IO Interactive has cancelled their complicated rollout plan for their new Hitman game, announcing the assassination sequel will instead be released in familiar episodic format throughout 2016 starting in April, and will be followed by the release of the complete season on disc by the end of the year. Beta testing will begin on February 12th on PlayStation 4 and a week later on PC. A New Year Update on the Hitman website explains the new plan, and here's a bit of that:

The big change is that the next location, set in Italy, will now release in April and then Morocco will release in May. From there we will keep monthly content updates coming, including the three additional locations we have already announced; Thailand, the US and Japan until the season concludes in Japan later in 2016. The weekly live events and additional planned content will give you plenty to do in the time between location releases.

The new Intro Pack, which includes Prologue and Paris will be priced at $15. Each subsequent location can be purchased for $10 as an add-on item after you buy the new Intro Pack. If you buy the Intro Pack and want to get into everything the Full Experience offers, you can also choose to buy the Upgrade Pack for $50. This will give you access to all of the content released after March 11th and guarantees you won’t miss any live or bonus content.

Of course you can still buy the Full Experience which is the complete first season, so all the content this year as it’s released, up front for $60 as always promised. Whether you purchase the complete game or buy each episode individually, we want to remind the community that there will be no micro transactions in HITMAN.