Hitman dev offers free Hitman 3 upgrades on Steam to furious players

polygon.com:

IO Interactive brought Hitman 3 to Steam last week, a year after the PC version arrived on the Epic Games Store as a timed exclusive, to an unwelcome reception. Hitman fans balked at the game’s launch price on Steam — $59.99, the same price it launched at on Epic’s store last year — and flooded Valve’s store page for Hitman 3 with negative user reviews in protest. While many fans heaped praise on the game itself, they blasted developer IO Interactive for the game’s pricing and general business practices.

In short, many fans wanted discounts for holding out for the Steam release, or at least a discount for Hitman and Hitman 2 owners. On Steam, Hitman 3 currently has an overall “Mixed” user review, based on 922 reviews.

Now, IO is trying to make it up to ticked-off players, offering them a free upgrade for Hitman 3 on Steam.

“Our Hitman 3 launch on Steam didn’t go as planned,” IO Interactive said in an update posted to its player support website. “We were excited to bring Hitman 3 to Steam with new content and we knew that anticipation and excitement levels amongst our Steam players was high, especially as the game had been an Epic exclusive for a year.

“Ultimately, we didn’t meet our own expectations of a launch experience and we don’t like that our Steam community is beginning their Hitman 3 journey in this way.”

Customers who have purchased Hitman 3 on Steam (through Feb. 19), will get one of two free upgrades:

Whether that will quell angry Hitman fans remains to be seen. But the game itself is good — Hitman 3 ranked in Polygon’s top 10 games of 2021 — and with a new season of content kicking off, hopefully fans will now be able to focus on that as their target, rather than IO Interactive’s pricing schemes.