Hitman HD Enhanced Collection bring 4K 60fps experience to current gen consoles

IO Interactive have released the new "Hitman HD Enhanced Collection" which is a bundle that includes remastered versions of Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Absolution. Hitman HD Enhanced Collection brings these games to current gen consoles - PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, running at 4K 60fps. The game costs $59.99 internationally but here in India you can buy the game for Rs 4,995 on the PlayStation Store and Rs 4,000 on  Xbox Live.



Hitman: Blood Money was the fourth game in the Hitman series and was launched all the way back in 2006 for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 consoles. The game was a critical and commercial success and is considered a fan favourite. Hitman: Absolution was the fifth installment in the series and appeared on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox One console in 2012. Though less well receive, the game is still considered as important by the developers as stated by Hakan Abrak, CEO, IO Interactive. “Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Absolution have helped us on our journey to where we are today, and we’re looking forward to players enjoying them in 4K and 60 fps.”

This new remaster brings in a lot of enhancements to the games including better looking lighting, shadows and reflections. Newer textures have been used where applicable and textures are no longer downscaled to avoid tanking performance. In case you do not have a 4K TV and running a 1080p one, the game is rendered at a resolution higher than 1080p and then downscaled in order to remove jagged edges. The controls have also been tweaked for a better experience.

Though the games can still look a little funny and aged at certain points, one must remember that this is a remaster and not a remake.

Xbox One X and One S to rock 1440p resolution soon

As time progresses, the standard resolution accepted and supported across platforms also increases. While the 4k buzz is still in the air, the successor to 1080p would most likely be 1440p. Microsoft having realised that, had promised 1440p support on their consoles, a little while ago. While there is no official launch date for that patch, a tweet from Kevin Gammil, Xbox Partner Group Program Manager has hinted that Xbox Insiders might get a taste of it soon.

Many questions recently around the timing of our 1440p support. Those of you in our early preview ring should be pleasantly surprised very soon if you have an Xbox One S or Xbox One X.

— Kevin Gammill (@CmdrDesslock) February 16, 2018

Xbox Insiders are people who signup to access and test features in their development stage so that the devs can benefit and troubleshoot using their experience. The tweet suggests that 1440p would be supported on both, the mighty Xbox One X and the regular Xbox One S. It would be particularly interesting to see what kind of performance/quality mix we get to see at 1440p on the Xbox One X.

While Microsoft's most powerful console yet, the Xbox One X, was available to many parts of the world last year, we in India got an official launch only last month. The Rs 44,990 console supports 4k and other features like HDR and Dolby Atmos to bring a gaming experience that is beyond what consoles have been able to offer till now. While the console is capable of running games at 4k resolution, it also has the ability to downsample the 4k image to 1080p when hooked to a 1080p display.