Hitman 3 launch box sales 17% up on Hitman 2 and enters sales chart at number 1. Good news as Hitman hasn't met sales expectations of previous publishers hence the hustle IOI have undertaken to retain ownership/control and finish the curent trilogy.
Hitman 3 surpasses its predecessor to claim No.1 | UK Boxed Charts
The PS5 version accounted for nearly half of the sales
Christopher Dring
Sunday 24th January 2021
Hitman 3 has taken No.1 in the UK boxed charts, with launch sales up 17% over its predecessor.
Developed and owned by IO Interactive, Hitman 3's boxed release was handled by Square Enix, the company that previously owned the franchise before letting it go. The last game, 2018's Hitman 2, was published by Warner Bros.
The PS5 version of the game was by far the dominant edition, accounting for 49% of sales. The Xbox version accounted for 27%, while the PS4 version made up 25%. Of course, this is just physical games, the majority of Hitman 3's sales will have taken place in the digital download space.
Hitman's chart-topping debut means that Animal Crossing: New Horizons drops to No.2, although only 800 games separates the two titles. Animal Crossing's sales dropped 8% week-on-week.
Some new PS5 consoles were released in the market last week, which had a positive impact on a few titles. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is up 161%, jumping from No.12 to No.4, Demon's Souls re-enters the charts at No.27 with a 291% sales increase, and there were sales bumps for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (up 56% and driven by the PlayStation version) and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (up 7%, but with the PS5 version up 174%). In total, PS5 game sales increased 324% week-on-week.
Another big riser was Ring Fit Adventure. The Nintendo Switch fitness game has frequently jumped up the charts during the pandemic whenever new stock comes into the market. The game rises to No.7 with a 47% sales rise.
Here is the GfK Top Ten for the week ending January 23rd:
Last Week This Week Title
New 1 Hitman 3
1 2 Animal Crossing: New Horizons
2 3 Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
12 4 Spider-Man: Miles MoralesCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
7 5 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
4 6 Grand Theft Auto 5
10 7 Ring Fit Adventure
3 8 Just Dance 2021
5 9 Minecraft (Switch)
6 10 FIFA 21
On the quality of these games alone IO deserve as much sales success as possible as they're brilliant. Challenging, deep, engaging and hilarious at the best of times.
So I ran up H2 to watch all the previous story cutscenes from the previous two games before starting H3. Glad I did. The story is pretty good and I'd forgotten the twist at the end of H2.
Played On Top Of The World (Dubai) and Paris in H3 tonight. It's gorgeous to look at. Runs like silk and the upgrades are really evident in Paris. SSR and HDR are greatly improved.
Yeah they really took it up a few notches with the upgrades to H3 and the old levels too. Kind of frothing at the thought of a ray tracing update!
Paris still stands as one of the best levels in the first two games. The entire concept of Helmut Kruger looking just like 47 makes me laugh every time I think about it, let alone run through that part of the level.
Dartmoor (English mansion) map is amazing. Story and writing up several notches also. A dark mansion and overcast English weather really showcases the great HDR implementation in this game. GOTY.
IOI came through with Hitman 2 owners being able to import Hitman 2 locations to Hitman 3 on EGS. It worked as I assumed it would from the outset - my IOI account shows what games I own on which store and allows me to import them to EGS Hitman 3. The process was mildly clunky but it worked well. Certainly easier than I suspect it was for IOI and Epic to facilitate it.
Pretty stellar effort from IOI given this franchise was up in the air after Square Enix dropped them. They struggled to buy back their independence and the rights to Hitman, made the excellent Hitman 2 amongst this turbulence then go on to make the franchise's most successful game in Hitman 3. Really looking forward to seeing what they do with the James Bond franchise.
Finally finished the last level in 3, really enjoyed it. Still not sure where I'd rank it against the other games but it was probably more consistently good than 1 at least.
Last level was a good change of pace and gave me some old Metal Gear Solid vibes. Hopefully the elusive target arcade isn't far away as I've got no interest in escalations and would like to keep playing the levels.
The dance party in Berlin is my favourite level. Loved how they started the level down the road requiring a walk to the venue. The way the visuals and sound slowly come into view is very well done. Enjoyed the multiple targets also.
The murder mystery in Dartmoor might be my fav thing in any Hitman level so far, but I'm replaying them all again to get a better grip of the story in each level so that opinion is likely to change.
I need to redo Dartmoor, I missed so many parts of it on my first run through.
The change up with multiple targets and having to identify some of them was a big improvement. I also liked using the camera to unlock some of the vents and needing encryption keys to get to them. Made it a bit more interesting than just using a crowbar.
The Season 2 reveal stream is on tonight at 1am. In the days without kids I'd have stayed up to watch this.
Freelancer mode sounds fucking unreal and is exactly what I wanted from this game. If anything it will feel a lot more like the older versions where you're in on your own and have to do everything yourself.
Elusive Target arcade is pretty good as well but would like them to cycle through the ETs a bit quicker. 3 at a time isn't much.
Danish game developer IO Interactive has announced on Twitter today that the Hitman Trilogy, which includes Hitman (2016), Hitman 2 (2018), and get this, Hitman 3 (2021), will be available digitally for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One (RIP), Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Better yet, the game will also be available to play on the Xbox Game Pass.
So they've fucked up the Elusive Target arcade. They added in more conditions and made them like escalations, and they don't count to your suit progresses. :
It's amazing how many simple wins IOI has at their disposal and they routinely fuck up EVERY SINGLE ONE of them
The Arcade links from the Featured/main screen are broken for me. When I click it says I can't access Arcade because I've failed the previous contract despite not ever playing it. Arcade links work from the Arcade tab. Disappointing to hear they're just revamped escalations. Maybe I need to give escalations more of a chance but I've generally not found replaying the same level with increasingly more conditions that appealing.
