Hitman 3 on PC is getting ray tracing after launch

Hitman 3 is the latest game to adopt ray tracing, though we'll be waiting a little bit to see it.

IO Interactive has announced that it's working on ray tracing for the upcoming Hitman 3. The feature sadly won't be there at the game's launch, though it will arrive later in 2021.

It's not clear whether ray tracing will only be available on PC, but the announcement was made in a blog post discussing a partnership with Intel.

According to IO, the deal will allow the developer to better optimise Hitman 3 for high-end PCs and CPUs with a high core count. Some of the examples given include denser crowds in the game's Dubai level and better destructibility in Dartmoor for players with 8+ core CPUs.

As for ray tracing, IO didn't say exactly which parts of the game will be ray traced. The use of ray tracing varies from game to game, of course, but the most impressive examples are typically reflections and global illumination.

Nevertheless, IO promised more details on Hitman 3's PC version in the coming weeks. The developer is also revealing the game's next location later today in a livestream at 6am PT, 10am ET, 2pm GMT.

In other news, a cloud version of Hitman 3 is coming to Switch, presumably at launch, that allows Switch owners to stream the full game to their consoles.

Hitman 3 is out January 20 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia.