IO Interactive revealed its big plan with Hitman 3’s second year of post-launch support, Hitman 3 Year 2. One of the two new modes coming to the base game will be called Freelancer Mode.
Freelancer Mode lets Agent 47 take up different contracts as missions, using the locales featured in the main game. 47 gets access to a fully customisable safe house, a mission hub where you can plan missions, as well as take a look at all the gear you have bought and brought back from your missions.
A campaign in Freelancer Mode involves you picking which evil organisation you want to dismantle (essentially, picking a campaign), and from there you are on now hunting the leader of the organisation. Which order of locations you choose to go first is up to you, with the final mission being the one where you have to take out the leader.
Who the leader is will be randomised, unlike the targets in the main campaign, which opens up to more experimentation, and more reasons for repeat plays.
Also, there are new NPC types, including rival hitmen (yes!) that will hunt you down.
Items, weapons and gear are scarce in Freelance mode. Only the gear you extract out from the mission will be placed back in the safe house, and those that don’t will be lost permanently. You’ll earn currency from completing missions and doing side objectives, which you can use to buy more weapons and gear (including consumables, which needs to be manually restocked) from suppliers that can be found during missions.
IOI describes Freelance mode to be inspired by roguelikes, but it’s also fascinating to see that by doing so, they brought back some of the elements in previous Hitman games. Having a safe house to admire your collected arsenal, and only being able to keep weapons you exit the level with feels very reminiscent of the past Hitman titles, which is a fantastic throwback.
It remains to be seen how Freelance Mode will be affected based on if you own only Hitman 3 or you have access to Hitman 2016 and/or Hitman 2 levels. Hopefully, it will still be available for every player without needing to own the entire trilogy.
Freelance Mode for Hitman 3 is in the final stages of development and is set to be released in Spring (Q2) 2022.
Alongside Freelance Mode, Hitman 3 players will be getting access to the new Elusive Target Arcade mode. Hitman 3 is also coming to Steam on January 20, alongside Hitman Trilogy (a bundle that includes Hitman 2016, Hitman 2 and Hitman 3) which will be available on PS4, PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.