While most gamers will believe this to be an egregious sin and would never ever think of letting it happen, there are a lot of players that don't finish games — any of them. They are engaged for the first couple of hours, but eventually repetition gives way to disinterest and the final boss fight is never seen. That's why many games put their big set pieces in the trailers, or they frontload the game with exciting content.

It's a sad truth, but one that IO Interactive's Tore Blystad, Director on Hitman: Absolution has come to realize. He believes that only about 20% of the people who play IO's highly anticipated next entry in the bald assassin franchise will see its final level.

It all boils down to metrics for Blystad, who in recent times has become more and more conscious of the statistics that go into researching a game. When looking at the stats for Hitman: Absolution, Blystad discovered that at most players will finish the game, but will not go back for a second playthrough.

That's all well and good for a singular experience, but Hitman is a game built around multiple approaches. Gamers are supposed to experiment with each target, seeing all of the clever kills IO Interactive has crafted for them.

Hitman: Blood Money, for example, had a ton of different ways in which to dispatch each target, all of them effective but some of them requiring a certain amount of outside-the-box thinking. It's safe to say that Absolution's targets will offer a certain amount of variation as well, but unfortunately most gamers won't ever bear witness to them.

"The general player will probably never even finish the game, which is very sad. Or they might only play through it once, but the game is built for the people who want to go back through every single level and get all the stuff out of it. It's built to last, rather than be a one-off experience."

Regardless of whether or not gamers will finish it, IO is still hoping that they will pick up the game when it releases this Fall (on November 20th to be exact). Marketing for the game has been all over the place, but the demo that was on display at E3 2012 certainly showcased an authentic Hitman experience.

Are you the type of gamer that would play through a game like Hitman: Absolution multiple times? Is finishing a game a priority for you?

Hitman: Absolution releases November 20, 2012 for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and OnLive.

Source: OPM