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Free games: Hitman 2 Starter Pack gives you the first level free

Get a substantial taste of Hitman 2 for free

If you’ve been holding off on Hitman 2, IO Interactive has something new to entice you – a free taste of the full game, with a dose of content sitting somewhere between a demo and a proper giveaway. The Hitman 2 Starter Pack gives you full access to the Hawke’s Bay level and the Nightcall mission which opens the excellent – just read our Hitman 2 PC review – full game.

Hawke’s Bay is set on a piece of New Zealand coast which hosts an isolated mansion. It’s the smallest of Hitman 2’s levels and functions in part as a tutorial for the new features introduced in the sequel, but it’s a substantial bit of content with multitudinous means of creatively murdering your set targets, and all the unlocks to keep subsequent playthroughs fresh.

The Starter Pack is available today, as of 10:00 PST / 13:00 EST / 18:00 GMT. Any progress you make in the level will naturally transfer over if you pick up the full game. There’s no word on whether this replaces or adds to the previous Prologue trial, which featured the ICA Facility from the original game upgraded for Hitman 2.

Either way, if you own the first Hitman you’ll be able to play all those levels in this Starter Pack with the new features introduced for the sequel.

You can see what you’re getting in the trailer above.

Related: Dig into the best free games on PC

Hitman 2 player count hit a record high – the sixth biggest peak in Steam history – with a free Christmas level last year, though that was at least partly due to bots idling for trading cards.