Hitman 3 will benefit from 8+ core Intel CPUs & variable rate shading with ray tracing coming later

Your PC might just be whining at the sight of this headline, because IO Interactive has some clear ambitions for its next installment in the Hitman franchise. The developer announced a new partnership today with Intel, which will benefit those with high-end PCs. Hitman 3 will take advantage of high core counts, while also introducing variable rate shading and ray tracing on the GPU side of things.

According to recent Steam Hardware Surveys, most of us still use CPUs with four cores. Hitman 3 will take serious advantage of multi-threaded performance though, awarding those with 8+ core Intel CPUs better performance. The announcement didn’t detail exactly what improvements to expect, but it will likely pertain to the size of crowds and the number of AI on screen. Player might be able to expect better framerates with these settings maxed out. If you like large-scale settings, this might be a reason to finally upgrade. After all, more games are only expected to take advantage of higher core counts moving forward.

If the higher number of cores don’t help to scale up the crowds though, variable rate shading definitely will. IO Interactive expressly stated this in the announcement and also advertised that VRS will allow for more destruction effects. Personally, I love games where the environment is fully destructible. If the developer is able to push things a little more in that direction via VRS, it’s certainly worth the trouble.

Don’t let the fancy lighting distract you from the fact that this guy is about to kill you. Allegedly.

Hit the lights

As for the final announcement, IO Interactive confirmed ray tracing support will arrive for Hitman 3 later in 2021. This fancy lighting tech seems to be all the buzz these days, though you will certainly need a powerful GPU to handle it.

Hitman 3 arrives in January 2021 for PC on the Epic Games Store. Stay tuned, because IO Interactive intends to reveal more info about the game before the end of the month. The developer is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Hitman franchise this month, so it’s sure to be poppin’. IO Interactive also has a newly announced James Bond game in the works, so you don’t need to worry about your secret agent adventures ending anytime soon.