Hitman's July Update Out Today, Here Are The Patch Notes

The July update for Hitman is out today. Along with the usual assortment of tweaks and bug fixes, update 1.12.1 brings with it the final Elusive Target for Season One.

With today's update, IO has made some changes to combat in order to make it "more satisfying and viable for all players." In particular, the developer has reduced the rate of NPC pistols. It has also reduced the amount of damage that players take at mid- to long distances, while the rate their health recovers has been increased. IO says it is going to continue monitoring these changes and further tweaking them based on the team's impressions.

The developer has also changed the criteria players will need to meet to unlock Professional Difficulty. Now, you'll only need a Mastery level of 5 (as opposed to 20) in a location to unlock it. However, IO assures that no other changes have been made to Professional Difficulty, and the aforementioned combat tweaks do not apply here.

Finally, players can now track down the 26th and final Elusive Target for Season One: Mr. Giggles, an "entertainer" who operates an underground circus. He's located somewhere in the city center of Marrakesh, and like other Elusive Targets, he'll only be available for a limited time. You can watch a dossier trailer on Mr. Giggles above.

IO has another Hitman update planned for August, which will be detailed soon. In the meantime, you can see some of the patch notes for July's update below. The full patch notes can be found on the Hitman website.

Hitman July 2017 Patch Notes:

Xbox One Loading Times

• After a recent update, Xbox One users reported to us that the game was taking longer to load than usual, especially when restarting a contract. We've looked into this and now have the Xbox One loading times back to where they should be. Thanks to our Xbox One players who reported this.

Excuse me, I found a weapon

• We've fixed an issue that could cause guards to repeatedly drop weapons that they discovered on the ground. This issue was prominent on The Icon mission.

Bathroom Break

• We've fixed an issue that could cause the toilet in the Marrakesh school to behave erratically after 47 kicks it onto Zaydan. This could occasionally result in 47's death. Seriously.

Cancelling Connecting

• We've fixed an issue that could cause players to inadvertently cancel the "connecting" prompt and enter "Offline Mode."

Opportunity Lost After Loading

• We've fixed an issue that could cause the Opportunity Marker (the little light bulb) to disappear after a save/load cycle.

Trespassing v Hostile Area

• We've implemented a fix for a Known Issue from our June Update. The "Trespassing" and "Hostile Area" status messages on the mini-map now display correctly.

Maximum Mastery

• We heard that some players have had issues unlocking the trophies/achievements associated with reaching Mastery level 20 in various locations. We've implemented a change so that the game will re-check whether you have reached level 20 when you launch the game and award the appropriate trophies/achievements.

Trophy Typography

• We've made some necessary updates to the trophy descriptions on PS4; corrected a few typos and mistakes.

Unconscious Witness

• We've also implemented a fix for the other Known Issue from our June Update. The "Unconscious Witness" status on the mini-map is know displayed correctly.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

• We've fixed other minor issues across the board to keep the game in fantastic shape.