IO Interactive, who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Hitman series, announced another upcoming map for Hitman 3 today: Agent 47 will do some of his murdering in the Chinese metropolis of Chongqing, also romanised as Chungking.
In a teaser, which you can watch above, we see Agent 47 make his way through neon-lit streets at night, the rain sliding down his polished head. In another scene, he surveys a ballroom filled with a striking amount of people, all fully animated. This is a particular point of pride for IO Interactive—the game will be able to handle over 300 active NPCs at once, "pushing the envelope for AI in games," according to the trailer. Furthermore, Chongqing serves as an example of how good Hitman 3 will look, and there's traditionally no better way to do that than with plenty of lighting and water effects. The game is powered by IO Interactive's in-house Glacier engine, and will support 4K, 60 FPS and HDR.
It's likely no accident that IO Interactive chooses to reveal a location with certain Cyberpunk vibes now, but Hitman 3 does look beautiful and the opportunities (and no doubt complications) that can come from having so many many active NPCs around you are quite exciting to contemplate. Here's to hoping Hitman 3 will pull that feat off even if you don't play on a high-end system.
Hitman is set to release on the Epic Game Store on January 20, 2021.
