IO Interactive announces their release plans for HITMAN, revealing a staggered rollout for the next installment in their assassination series. There will be an initial launch on March 11th offered separately as an Intro Pack, which will be followed by three separate monthly releases of new sandbox locations. There is a package which includes all the content as a subscription, and they will also offer Intro Pack to those who later decide they want the rest of the content. They say the way this is split up is due to popular demand: "We’ve had a lot of feedback since we announced HITMAN that has helped us shape these next steps," says Io-Interactive's Hannes Seifert. "It’s important that we listen to fans and that we’re open with what we’re doing. So today we’re sharing details on our release plan and we’re announcing something the community has asked for: a new price to enter the game at launch." Here's an outline (there was no footnote for the asterisk):

HITMAN will begin on March 11, 2016.

Players can buy HITMAN for USD $59.99[1], which includes all of the content, access to all live events and guaranteed access to the HITMAN Beta[2].

Also announced today, the new Intro Pack will be available to pre-order from this November priced at $34.99 and will include all launch content available on March 11, 2016 only, including Live Events and Contracts for those locations. Players will have an option to Upgrade [3] their Intro Pack to include the remaining HITMAN content for $29.99.

Full Release Details

Initial launch content on March 11, 2016 will include:

• Three huge sandbox locations: Paris, Sapienza and Marrakesh
• Six campaign missions with 40 unique ways to take out your main targets
• Contracts mode[4] for all locations with around 800 potential targets

Post launch content will include:

• One new sandbox location per month in April, May and June
• Thailand in April, USA in May and Japan in June
• Each location will come with additional missions, signature kills and more Contracts targets
• New locations will open up new weapons, tools and disguises for all locations
• Contracts mode for all locations

Live content* begins on 11 March, 2016 and will include:

• Weekly live events – including targets which will appear one-time-only for limited time only
• Weekly Io-Interactive developer team created Contracts
• Monthly promoted best community created ContractsNew items such as weapons and disguises

[1] Or equivalent local recommended retail price for all prices shown
[2] Beta will be available for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system and Windows PC only
[3] UPGRADE content can only be bought in conjunction with the INTRODUCTION offer, the UPGRADE content will not run as an independent item
[4] Contracts mode is an asynchronous multi-player mode in HITMAN. Play to create your own contract hits, choose your target, weapons, time limit and game rules. Then share it with friends to try and complete your contract with your rules