When Hitman 3 releases in a few weeks, it won't just bring about the conclusion of the World of Assassination trilogy. It will also bring Hitman to VR headsets for the first time ever.
IO Interactive's stealth-action game was previously announced to include virtual reality gameplay, but today they've released a lengthy gameplay demo for players to catch a glimpse of how the game looks behind a PlayStation VR headset.
Though the feature is called Sandbox VR, what's actually on offer in Hitman 3's VR mode are the same levels you'd play without a headset. In fact, those players who own or purchase in the future the previous games can even access those in VR as well. Just as Hitman 2 allowed players to export their Hitman (2016) content into the new game's hub-like menus, so too will Hitman 3 collect everything that has come to Hitman since the series' soft reboot five years ago. Collectively, that brings all three games in full into virtual reality.
The gameplay demo below rightly boasts of this fact, and shows players moving through some of the most iconic levels in the series, such as walking the runway at the Paris fashion show, patiently blending in on a park bench in Sapienza, and overlooking the cliffside resort in Hokkaido. Some of the game's signature features, like dragging unconscious ragdoll would-be witnesses into closets and poisoning drinks take on new life in virtual reality.
IO Interactive says Hitman "has always been about immersing yourself in a living, breathing world" and the team's intent is to take that to new heights by putting players behind the empathyless eyes of Agent 47.
It should be noted that because there is no new-gen PS VR headset, the VR mode for Hitman 3 will always run the PlayStation 4 version of the game, even if you own the PS5 version of the base game. Hitman 3 Sandbox VR comes included with PlayStation versions of the game when it launches on January 20. It also launches on the same day without VR on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Stadia, and PC. A cloud-based version will also launch on Switch in the future.
