Update – January 16, 2021: Epic Games’ CEO has said “the team is looking into this with IO”.
Tim Sweeney has responded to this story on Twitter, explaining: “Sorry, the team is looking into this with IO. It’s never Epic’s intent to create a situation where someone who owns a game on Steam would have to buy it again on Epic Games Store to get the full benefits of it.” Original story follows.
One of the big selling points of Hitman 3 is that it’ll house all the levels from the entire trilogy, importing those stages from the games and expansion content you already own. However, since Hitman 3 is now an Epic exclusive, and the previous games had been released on Steam, that import process isn’t going to work how you want it to on PC.
Hitman 3 on Epic will not import levels from your Steam purchases of Hitman 1 and 2, developer IO Interactive explains in its pre-launch guide. The Epic version of Hitman 3 will include the Hitman GOTY Access Pass content for free for the first ten days after release, but after that period is up, you’ll have to pay for it. If you already own Hitman 1 on Epic (it was given away for free last year), you’ll automatically receive the Hitman GOTY Access Pass content for free, as well.
You will not receive the Hitman 2 levels for free. Instead, the Hitman 2 Standard and Gold Access Passes will be 80% off for the first 14 days after the launch of Hitman 3. The Standard version contains the levels from the release version of Hitman 2, and the Gold version includes both the base and DLC levels.
The price has not been announced for any of these packs, but a similar bundle to bring Hitman 1 levels into Hitman 2 is $19.99 / £15.99.
Whichever way you get access to the levels from the previous games, you will be able to import your Hitman 2 progression – including item and location mastery unlocks – from Steam to Epic. However, you can only do this once, and any progress you’ve already made in Hitman 3 will be wiped out when you choose to do the import.
Analysis:
This sucks.
I’ve been apathetic at worst toward Epic exclusivity in the past – I don’t use 90% of what Steam offers, and in some ways I prefer Epic’s less feature-filled client – but here’s a point where Epic exclusivity is actively making a game worse for its most devoted fans.
These are the best stealth games out there right now, and based on my preview session Hitman 3 is going to be fantastic, but it should’ve been a slam dunk getting all of this content easily accessible in one place. Instead, well… Here we are.
by Dustin Bailey
