Hitman 3 in VR is all about immersion. It’s about getting closer to the action than ever before and truly taking on the role of Agent 47 in the hyper-detailed sandboxes that Hitman is known for. It’s been a whole month since we announced PS VR support for Hitman 3 and we’re excited to be back to tell you more.
With the expertise of Sidsel and Eskil from IOI’s VR team, let’s go into more depth and look a some of the cool ways that Hitman in VR will immerse you into the World of Assassination.
1. Point of view
When you’re playing in VR, you’re playing in first person – literally seeing the world through the eyes of Agent 47. It’s a powerful move that we’ve done specifically for VR. It’s almost like a ‘VR-view’ rather than a first-person view because we’ve had to reconsider all aspects of the game and where the camera should be in VR.
For example, we’ve adjusted Agent 47’s height in VR to make the first-person view and taking cover work properly. We’ve also adjusted what parts of Agent 47’s body will get detected by guards to make sure that the experience feels right in VR.
2. New ways of play
In the early stages of developing for VR, it was lots of fun to discover new possibilities that we could take advantage of, without making any changes to the game. The high level of fidelity and realism in the environments meant that we had new lines of sight and new places to hide almost instantly. We then started to experiment with the items in the world and how we could interact with them in satisfying ways.
We quickly realised that when you moved through a level holding an item, you’d leave a trail of destruction in your path, often unintentionally, because the item would ‘attack’ anything it touched. To avoid that, and allow players to choose when they wanted to use an item to interact or attack, we added the concept of ‘priming’ an item. This allows you to freely carry an item but only use it to attack when you choose to. Look closely at how 47’s grip changes when he’s holding the robot arm – that’s the moment that we hold R2 to prime.
3. Outside the box
We want the world of Hitman VR to be one that you can truly touch and effect. Hitman games have always been built to have a living, breathing world and when you’re playing in VR, you’ll be much more up-close with everything in the game – whether that’s wine bottles or security guards.
When you don’t play in VR, you can bump into characters and they’ll likely scold you for being clumsy. In VR, the layers of interaction needed to be deeper, so we’ve added reactions and trigger dialogue when you tap someone on the shoulder, for example.
Again, you’ll see below how 47 starts by tapping the guard and then ‘primes’ his hand into a fist to land a knockout blow.
4. Blending in
Taking disguises has always been an integral part of playing Hitman, especially in the recent games where it’s possible to blend-in to your surroundings and stay hidden, even when you’re in plain sight. Agent 47 is well-versed in doing whatever is necessary to maintain his disguise; whether he’s sipping a drink at a bar or cleaning a table in the kitchen.
Normally, Agent 47 would play that out automatically. In VR, we’re even going for full immersion when you’re cleaning tables and don’t plan to rely on automation! You can now act the part and finally live out your waiter dreams of cleaning tables in your own personal style. You’ll be a master assassin and employee of the month before you know it!
We’re really excited to tell you more about Hitman VR and share some examples of the gameplay scenarios you can expect. As a reminder, it will be possible to ‘import’ Hitman 1 and Hitman 2 locations that you own into Hitman 3, essentially putting 20+ locations from the entire trilogy in one place – and they can all be enjoyed in VR!
We’re looking forward to telling you (even) more before Hitman 3 launches on January 20, 2021. We can’t wait!
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