Hitman 2 has officially gone gold, ready to ship out to store shelves for its release date in November. Generally speaking, this means that the development of the game is now over and physical discs are being printed. Fans can rest easy with the knowledge that the game does, in fact, exist - and isn't confined to demos and trailers.

Realistically, going gold is a symbolic milestone. Players on PC aren't particularly affected by this, and a large chunk of console players who decide to purchase digitally will be equally unmoved by the knowledge that physical discs are going to start floating around the world.

The Hitman 2 dev team will continue working on the game, despite it going gold. Work from this point forward will, presumably, be put into a day one patch to fix any bugs that are lingering in the physical copies of the game. Additionally, work on expansion packs is likely going to be starting in earnest in the near future.

Hitman 2 is following up a relatively well-received Hitman, which introduced an episodic structure to the franchise. While the game was generally well-liked, the structure it was released in wasn't so much of a hit. The episodic model is being dropped for Hitman 2, instead opting for a more traditional gaming experience.

Post-launch content will be added in the form of expansion packs. There are currently no details available yet on how much these expansions will cost, exactly how much will be contained in them, or how many there will end up being. Retailers have listed "Expansion one" and "Expansion two," but there could very well be more planned in the future that fans don't know anything about.

Beyond expansion packs, players can expect plenty of other ways to pay into Hitman 2 for additional content. The Hitman series has plenty of bonus outfits and weapons that Square Enix may choose to charge for, either as part of the expansion packs or in packages of their own.

Hitman 2 will release November 13, 2018 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.