Hitman game adds a new celebrity to assassinate after dropping Conor McGregor

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Conor McGregor in Hitman — Conor McGregor is no longer in Hitman (IO Interactive)

Hitman players will soon be able to hunt a new celebrity target nicknamed The Splitter, after the developers opted to remove Conor McGregor.

Last week, developer IO Interactive cut all ties with mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, after a court ruled he had raped a woman in a Dublin hotel.

McGregor had been added to IO’s Hitman: World Of Assassination game (a rebrand of Hitman 3 that also adds all the content from the previous two games) as a celebrity guest target for players to hunt, but all his associated DLC has since been delisted.

Now, IO is keen for everyone to move on and forget McGregor was ever in the game, by announcing a brand new celebrity to assassinate instead: Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Between this and his cameo as an alternate skin in Mortal Kombat 1, Van Damme seems surprisingly willing to lend his likeness to games where he can be violently murdered.

He’s not appearing as himself though, but rather as a rogue assassin called Max Valliant, also known as The Splitter for the fact he can… do the splits. Something he can be seen showing off in the reveal trailer or, you know, every movie he’s ever been in.

According to IO’s website, The Splitter will only be available as part of a limited time mission from December 12 to January 12, but players can purchase a DLC pack that makes him a permanent addition.

Said pack also comes with extra weapons and six new cosmetics for player character Agent 47 and will cost £3.99.

While this Van Damme DLC has obviously been in the pipeline for a while, and would have been announced by now anyway, the timing does make it look like IO is doing extra damage control by swapping McGregor out for a less problematic celebrity.

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IO is also promising a new roadmap of content that will start from December 12 but has yet to share any finer details, only saying there will be new community inspired missions and certain limited time targets will make a return.

It’s unclear if IO’s plans include any further celebrity guest stars. Aside from Van Damme and McGregor, Hitman has also featured actor Sean Bean as an assassination target, amusingly cast as a former MI5 agent who seemed to keep coming back from the dead.

However, given the whole McGregor situation, perhaps IO will be a lot more careful about who it approaches to add to its game in the future.

While publishers love to include celebrity cameos in their video games, they’re always a double-edged sword and not just because of potential incidents like with McGregor.

Since it typically costs a lot of money to use their likeness, there’s more pressure on any game that features them to succeed. Especially, as a celebrity endorsement also isn’t guaranteed to work.

Tencent put out an open world survival game in 2023 starring Will Smith that no one heard about until reports of how little money it made dropped earlier this year. And how many of you even remember the celebrity stacked Crime Boss: Rockay City that came out last year?