Hitman 3 built with PlayStation 5's ultra-fast 5.5GB/sec SSD in mind

Hitman 3 is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and current-gen consoles in January 2021, and the PS5's new SSD was a big reason for the sequel's next-gen optimizations.

We've heard lots of developers praise the PlayStation 5's custom high-end 5.5GB/sec PCIe 4.0 SSD for its massive efficiency, data pipeline throughput and streaming capabilities. Coupled with the NVMe M.2 flash over PCIe 4.0 lanes, the 12-channel memory controller and hardware-based decompression block allows for high data flows (up to 8K textures) and incredible compressed data transfer rates of up to 20GB. The result is games loading faster that ever before with instantaneous open-world gaming as data rockets through the GDDR6 RAM, Zen 2 CPU, and 10.1 TFLOP Navi 2 GPU and then rendered on the screen.

This kind of performance will revolutionize console gaming, and early adopters like IO Interactive are eager to jump in. According to the developer, Hitman 3 was designed with the PlayStation 5's SSD in mind. Simply put, faster loading and data streaming means more access and play availability. IO loves this I/O potential and says it meshes perfectly with Hitman's overall goals: Wide experimentation in a sandbox.

"Hitman 3 is going to mark yet another big leap forward for our technology, driven and inspired by the capabilities of the PlayStation 5," Game Director Mattias Engstrom said in a recent interview with PlayStation Magazine.

"It's an extraordinarily complex game that has multiple systems running at the same time that support each other constantly, so having more power to play with gives us more options and lets us do significantly more.

"Hitman is a game about experimentation. We invite the player into a sandbox, and we let them experiment the way they want,.

"Therefore, we see the save/load as an important feature to encourage just that. The blitz-fast load times we are seeing on the PS5 makes it the perfect home for the Hitman trilogy, encouraging experimentation more than ever."

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Mostly we've seen Sony's on first-party developers talk up the PlayStation 5's SSD. Epic Games has also chimed in, and Epic Boss Tim Sweeney even called the PS5 SSD "god-tier" tech.

Here's a few snippets of what devs are saying about the PS5's new solid state drive.

• Horizon Forbidden West has immediate fast-travel on PlayStation 5
• PlayStation 5 SSD destroys loading screens in new Ratchet & Clank game
• New PlayStation 5 Spider-Man game has near-instant loading

The PlayStation 5 releases Holiday 2020. No pre-order pricing, availability, or exact release date have been announced yet. Estimates guess a $499 price tag for the console.

Check below for more info on the PS5's specs:

PlayStation 5 specs and details:

• Custom SoC with second-gen Navi GPU, Zen 2 CPU
• 8-Core, 16-thread Zen 2 CPU at 3.5GHz
• Navi 2X GPU with 36 CUs on RDNA 2 at 2.23GHz
• Ultra-fast 825GB 12-channel PCIe 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD with up to 9GB/sec speeds
• Two SKUs: Digital-only, and standard with a disc drive
• Support for 4K 120 Hz TVs
• Ray-tracing enabled
• 8K output support (for gaming)
• Plays PS4 games, BC is on a title-to-title basis
• Separate games that ship on BD-XL Blu-ray discs
• New controller with extensive haptic and tactile feedback