Hitman’s rogue-like Freelancer mode has been delayed again

You are eagerly waiting for the launch Hitman 3’s Freelancer mode will have to wait just a little bit longer. Developer IO Interactive posted a blog on Tuesday revealing that Freelancer is the upcoming single-player mode, which will be rogue like. Hitman 3, will be pushed back from the “second half of 2022” to January 2023.

That’s the bad news. Good news! IO Interactive is going to select a few lucky winners next month. Hitman 3 players on Steam for a “Closed Technical Test” of the new mode, which will allow players to once again assume the role of master assassin Agent 47 as they build their own customizable safe house and tour across the world hunting down master criminals.

“The Closed Technical Test is all about putting our servers under stress to prepare for launch,” the blog post states. “We also want to get an early idea of player behavior and do some economy / XP balancing in a real-life scenario on a big scale. These are the final checkboxes we need to tick off before we launch.”

Freelancer mode was originally slated to be released in spring 2022 before being delayed to the “second half of 2022.” IO Interactive has released several free updates to Hitman 3 since it first launched in January 2021, including the game’s first post-launch map back in July.