There has been teased hints from IOI on here about possible Year 3 content, but we’ve had nothing official as yet.
This is where it was briefly teased by Travis
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To answer the original question of this thread, a year 3 content addition is certainly possible. “Theoretically”, it’s possible (although highly unlikely) that they could announce Hitman 4 during Year 3. Anything is “theoretically” possible…
I assumed that Travis’ comment about Year 3 were simply related to what content would be included in it, not whether or not it would exist in the first place. Travis tries to be particular with his words so as not to mislead fans (not that he is always successful, but he tries). I think if Year 3 content were still up in the air, existence-wise, he would have said “we then start thinking about whether to do Year 3” rather than what he actually said. There will be content in Year 3, we just don’t know what it is and IOI aren’t ready to commit to it yet.
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IOI start each year following a budget allocation of staff for projects, and then adjust a bit every quarter, to meet milestones under budget. If they aren’t reporting a future course for Hitman, then there is likely a very small budget allocation for Hitman. If there was something other than Freelancer on the horizon, they would have advertised it to keep up player hopes and interest in the future of Hitman.
This is understandable because many of the core staff of Hitman have been allocated to Project 007, and they have other IPs on the go for IOI including an RPG. Senior Producer on Hitman 3 left right after its release, and they maintained a small core group to put together 7DS DLC, Freelancer, PC VR, enhancements and major bug fixes.
IOI have expanded greatly with two other studios near the end of Hitman, and the future of the company is now tied to EON Productions and Broccoli family to generate a hit with Project 007.
While they will maintain servers and upload mostly recycled and community generated content, and prepare for their release of Freelancer, IOI’s future income is completely tied to their next big thing, which is not Hitman. IOI are losing money with Hitman3 since its release, because their current work it isn’t bringing in enough new income from Epic/Steam/console sales. It isn’t that all working at the studio aren’t caring about Hitman, because it composes most of the 20 yr history of IOI, but when it comes down to it, it is a private company that needs to make future profits out of something that is not Hitman.
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Didnt they expand their live team this year?
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To be honest, if IOI are going to gradually move away from Hitman 3 content after Freelancer drops, then IOI can happily sit back and be very proud of what they’ve given us.
I don’t think IOI could possibly top anything bigger than Freelancer for Hitman 3 content in my opinion, so I’d be very content after Freelancer drops to wait for the next Hitman game! 
If we do get Year 3 content, then of course that would be really cool and a bonus surprise in my opinion.
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Historically, when they’re done adding new content to the game there has been a period where they still do FC batches and a string of reactivated ETs for people that missed them for a period of time. That’s where my expectations for “Year 3” sit right now, and if anything beyond that happens - then that’s just a bonus.
Hopefully they continue to support the game via patches for a period of time post-Freelancer’s launch though. Usually those also come to an end once we reach the end of new content, so history isn’t on our side with that one… 
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Probably nothing big after freelancer since they need to rest. BUT maybe they might have some big content from halfway through the year. Hopefully.
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We need some way to be able to eliminate Rico Delgado by turning him into a golden statue. I’m thinking aerosol spray or something but only able to be used on him. Add NPC dialogue such as Andrea Martinez yelling at no one in particular about how there’s already a statue and accuse the people of Santa Fortuna of wasting Rico’s hard-earned money.
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Is this a coded reference to how they should fix the tarp? (And the tattooist sleeves)
Freelancer is kind of the pinnacle of Hitman – I am thinking it is possible that IOI will focus entirely on developing Freelancer, a rogue-like Hitman.
It could be spin off as its own packaged product as paid DLC or developed as its own game separate from the Hitman Trilogy.
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Not even close, IMO. The pinnacle of Hitman has always been (throughout the history of the series) the levels and missions which were most well designed, which in order to really shine requires devs to hand-craft the targets, their environment and the opportunities to interfere with both.
The general level of machine learning and procedural generation capabilities available to devs in any game company on the planet is nowhere near to the quality of elegance and innovation that a human dev team can output when hand-crafting that mission design and won’t be at that level for a good while to come, so if Freelancer-style procedural generation is the future of Hitman at all then it’s a distant far future.
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I am with you in the curated levels and content in Hitman. What I meant is that IOI has reached a new level in terms of player agency, player freedom and gameplay in a rogue-like Hitman.
In standard Hitman, we learn of the targets, all the NPCs and their routines, and where all the weapons and items are located in each mission. They added elusive targets to add an element of mystery and elevating the stakes in making it a do-or-die scenario, but the rest of the content is often highly scripted.
With Freelancer, with every kill of target with meeting of certain conditions, there are rewards for completion, where the player has the freedom to buy what they want. Players choose their targets, so every player’s game through Freelancer can be unique. The stakes are much higher as difficulty rises as you complete missions but you also have freedom in choice as you go along.
Freelancer is meant to be what the elusive target provided, where the player feels that the moment to moment gameplay matters and the stakes are higher.
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I do agree, but Freelancer has also shown me that the main missions would have been even better, if they had an integrated economy and safehouse system from the beginning. The trilogy is more than enough though, so it’s really not a big deal. But the progression element of Freelancer is really addictive and it makes the gameplay-loop even better. I wasn’t even one of the ones with strong opinions on this subject in the past, but I gotta say, it really is a great fit for Hitman.
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Sort of cart-before-the-horse.
IOI had to make the fleshed out locations with environmental puzzles, location vibe, and NPC routes and their scripted dialogue for standard Hitman.
Now that they have 20 plus locations fully realized, it really is a World of Assassination – where all these locations can be linked together through this common economy and safehouse, as you mention.
I think that IOI had considered the likelihood of Freelancer as a future mode in 2014-2015 when they were putting together Hitman2016. Most of a decade later, they can implement their vision for the World of Assassination.
The problems of the Roguelite/Rogue-likes is that balancing and pacing is the major issue. You want players to repeat content over and over, but there has to be a story narrative and economy and other player engagement tactics to keep player engagement.
Since then, we have had very successful games with a rogue-like formula like Hades or Dead Cells or Hollow Knight.
Of all rogue-likes out there Hades is best I think, because the story narrative keep you engaged, and the different varieties of possible combos and weapon addons that you can gather in different runs is enormous.
I am hoping that IOI shape an overarching story narrative like the Patient Zero DLC for their Freelancer campaign.
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Just have to point out for the sake of being pedantic that Hollow Knight has no rougelike elements whatsoever.
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I think Freelancer and its economy being separate from main campaign does have its benefits.
This way main story is a fun sandbox where you can freely play missions in any order with all gear always available and no long-term consequences for messing up. Plus the lack of randomisation allows for extremely elaborate speedruns, strict self-imposed challenges or wacky assassinations that wouldn’t be doable if missions were shuffled each time. And of course it’s easier to have a good and cohesive narrative/characters/levels when they’re hand-crafted and manually fine-tuned rather than stitched together by an algorithm.
I see Freelancer and its structure as its own thing that provides a different experience rather than a complete replacement for campaigns/bonus missions or escalations/puzzle contracts. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m still hyped out of my mind for this game mode and cannot wait to play it.
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yep. true. Thanks for pointing that out. I meant Shovel Knight, but there are a bazillion of other examples.
Agreed. Standard Hitman is great. Hopefully Freelancer will be great in its own right too.
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The safehouse was presumably only acquired by 47 and Diana post H3 once they went Freelance, so I don’t know how that would have worked if they had it from the very beginning?
Freelancer is definitely meant to be it’s own thing away from the normal campaign. Not to mention this will be the first time we’ll see 47 working away from the ICA properly and solely for Diana after going Freelance, so yes it will definitely be a different experience.
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