Hitman World of Assassination

Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

This page is for the 2021 original third entry in the World of Assassination trilogy, later became World of Assassination. For the third main Hitman game from 2004, see Hitman: Contracts.

Hitman World of Assassination

Developers
	IO Interactive
	Mi'pu'mi Games
Publishers
	IO Interactive
Retail	Square Enix
Engines
	Glacier 2
Release dates
Windows	January 20, 2021
Reception
Metacritic	87
OpenCritic	85
IGDB	85
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Immersive sim, Stealth
Series	Hitman

Hitman
Hitman: Codename 47	2000
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin	2002
Hitman: Contracts	2004
Hitman: Blood Money	2006
Hitman: Sniper Challenge	2012
Hitman: Absolution	2012
Hitman GO	2015
Hitman	2016
Hitman 2	2018
Hitman World of Assassination	2021

Hitman World of Assassination (previously named Hitman 3) is the eighth main game in the Hitman series. It was originally the third and final game in the World of Assassination trilogy, but on January 26, 2023 it became Hitman World of Assassination. Compared to Hitman 2, the game features ray-raced reflections, ray-traced shadows, reworked foliage, improved cloth simulation, reduced bloom intensity (which could look overblown previously), improved and more deliberate usage of screen space reflection, higher resolution render-to-texture reflections for mirrors, improved god-rays, many bugfixes, DLSS 2.4, DLSS Frame Generation, FSR 2.1 and XeSS.

Compared to Hitman 2, the game is missing the smoke effects on explosions (replaced mostly with a bright bloom effect) and has reduced fire effects complexity. The game also inherits some downgrades introduced in Hitman 2 compared to Hitman: the reduced quality of Hitman's pre-rendered cutscenes (visibly heavier compressed), heavily reduced/simplified destruction physics animations and heavily reduced and even missing smoke effects (especially visible when explosions occur and when looking at the signal flares at the Marrakesh level.)

Compared to the install sizes (including all DLC and legacy packs) of both previous entries Hitman (68.34 GB) and Hitman 2 (149.62 GB), Hitman World of Assassination (67.21 GB) uses LZ4 compression and de-duplication of data compared to the previous entries (possible due to its previous episodic nature) to reduce its install size massively, while retaining the same graphical quality, performance compared to Hitman 2 and including all content from the two previous entries.

The game requires a constant internet connection for some features to work properly (Contracts mode, Challenge progression and Freelancer mode). The game makes a distinction between online and offline saves; online saves cannot be loaded while offline, and offline saves loaded while online will put the game into offline mode.

The game was renamed to Hitman World of Assassination with all content from Hitman and base game content from Hitman 2 becoming free for all players of the game on January 26, 2023. Additionally, owners of Hitman 2 Expansion Pass will no longer receive HITMAN 3 Access Pass: HITMAN 2 Expansion (Hitman 2 DLC) as the location importing functionality has been disabled. If it wasn't already imported into Hitman World of Assassination before January 26, 2023, it will have to be purchased again as part of the World of Assassination Deluxe Pack or separately in the in-game store.

General information

Official forum

Official support threads

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		Europe only; download code only, no disc included.
Green Man Gaming (unavailable)
Epic Games Store		DRM Free when a shortcut is made directly to the executable, with these commands being appended to the Target URL.. Offline mode has very limited functionality; only access to levels and settings is provided, with online functionality (achievements, Elusive Targets, Freelancer, Escalations, etc.) being disabled; There are mods that can alleviate this issue, however.
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store		Choice to buy Steam (incorrectly lists macOS and Linux compatibility) or Epic Games Store version.
Microsoft Store
Steam

Version differences

Hitman World of Assassination includes all game content from Hitman, while also including all base game content from both Hitman 2 and Hitman 3.

Monetization

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
World of Assassination Deluxe Pack	Includes Hitman 3 Deluxe Pack, Hitman 3 Seven Deadly Sins Collection and HITMAN 2 Premium Content. One-third price reduction for each of these three pieces of content the user already owns.
Street Art Pack	Cosmetics and weapon pack.
Makeshift Pack	Cosmetics, suit and weapon pack.
Free Starter Pack	Experience the start of the World of Assassination trilogy for free. Begin your journey as an initiate and meet your handler at the training facility to become an Agent of the ICA.
The Sarajevo Six	Previously PS4 exclusive campaign ported over to all platforms.
The Trinity Pack	Formerly pre-order bonus cosmetic, suit and weapon pack DLC.
The Undying Pack	Contains one premium Elusive Target Arcade contract; The Ouroboros, starring Sean Bean. Also contains a suit, Freelancer safehouse cosmetics, and three Undying-themed weapons.

Individual DLC's can be disabled in the DLC/Addons menu on both the Epic Games Store and Steam, but these render them unusable in-game and does not uninstall those parts of the game from the disk, as was the case in Hitman 2.

Game Progress (gear unlocks, location mastery, etc.) can be imported from Hitman 2 on Steam to Hitman 3 on Epic Games Store, though this can only be done once.

Essential improvements

Skip launcher

Use the -skip_launcher command line argument

Skip intro

Use the Simple Mod Framework, which has an option to skip intro in its Information menu (disabled by default)

Download the separate Skip Intro mod for your game build[citation needed]

Use ZHMModSDK's own SkipIntro mod[citation needed]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IO Interactive\HITMAN3
Microsoft Store
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1659040/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Epic Games Launcher	%APPDATA%\IO Interactive\Epic\<user-id>\HITMAN3
Steam	<Steam-folder>\userdata\<user-id>\1659040\remote\
Microsoft Store	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\IOInteractiveAS.PC-HITMAN3-BaseGame_6h0y724g59e1w\SystemAppData\wgs\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1659040/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher
Steam Cloud
Xbox Cloud		Save games carry over from Cloud to PC Game Pass

Video

External graphics settings.

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Can be changed via cheat table: FOV Changer Can also be changed with Custom FOV mod (Requires Simple Mod Framework.)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Labeled Fullscreen in the options. Exclusive fullscreen also available.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)		TAA is forced on. See Anti-aliasing (AA) for a workaround. Additionally, sharpening is forced on, see Disable sharpening. Optional up to 2.0x SSAA can be set. Values less than 1.0x can be used via changing the 'SuperSampling' string in regedit. Change it to 500 for 50% rendering, 600 for 60%, etc.
High-fidelity upscaling		DLSS 3.1, FSR 2.1, XeSS 1.2 Received DLSS Frame Generation support through a patch on January 26, 2023.Received XeSS 1.2 support through a patch on October 26th, 2023.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Force enabled on AMD cards while benchmarking
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		Limited to exclusive full screen mode. Resets to Off if launched in borderless.
Ray tracing (RT)		Ray-traced sun shadows and reflections.

• 

  In-game graphics settings (1/2)

• 

  In-game graphics settings (2/2)

• 

  HDR settings

Disable sharpening

Compared to HITMAN 2, Hitman World of Assassination does not provide an option to disable its sharpening feature in the in-game options menu and forces its dynamic sharpening implementation on at all times at its previous High setting.

Disable sharpening by setting its strength to zero
Open Windows Registry Editor. Got to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IO Interactive\HITMAN3 and locate the SharpeningStrength registry key. Change its value from the default of 2 to 0 to fully disable sharpening.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

1. Download the latest version of fixes.
2. Copy Hitman3.NoTAA\Hitman3.NoTAA.asi and dinput8.dll in the game folder HITMAN3\Retail

The game can now be launched regularly from its executable. Upon startup, a configuration file Hitman3.NoTAA.ini will be created, and can be used to enable again TAA or tune the sharpening filter.

The edges of objects will exhibit jittering. It is recommended to use Reshade to add FXAA or SMAA to minimise this effect.

Input

Keyboard and mouse settings.

Controls settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		If multiple controllers are connected and the active one is unplugged, any remaining controller must be unplugged and replugged for it to be picked up as active again.
Controller remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Including full support for DualSense, works only via USB
PlayStation button prompts
Light bar support		it does change the shape, but not the color
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes

Tracked motion controllers		Oculus Touch, Valve Index, and Vive Cosmos controllers officially supported. HTC Vive controllers are also compatible.
Button/gesture prompts

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging		Only first connected controller can be used
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

• 

  DualShock 4 controller scheme.

• 

  DualSense controller scheme.

• 

  XInput controller scheme.

Audio

Audio settings.

Language settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Master, Effects, Music, Dialogue
Surround sound
Subtitles		Size option
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese				Added with the 3.50 patch.
Traditional Chinese				Added with the 3.50 patch.
French
German
Italian
Japanese				Added with the 3.50 patch.
Polish				Fan translation, download lustro.
Russian				Added with the 3.50 patch. Fan translation is also available here.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play		2	Versus Via the Ghost Mode mod. Steam only (includes free demo). No matchmaking is available, you must invite your opponent manually.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
Native 3D
Nvidia 3D Vision
vorpX

Headsets
SteamVR
Oculus VR (LibOVR)		Oculus Quest and Quest 2 supported via Oculus Link.
Windows Mixed Reality		Use Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR.
OSVR

Devices
Tracked motion controllers		Oculus Touch, Valve Index, and Vive Cosmos controllers officially supported. HTC Vive controllers are also compatible. See Input for details.
Traditional controller		See Input for details.
Keyboard/Mouse		Mouse and keyboard are functional but some actions don't seem to work.

Play area
Seated
Standing
Room-scale

Issues fixed

Can't launch the game after a BSOD/hardware failure

When your computer encounters a BSOD (for whatever reason), there is a small chance that the shader cache of the game will become corrupted. When that happens, it is no longer possible to start the game.

Clear game's shader cache pipeline
Go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\IO Interactive\HITMAN3 Remove both PipelineCache.bin and PipelineLibrary.bin files. Start the game. These files will reappear after a shader compilation.

Stuttering when mirrors are displayed

The game may hitch shortly every time a mirror is visible on-screen. This bug was introduced with the May 24th 2022 (3.110) Ray Tracing update.

Workaround: disable DXR (Ray Tracing) at driver level
Disables all ray-traced reflections. Download the latest version of Nvidia Profile Inspector. Start Nvidia Profile Inspector. Load Hitman 3 profile. Set Enable DXR (Ray Tracing) to DXR Disabled. Apply changes (top right button).

Set Mirrors Reflection Quality to "Off"[citation needed]
Disables all mirrors.

Running stutters when moving foward using steam input

Using Steam input's controller support can cause issues with Hitman's 3 default deadzones, causing a "stutter" like feel in the controls when moving fowards or backwards.

Enable deadzone configuration or calibration through Steam input[citation needed]
Right click on the game in your Steam library and go to Manage. Click on Controller layout and then on Joystick Move for the left joystick you use to move in-game. Go to Additional Settings and under Enable Deadzone choose configuration or calibration, assuming you have calibrated the deadzone through Steam input in the past. Close the Steam controller configurator & start the game.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	12

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	PhysX	v3.4.1.0
Audio	Wwise
Interface	Scaleform
Input	libScePad, 3DRudder	libScePad (v1.0.4.1) includes support for DualSense, 3DRudder v0.2.0.4
Cutscenes	CRI Movie

Epic Games Store Start the game in standalone mode

When used standalone, the game will skip login to Epic Games, dismiss online warnings, and launch straight into offline mode.

Create an offline shortcut

Create a desktop shortcut of <path-to-game>/Retail/HITMAN3.exe. Go to the Properties of this created shortcut, and add the following line at the end of the Target URL: -EpicPortal -epicuserid=EPIC_USER_ID, and replace EPIC_USER_ID with your actual Epic User ID. The Epic User ID can be found at the top of the Epic Personal Account Settings page. If only playing in Standalone mode is desired, it is not necessary to use a real Epic User ID, as, in this state, the game does not try to confirm its legitimacy via the internet, and the ID you enter for the shortcut is merely used for creating a save folder on your hard drive, and can be any random string of letters, symbols and numbers. Use -epiclocale= to change the default locale of the game; acceptable values are en, fr, it, de, es, ru, ja, zh-CN and zh-Hant.

Mods

Modding Tools

• The Simple Mod Framework is a modding tool that aims to make mod installation as easy and conflict-free as possible.
• LocalGhost can be used with the Ghost Mode mod to play the mode on the game's Steam version. Some LocalGhost servers also offer other content, such as HITMAPS In-Game Roulette. Creating your own server is also possible.

Miscellaneous Mods

• The Peacock Project is an alternative way to experience the game online by using a server replacement instead of connecting to official IOI servers. Features include moderated leaderboards, playing custom and discontinued content such as legacy escalations and all Elusive Targets. Features a mastery system, but also has an option to allow for everything to be unlocked. Peacock is a highly customized implementation of LocalGhost.
• Lighting Ultimate changes bloom levels and disables most post processing effects used in the levels. Also has an option to change the lighting of H2016 maps to their pre-GOTY versions.
• Heritage UI aims to improve HITMAN 3's UI by improving menu flow, ability to enable 2016-style objective text, as well as mini-map readability changes. Features can be toggled on and off based on the user's preferences.
• The Great Big Localisation Revamp cuts down on generic, mis-spelled, or otherwise unfitting names and descriptions for items, weapons and suits that can be viewed via the in-game inventory.
• Mission Accomplished - Featured Contracts Tile adds a tile to the Featured Contracts Mission Accomplished screen after completing a featured contract.

Offline Mode Mods

These mods add additional offline features to the game that make offline play worthwhile.

• Custom and Offline Missions Pack Enables all vanilla missions in offline mode, including seasonal content like Holiday Hoarders and Berlin Egg Hunt, as well as the Sniper Assassin missions. Adds a series of modded/ custom missions including Choose Your Own Adventure missions and a solo ghost-mode type mission.
• Offline Elusives Redux SMF Edition makes all Elusive Targets playable offline.
• Offline Elusive Target Arcade makes all Elusive Target Arcade contracts playable offline.
• Offline Unlocks makes all base-game items available in offline mode.
• All Startings Locations Unlocked makes all starting locations available in offline mode.

Custom Mission Mods

• Chongqing Noodle Massacre Adds new bonus mission to offline mode, a remake of the Codename 47/Contracts Missions "The Massacre at the Cheung Chau Fish Restaurant"/"The Noodle Massacre"

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-2500K AMD Phenom II X4 940	Intel Core i7-4790
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	60 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 AMD Radeon HD 7870 DirectX 12 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 AMD Radeon RX Vega 56

A 64-bit operating system is required.