Hitman 3 will no longer offer the ability to import levels from Hitman 2 when it is released later this month, unless players re-purchase Hitman 2 in the Epic Games store. Near the bottom of a lengthy and complicated pre-launch guide, IO Interactive developers said the change in plans was due to “various circumstances beyond our control.” Hitman 1 and 2 have both been released on Steam, while Hitman 3 is being launched as an exclusive Epic Games Store.
Hitman 2 offered the ability to import Hitman 1 locations at launch and it was announced in August 2020 that Hitman 3 was meant to do the same thing again. At the time of writing, the Hitman 3 website still announces that “the locations in Forms 1 and 2 can be imported at no additional cost to existing owners.”
This is no longer the case. The pre-release guide explains that Hitman 1 will be available for free in return for claiming just 10 days after launch for anyone who buys Hitman 3 from the Epic Games Store. Meanwhile, Hitman 2 will be available to everyone for an 80% discount for 14 days after launch. In both cases, this is not IO advertising or what players expected when they pre-ordered the game.
It is not clear how this affects the ability to import progress between games. The pre-release guide suggests that progress can be imported directly from Hitman 2 on Steam to Hitman 3 on Epic, without mentioning whether locations from previous games should be present in Hitman 3. Progress gives you access to Agent items and costumes 47 for use on Hitman 3 levels.
Beyond the vague “different circumstances”, there is no explanation as to why there was a change in plan. Players naturally assume that this is due to the change of the series from Steam to the Epic Games Store, where the game is expected to be exclusive for 12 months. We have contacted both IO Interactive and Epic Games for comments and we will update this story if any of them respond.