and Epic that stops one from recognizing the other. I sincerely doubt it would be in Epic's best interest to do something like this now, when the harshness of people's feelings on EGS are subsiding pretty substantially.

For what it's worth, Tim Sweeney has acknowledged it:

More than likely something to do with Valve and license agreements. It's crazy how they never really get blame when these anti consumer things pop up.

This is a bummer. I usually don't give a shit about epic store exclusivity, but I may hold off on the steam version for this. Have they confirmed how long it's exclusive to epic?

Probably because it seems very unlikely that Valve is somehow behind this, they have an open API(which can already be used to pull in your steam friends list to epic) and have been fine with stuff like this before with GOG letting you redeem select games you already own on steam on their store.

IOI has put out a tweet about the situation. Can't help but notice that they make no mention whatsoever of what Hitman 2 ownership transfer will look like (I imagine they're still working out the details, but it is the more important part IMO, since Hitman 1 has been free on EGS a couple times, while Hitman 2 isn't even on EGS right now). But, hopefully this means that the situation will be handled. For their part Epic made a tweet on the main EGS account more or less recounting Tim Sweeney's tweet from this morning.

Seems like they figured something out after all. Guaranteed no repurchase required. Good on them for reversing course.

https://twitter.com/IOInteractive/status/1350899132966318084

What a weird mess. Still will probably wait that year I'm not dying to play Hitman and it's not like I care a whole lot about spoilers of the story.

I understand why this is (was) frustrating, from a consumer standpoint. But, how many people who are upset about this are actually the kind of person who would have put real energy into replaying Hitman 1 and 2 in Hitman 3? I cored out the Hitman 1 levels in Hitman 1, and had no desire to revisit them now that there were functional mirrors and foliage in the Hitman 2 versions. I'm pretty sure I'm still not going to play them again in Hitman 3. Since VR won't be on PC, what new experience could be had in the Hitman 3 versions of those levels?

@kcin: File-size is apparently way way down from Hitman 1/2. If I've heard them right, 3 with all the old maps comes to about 80GB, whereas 2 with all the content installed comes to about 150GB. I could easily see 3 becoming my preferred way to replay the old maps just for that alone.

@kcin: For me personally I barely started Hitman 2 and then kind of fell off it so I was hoping to buy Hitman 3 and then start from where I left off and work my way up to it.

Of course I think as you said it's more of a perspective issue. I was initially told I would get something and then that was kind of taken away and now, despite never having had the thing in the first place I feel like I'm missing out. In reality nothing is stopping me from installing Hitman 2 on Steam and then buying Hitman 3 on Epic and just trucking along. Only thing is as @franzlska mentioned above the file sizes can get pretty big with these games.

As far as I know GOG hasn't been setting exclusive deals for games like Hitman 3 either though. Either way, looks like they figured out something. Notice "working with our partners" part as well. Probably had to cough up some more money to Valve, just speculation on my part though.