Though fans had been looking forward to the Steam release of Hitman 3, what was supposed to be a grand triumph for the game quickly turned into a huge bundle of problems for the developer, IO Interactive. One of the most egregious issues lies with the newly-released Elusive Target Arcade, where players have discovered an impressive array of bugs and issues.
Hitman 3 was released to critical acclaim a year ago, though it launched exclusively on the Epic Games Store on PC. This meant that a non-insignificant portion of the series' playerbase on PC was left waiting for the game to launch on Steam. The second year of content is only just starting, however, and the only major new piece of content is the Elusive Target Arcade.
Now that players have had plenty of time to fiddle with the new Escalation contracts, they have started to vent about its many problems with memes, sarcastic posts, and even full-on harassment on the Hitman subreddit. The biggest grievances stem from the Elusive Target Arcade, which combines the time-limited Elusive Target contracts, missions players can attempt only once before a cooldown period, and old Escalation contracts, where players need to complete a series of challenges that greatly limit their options.
The Elusive Target Arcade as it now exists stands at odds with the things that made the series popular in the first place. Developers are well aware of this fact, too, as the game's next major content update, Hitman 3 Freelancer mode, is the polar opposite of everything that the new Escalation mode delivers. In the meantime, the memes are bound to continue.
Of course, there's plenty of criticism present on the subreddit as well. Players have explained in substantial detail how new maps are the single most important piece of post-launch content that a modern Hitman game could get, and though Hitman 3 is getting an all-new level sometime in the future, the current focus on the Elusive Target Arcade rubs most players the wrong way.
Regardless, this does not change the fact that IO Interactive seems to have greatly underestimated the number of people who dislike Escalations mode in its entirety. On top of the Elusive Target Arcade forcing players to forego Hitman's inventiveness in target elimination, it also dropped as the main new piece of content to go with the game's Steam launch, which didn't help its case.
Hitman 3's post-launch content schedule hasn't been very well-received by the playerbase, with even the Deadly Sins DLC getting criticized for not adding new levels to the game. This helped set the stage for the issues that players currently have with the game. It remains to be seen whether IO Interactive's future Hitman 3 output can alleviate the growing number of concerns, but Freelancer Mode may help in the long run.
Hitman 3 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series platforms.