This is my favorite kind of PR: a preview of a preview.
And though I scoff, I’m actually pretty excited to see what they have to show on the 13th.
It’s the first time I can’t understand people’s English because of their accents. But when I turn on the subtitles, I realize, wow, yeah, they really are talking in English.
If you don’t care to watch that video, they outline the new stuff here:
- Elusive Target Arcade mode - looks like a mix of ETs and escalations with a 12 hour cooldown if you fail
- VR and raytracing on the PC version
- They’ll release the full game as a Trilogy edition containing all three of the games.
- Freelancer - this looks like some new remixes of the existing levels in a set of campaigns. There will be a safehouse where 47 loads up on gear and embarks on a campaign. Gear will be persistent during a campaign; if you lose an item, you won’t have it for any subsequent missions.
- The safehouse is a new location. Probably the one they’ve shown in screenshots before. So this isn’t a new level, but a central hub.
- There is an actual new level in some sort of remote jungle location
I actually think this is a pretty good roadmap for the year. I’m excited about the new level, the freelancer mode, and I’m interested to try the ET Arcade.
Coming to Steam (finally) and Gamepass!
Can’t say a jungle level would be my first choice, but they are so good at level building that I’m sure it will be great. It’s fantastic that they are going to keep updating it as it’s just such a fantastic game in almost every way.
Freelancer looks pretty cool.
Crucially, Arcade Contracts are permanent additions to HITMAN 3. Once we add one to the game, they won’t go away.
Oh, thank God. Seriously, this was always my only complaint with this trilogy.
Ya the contracts being locked out was silly. I’m surprised it lasted this long.
It was the point. Elusive Targets are only a tiny portion of the content available in these games. They’re intended to be high stakes: you get once chance and that’s it. The time limitation is like the whole point.
I get the point but it just seems kind of silly. At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter that much. There’s a million other things to play in it.
Steam or bust. Don’t give a shit about any of that French(?) crap.
Yeah, it’s entirely about promoting FOMO to keep players “engaged” or whatever. No thanks.
Let me do this stuff on my schedule.
Yup, fuck EGS. The goodwill they generate by giving away free shit (and it’s usually, you know, shit) is more than eclipsed by forcing exclusivity.
Looking forward to potentially putting Hitman 3 on my 2022 quarterlies.
You can give people one chance without making it time limited!
I don’t mind folks imposing their own challenges like permadeath but ugh it definitely irks me when it gets in the way enjoying original new content. Especially when there’s content/unlocks gated behind it - just makes me want to watch a walkthrough to make sure I don’t mess it up and do it right, although on the other there’s luckily plenty of other content to engage with so I mostly just ignore it in Hitman.
The VR mode makes me wonder if they’ll ever implement a first-person mode…
Not entirely certain how the “roguelike-inspired safehouse” - is it procedurally generated? Or maybe just a static remix campaign? (Procedurally generated) missions with some kind of game-changing quirks to the missions could definitely keep things fresh. The “gear persistence” is kinda weird for Hitman, given that I generally bring back pockets full of handheld gear (loads of random throwables) but I usually have to leave behind all manner of large firearms everywhere. You kind of have to make up excuses to use firearms in Hitman - at one point I was like “human experimentation is bad, you all die” which worked okay since it was mostly limited to a single building, but in general it’s super dangerous and almost immediately lethal. Or the one time I holed up in a washroom and had to kill each guard as they came in through the door during their investigation looking for me… Guns are more like a trophy you can bring back if you’re in a guard uniform, and not really a common choice for something to bring into a level.
The silenced pistol is useful for taking out security cameras.
Oh yes, that’s also my go-to solution for when I mess up. But I’ve carried so many fancy assault rifles/shotguns/sniper rifles and fired them probably a handful of times (and usually vanish/run away immediately afterwards) - which, to be fair, is as it should be. But I can’t ever imagine bringing a big gun as something useful - it would be intentionally as a challenge “how do I snipe that guy and survive…” - something useful is a lockpick!
I wonder if that is what the Wrath pack was all about…
Does Hitman III still only allow two items to be equipped? (besides the gun)
Still my only pet peeve since HITMAN 2016. They really needed to make some items always equipped like the piano wire. Or at least give more slots. Maybe two small item slots and two large item slots.
Blood Money is still Ultimate 47 Prime with all the gear he can take into a mission. (Piano wire, poison and sedative, coin, remote bombs, pistol, SMG, and briefcase sniper rifle not to mention the healing items)
EGS have just recently given away a complete version of a game that you’ve borrowed the avatar from, you know!
And yeah, time-limited challenges where very bad. I think I’ve only played two in Hitman 1 and two in Hitman 2. They’ve alredy forced always online limit on the players, they could easily make those challenges playable only once (or once per year or whatever) instead of time-limited BS.
Really it’s insidious. Those Hitman games are great and smart and all, but they use some of the worst practices in the industry. Always online single player game with a very strange DLC policy and time-limited “events” as well as jumping between stores.