How many copies did Hitman sell? — 2023 statistics

The Hitman series has sold 16.59 million copies in total.

(Source: VG Chartz)

• The highest-selling game is Hitman 2: Silent Assassin with 3.71 million sales.
• Hitman: Absolution had 3.60 million sales.
• Hitman: Blood Money had 2.10 million sales.
• Hitman: Contracts had 1.90 million sales.
• Hitman 2 sold an estimated 196,343 units within its first week.

While the Hitman series has not sold a tremendous number of copies compared to other, bigger game franchises, its total sales are still quite impressive and the success of Hitman 3 only cemented the reputation of the franchise as a whole. The statistics concerning Hitman 2 sales paint a clear picture of the popularity of the second game in the series, and the undisclosed sales of Hitman 3 make it even clearer that this is a franchise that is around to stay.

Hitman 3 overperformed in its first year of sales, selling 300% better than its predessor.

(Source: PSX Extreme, ScreenRant, Polygon)

• The game had a budget of $22.5 million.
• The excellent sales stats continued into the game’s second year.
• IO Interactive is expecting sales drops for the fiscal 2024 and 2025 years.
• The studio is expecting its total profits to land anywhere between $36.4 million and $43.6 million.
• The total sales of Hitman 3 are excellent considering Hitman: Absolution underperformed in sales in 2013.

Now we come to the meat and bones of the franchise in recent years — Hitman 3. This is definitely the most popular game in the franchise and it has proved that time and time again through its sales, general reception, and general gameplay. The thing to take away from this is that Hitman 3 massively overperformed in sales, gathering 300% more profits than expected.

Hitman 3 is the most successful game in the entire series, racking up over 50 million players since release.

(Source: Eurogamer)

• Because of its massive success, the developers treated its players with the addition of ray tracing, VR for PC, and the Elusive Arcade.
• Other notable additions to the game include new maps and storylines as well.

When it comes to success in this franchise, we’ve already talked extensively about Hitman 3, but we’ll praise it a bit more since it deserves it. It’s a common occurrence for game developers to treat their communities with extra content and game updates, and that is exactly what happened with Hitman 3. Following its massive success and the 50 million total player count, the developers added extra maps and new content much to the joy of the community.

Despite being review bombed on Steam, Hitman 3 still has a high rating.

(Source: GameRant)

• At the beginning of 2022, Hitman 3 had Mixed reviews on Steam following some fairly severe review bombing.
• Most of the negative reviews were focused on the business profile of IO Interactive charging high prices for different editions of Hitman 3.
• Despite this, since the beginning of 2022, Hitman 3’s general review profile has changed to Very Positive, which is great for the series moving forward.

Unfortunately, there is a trend of dissatisfied players leaving scalding reviews for games online to try to lower the perceived quality of the game so other people would be discouraged from buying it. That is what happened with Hitman 3 where its general rating on Steam dropped to Mixed, which is not something you want to see. However, following some improvements to the pricing and business model, the reviews have been brought back to Very Positive.

IO Interactive earned $78 million following the release of Hitman 3.

(Source: Hitman Forum)

• In terms of profit, the company made $42 million.
• This is 6.5 times higher than the previous company record.
• A vast majority of the profits are attributed to the massive success of Hitman 3.
• Because of this level of success, IO Interactive is planning on doubling the number of employees working for them, from 200 to 400.

Seeing how well a game does through sales and reviews is one thing, but you also have to take a look at the revenue that the company enjoys following the success of a game. In the case of Hitman 3, the most successful game in the franchise, IO Interactive made $78 million from the game, and that is just an amazing achievement for the company.

Hitman Sniper has over 10 million downloads on the App Store.

(Source: Pocket Gamer)

• Hitman Sniper is a mobile mission-based game that focuses on sniping.
• The game was launched in 2014.
• It keeps things fresh by adhering to the core ideas of the series as well as implementing multiplayer leaderboards for a competitive aspect.

Something that you might now know about the Hitman series is that there is also a mobile game in the franchise. It’s a simple, mission-based assassination game that can be quite interesting when you get into it. It usually costs $0.99, but IO Interactive made the game free-to-play for a limited time following the game reaching the 10 million player milestone.

Players of Hitman (2016) completed 70 million challenges in 2016.

(Source: Venture Beat)

• There were 600 in-game challenges.
• Only 2% of players killed Ken Morgan with a coconut.
• The AI dialogue of Hitman has more words than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
• There were over 20 unique Elusive targets.
• The Blackmailer was the most-played Elusive target.
• The Fixer was the most difficult Elusive target with just a 23% success rate.
• Over 100 unique weapons were used.
• Over 110 unique disguises were used.
• Over 250,000 contracts were created by players.
• There were more than 100 featured contracts.

In this line of stats, we can see that Hitman (2016) was also a very successful game based on the one-year accolades that the community racked up in 2017. With over 70 million completed challenges and 250,000 created contracts, we can see that the Hitman community is very dedicated to the game and loves to play it.

Hitman 3 will be renamed to World of Assassination and will include access to Hitman 1 and 2.

(Source: Game Informer)

• Existing owners of Hitman 3 will receive the upgrade for free.
• This applies to all platforms.
• The developers have announced that they did this to simplify the purchase process of the games and to give players the most complete experience possible.
• The new version of the game will cost $70.
• This change is effective on January 26th, 2023.

This is one of the best things IO Interactive could have done with the Hitman series because it massively simplifies the process of purchasing and enjoying the games. Now, players can pay $70 to get all of the content of Hitman 3 plus the previous two games, for a complete Hitman experience. Also, players that already have Hitman 3 purchased get the update for free, which is quite nice.

Both Hitman movies were critically panned, but financially successful.

(Source: LEVVVEL)

• The movies continued the trend of horrible video game movie adaptations.
• Hitman (2007) earned $101 million against a $24 million budget.
• Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) earned $82 million against a $35 million budget.

Usually, video game adaptations in shows and television are never good. Consider this movie, the Resident Evil (2022) series, Doom, Prince of Persia, and other titles. Those titles were hilariously bad because it is just hard to create something faithful to the source material.

To sum up

Alright, that would be everything we have to say about the Hitman series! As you could see from the information provided, this series has achieved global acclaim on both consoles, PC, and mobile, and it has even spread its roots into the entertainment industry, albeit not very successfully. Other than that, the series has gathered millions of sales, millions of dedicated players, and millions of dollars in revenue. Not all of the games are made the same, and there is a fair bit of contrast between Hitman 3 and the other games, but that does not mean that the older games are not good. Quite the contrary, no matter which Hitman game you choose, it will be an unforgettable experience. We sincerely hope that you are happy with the information we have presented and that you have learned something new!