Hitman 3 Shrinks Its Install Size With The Previous Games' Levels

With destinations stretching across the globe, IO Interactive's Hitman series has become a massive collection of scenic locales to explore. Hitman 3 will add even more locations to the experience, ranging from a massive skyscraper in Dubai through to a stately manor in England.

If you're planning to install the entire world of assassination onto your PC or console, the good news is that the entire trilogy will take up less space than Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War or Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond's mind-boggling 177GB installation size. This will make the entire trilogy smaller than Hitman 2 on Steam, with the 2016 Hitman content included.

"All three games with all content will take up around 100GB," an IO Interactive developer explained on ResetEra. "Biggest wins are because of data management and file structures and how we deliver the game so we could remove duplicate data. We also use newer and better compression for textures – that helps too."

It's also worth noting that if you own the previous two games, you'll be able to import them into Hitman 3 and receive all the latest improvements to those levels. You can read more about what to expect from the new game's improvements in out Hitman 3 preview.

Another part of the game engine that has been upgraded, which will also be backwards compatible with the previous two games, are screenspace reflections that create more realistic and subtle reflections through wet floor surfaces. Some of this technology has already been glimpsed in Hitman 3's Chongqing level, a Chinese transportation hub that is constantly illuminated by neon lighting.

As an example of screenspace reflection technology, the Paris fashion show catwalk floor from 2016's Hitman is now capable of fully reflecting the models and the rest of the room. Game Informer also revealed the first five minutes of Hitman 3's Dubai level, which trades ingenious murder techniques for scenic pans of the impressive skyscraper level. You can see that brief walkthrough below:

Hitman 3 launches on January 20 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Stadia, and Nintendo Switch through cloud gaming. It'll also be available on PC through the Epic Games Store as a timed exclusive.