Agent 47 returns to hit our screens once more

Eidos today announced that everybody’s favourite assassin, Agent 47, will be featuring in his fourth adventure, titled Hitman: Blood Money.

The plot revolves around our hair-free Agent looking to uncover the mystery of who is arranging the hits on fellow agents from his agency, the ICA. Fearing he may be next in line for a bullet, Agent 47 travels to America to seek out the truth. And kill lots of people.

New gameplay features are promised, including the long-overdue option of being able to buy the equipment for a mission, using cash obtained from previous contracts. This feature should hopefully allow for missions to be approached in numerous ways, as well as adding a strategy element to proceedings; no longer do you only need to think during the mission, but before it, too. The graphics will be getting a polish, too, with the game being powered by a new version of Io’s Glacier engine.

The franchise, which has been a multi-million seller, is obviously important to Eidos. Mike McGarvey, CEO of Eidos said of the announcement:

“The Hitman series is one of Eidos’ biggest franchises and goes from strength to strength with every new instalment. Io-Interactive is one of the world’s most accomplished developers, and yet again has raised the stakes in terms of graphics and gameplay with Hitman: Blood Money.”

Janos Flösser, managing director of Io-Interactive is also excited:

“Considerable time and effort has been spent developing a new version of the Glacier engine that enables us to implement many new and exciting features. The quality of the graphics and A.I. surpasses even our own expectations and this combined with a gripping narrative and the introduction of some really inventive characters makes us confident that Blood Money will be the greatest Hitman title to date.”

Hitman: Blood Money has been provisionally slated for a Spring 2005 release.