David Bateson Returns To Voice Agent 47 In Hitman: Absolution

One of the things that irked me a bit during the demos of Hitman: Asbolution was the change in the voice actor for agent 47. The new guy sounded younger, hipper and mostly less threatening. It reminded me of how Ubisoft is trying to youthinize Sam Fisher for the Splinter Cell games by knocking off the wrinkles and getting a younger voice actor to pretend like he sounds tough. Well, on the upside, IO apparently worked out some kind of deal to get the original voice of Agent 47 for the upcoming Hitman: Absolution, because Bateson is back.

For those of you who don't know, David Bateson has been the voice actor for Agent 47 for the entire Hitman series. He's done a superb job of capturing the distant, almost inhuman vibe and persona (or lack of one) for Agent 47. In simple terms, he really brought 47 to life.

A lot of fans questioned about whether Bateson would be back for Absolution and what was up with some other guy doing the voice over work for 47, but nothing was properly clarified early on, other than that Bateson had not received any phone calls nor was he contacted to return as Agent 47.

Well, today, after getting a tour of the IO studios, the young kid who won the Vote For Hitman contest was given a ton of swag, a look at the gametesters doing their thing and a small USB device that the IO guys told him not to upload until 16:00 GMT+1, today, (August 28th). Check out what was on the file below.

Hmm, seems legit, yeah? Well, there's also a forum thread on the official Hitman site explaining how the kid got his hands on the USB stick and what it was like getting all the swag after visiting IO Interactive's studio.

Now is it possible that this is all some sort of elaborate internet hoax for some “lulz”? Well, so long as it's on the internet it's possible. However, the likelihood of this seems quite legit and I wouldn't be surprised if this was more-so part of an elaborate marketing scheme to keep the interest in the game high as well as get old-school Hitman fans chatting up the game in a positive light on forum boards, chat rooms and aggregators across the web, I mean, who wouldn't? It's David Bateson, the original Agent 47.

Hitman Absolution is set to release this November for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Need more info? Feel free to pay a visit to the Official Website.