I love Hitman. I'm a longtime fan who relishes any opportunity to spend time with Agent 47, and I'm especially fond of WoA, enjoying the freedom you get in the approach to your missions, even if nine times out of ten I end up running away as bullets begin to fly. I can already take the game on the go, but it'd be even better if it could fit in my pocket. Unfortunately, the Hitman: World of Assassination iOS price tag has me much preferring to take my Switch 2 with me everywhere.
You're not ready to hear how much the assassin game costs on Apple devices: $70. To put that in context, that's the same price as 35 Twinkies, for a mobile port. But wait, I can go one better than that, the free-to-start mobile game costs even more than the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Hitman: World of Assassination Signature Edition, which sets you back $59.99.
Mind-blowing. I gave the game an 8/10 in my Hitman: World of Assassination Switch 2 review, which some might call generous due to the performance issues - I still don't know whether to laugh or cry at setting up the perfect assassination, 20 minutes of work, only for my target to clip through the wall. I can understand the premium price of a triple-A game on a new console or any console; that's standard.
A mobile port of a game like this, costing nearly as much as Mario Kart World, however, is not. Furthermore, other huge franchises like Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, and Death Stranding have ports on iOS. Yet, none of them have particularly impressive sales, as the data from Appmagic, as sourced by MobileGamer.biz, shows, and they're all cheaper than $70.
The most expensive Resident Evil game on mobile is the RE4 remake at $59.99, while the most recent, the Resident Evil 3 remake, is $29.99, and they boast revenue of $882k and $112k, respectively. On top of that, the number of downloads for those two horror games sits at two million and 191k, respectively.
With those numbers in mind, it seems extremely brave of IO Interactive to ignore the flops that Capcom has on mobile. Regardless, Hitman appears to be faring a bit better, even if the numbers are still wholly underwhelming. Since its launch on iOS on August 26, World of Assassination has accumulated 24k downloads and $15k in revenue, which equates to more earnings per download than the other games. It's worth noting that while you can pay $70 to unlock the entire game in one go, Hitman offers you the option to pay $3 for one mission at a time, so you don't need to spend a fortune in one go.
Elsewhere, IO Interactive is gearing up for the 007 First Light gameplay reveal, with the 007 First Light release date due to land in 2026, and one of the platforms it's coming to is the Nintendo Switch 2, which has numerous members of the Pocket Tactics team celebrating.