Freelancer - Pre-Release Discussion

bgyorok · October 4, 2022, 1:00pm

Freelancer is officially going to be free content!
Release date: January 26th, 2023

schatenjager · October 4, 2022, 1:03pm

Two observations:

Free. I told you all it was going to be free.
Steam only for Closed Technical Test? That’s a crock of horse shitake mushrooms.

Also, I guess cue all the “IOI lied again!” posts now since it won’t be coming out this year too…

TheChicken · October 4, 2022, 1:03pm

Holy crap!! I was right! Freelancer preview this month (and many months after that!!)

Wow. I still don’t think we should be expecting a Year 3 from this announcement, but the fact that they’re STILL Taking their time to release it is very good news!

January 26, 2023 babyyyy!!

jan342 · October 4, 2022, 1:04pm

Early next month, we’ll be selectively inviting HITMAN 3 players on Steam to jump into the Closed Technical Test and put it through its paces.

Here’s a volunteer

Schnitzel · October 4, 2022, 1:05pm

JANUARY!!! fuck😄 why

BT_TF · October 4, 2022, 1:09pm

Quite possibly the worst move in human history.

Saint_McCarthy · October 4, 2022, 1:09pm

This is good news! Money system!

LandirtHome · October 4, 2022, 1:12pm

Seems to be a lot of work going into the mode. Honestly I’m not even mad at the release date. It will be well polished then. And at least now we have a date.

PC only testing though Oh well

Tetrafish_21 · October 4, 2022, 1:12pm

It’s not in Year 2. It’s (Year) Threelancer.

Well, nice to know so now I can stop feeling antsy about it when it’ll be released.

Yeah, uh, I totally gots it in Steams! Where do I’s signs up?

Edit:

TheChicken · October 4, 2022, 1:13pm

Me feverishly looking up my PC specs, seeing if it can run Hitman 3…

BT_TF · October 4, 2022, 1:13pm

Hopefully the testing at least works on the demo, would be annoying to have no chance at testing the game simply because I pre-ordered it on Epic

Bielak812 · October 4, 2022, 1:14pm

To be honest, I don’t mind the waiting, but in terms of marketing, this release date looks really bad for the public eye. It’s going to annoy many.

bgyorok · October 4, 2022, 1:15pm

I guess they picked Steam for beta testers because they plan on moving forward on steam+the steam version of Hitman 3 is still somewhat new, so maybe if the Steam version is polished, then it will be easy to polish EGS as well.

But then again, I don’t know what I’m saying, so…

Edit: also Steam VR

BT_TF · October 4, 2022, 1:16pm

The two versions are pretty much identical copies of each other, and steam vr works on the epic version

TheChicken · October 4, 2022, 1:17pm

The release date is unfortunate, but they prepared for this delay well.

We have a definitive release date.
We have windows for multiple reveals and videos
And a technical test on the horizon letting you actually try it out

Plus it’ll be free!

That more than makes up for another 3 months!

LandirtHome · October 4, 2022, 1:21pm

Also : as is said, all (edit : most) the locations will be in it from day one.

So Ambrose might have been added. This wasn’t present at first. (Ambrose was supposed to arrive second). This alone is more work.

Travis_IOI · October 4, 2022, 1:22pm

Very excited to lift the lid on some of these details - and more to come! We’re gearing up some nice updates to lead into the release in January. Hopping on to reply to a few comments here…

Yes, it’s free. It’s coming via a patch.
Technical Test. Yes, we want this to make the launch smooth and make tweaks (not major changes) that we can’t properly test on a small scale. It’s ‘only on Steam’ for ease. More platforms = more complexity and Steam is pretty well geared for this sort of thing. We know that excludes some players/platforms and we don’t feel great about that. But we gotta make tough calls sometimes and this is one of those. It’s not possible to sign up, we’ll be in touch. “Selectively inviting” was written for a reason.
Money System: There’s going to be more depth shared on how the mode plays in the Road to Freelancer #2 update scheduled for October 27 (as per the blog post)
Year 2 / Year 3: We consider Freelancer as launching within Year 2, as that’s when it was originally planned. Year 3 is still TBD.
Release Date: This is best for the mode. As the blog says, we’re now adding pretty much all locations into the mode and that takes time. We want to launch strong, so the Technical Test and extra time gives us the best chance.

TheChicken · October 4, 2022, 1:22pm

Most! Most locations!

LandirtHome · October 4, 2022, 1:23pm

Carpathian, ICA Facility would be out, I would gamble.

Travis_IOI · October 4, 2022, 1:23pm

There’s very few locations that don’t fit thematically to be “Freelancered”, to coin a phrase. Those specifics will be rolled out in the coming weeks. So happy to finally be able to open up about some more nuggets of this mode.