Hitman III - Hat trick of Death

It looks like the H3 Deluxe pack (the only content I don’t already own) is still $35 on the Playstation store right now. If they drop it to $10, I’ll pick it up.

I played Hitman 3 on GamePass but would pick it up separately if they added more sniper maps.

I have returned to this after over a year. Previously, I finished Greed and Pride, both interesting variations on a standard escalation. This week I finished Sloth–in which I didn’t even bother trying to get Silent Assassin and took me about 50 attempts–and Lust, which seems impossible at first until, as usual with the escalations, you figure out methods that work. Lust is made odd because the locations of the items you have to find are randomized. (And I actually found a part of the Berlin level I’d never been to. That level is just huge. Probably my favorite of the whole game.) I did not complete its optional objective. Now I’m moving on to Gluttony.

These are all really nice escalation. They’ve got a decent framing device and they are pretty neat variations. I don’t think the 7DS pack is worth full price, but if you like escalations (I really do) it’s probably worth a tenner.

There are 3, and they’re pretty involved.

I think those are the same 3 from Hitman 2. They have simply ported them.

Correct. All the sniper maps came from HITMAN 2. HITMAN 2016 had no sniper maps and HITMAN III added none. In fact they removed the multiplayer mode for it, in addition to another multiplayer mode. (competitive hitmanning. I only played it once)

I think I would pay for a separate game of 5 (or more) new high-quality sniper maps. I love those!

The key here, is that HITMAN: Freelancer puts the strategic planning of a mission into the hands of the player. The game mode relies on randomized elements, that are rolled independently of each other. The game mode gives the player all available information, but there’s no guarantee that an objective, for instance, is possible when on the mission. To succeed, it is up to the player to ensure that a payout objective is possible, by bringing the right gear, or choosing the right combination of location, brought gear and objectives.

In that sense HITMAN: Freelancer is very different from the main game – there’s no hand-holding Mission Stories with scripted custom kills, that are always possible. Every iconic takedown in HITMAN: Freelancer is an emergent construct of systemic game mechanics and the foresight and creativity of the player.

That looks like it could be cool, but I don’t know if I’m good enough at the game to be able to identify ways to succeed.

Hitman World of Assassination (and Freelancer) go live today.

Patch notes:
https://ioi.dk/hitman/patch-notes/january-patch-notes

Nice. Guess I’ll have to reinstall. It sounds like a fun diversion. The support on this game has been off the charts.

Update is almost 4 GB. It also looks like there’s new cosmetic DLC for Freelancer? Previous DLC packs also have been re-calibrated. Deluxe and 7 Deadly sins have been merged into 1 pack for 19.98. Might finally be worth getting during a steam sale if it’s 50% off. I am not the biggest fan of escalations though.

I had to do a double-take at this.

I only just now found out about this! A new rogue-like mode in Hitman??? No way! I figured I’d duck into this thread and read a few impressions of the new mode.

Instead, I guess you slackers are gonna make me find out for myself, huh?

I played through and completed one of the showdowns

The mission map looks to be the same in terms of item placement so map knowledge helps. Targets look to be always added NPC to the map + additional NPC for assassins and lookouts. I also notice other NPCs added like in Bangkok there’s now a guard that enters several of the locked hotel rooms. Maybe because if the player doesn’t have a way to access the locked hotel rooms due to the lack of available items and there happens to be a target in there it would make the mission impossible to complete.

The lack of item availability does force you to scavenge for items in-mission to make the hit easier. I wonder now if it is a good idea to farm weapons and items from missions if you know where to find them.

I thought I saw somewhere that one of the mode’s bullet points was randomized item and weapon placement? But I could be wrong about that.

I didn’t notice any item placement changes. I could be wrong though. They might have removed some stuff. Not sure. I’d have to play more.

But there’s also added in-mission NPC merchants, supply crates with random items, locked safes that have cash, and special NPCs that also drop items I think.

I found that optional objectives early on are sometimes impossible because you won’t have the required item or weapon yet. I have yet to get a lethal silenced weapon but I did get the very powerful poison dart gun from a vendor.

There’s also weapon/item rarity. Not sure what the difference is between a Rare or Legendary weapon of the same type.

Overall I am digging it.

I was watching a GiantBomb video with them playing the new mode, and then I watched a pair of random videos, and I reached a conclusion:

Most people are terrible Hitman players. They rush to the objective instead of exploring, they try to take out the first guard they see for his uniform without checking out where they are going to hide the body or if there are people past the corner, they run without a care in the world, triggering by mistake a frisk checkpoint, and it seems they have been taught bad lessons by ‘stealth’ in other AAA action games, where npcs are half blind and half deaf.
And then they go saying, man, how hard is Hitman. And I just think maybe you should stop playing it like Call of Duty!

I just completed a campaign and I think I am a fan. I also got super lucky by the RNG gods and literally got the best sniper rifle in the whole damn game as the reward.

It’s kinda funny how you progress the campaign alongside unpacking boxes and setting up rooms in your new just moved in safe house. I gained access to the outside and half painted a shred. Lots of house work still needs to be done.

Some thoughts / highlights:

In Hokkaido I was in a room with three doctors and one of them became suspicion, this was right near the end of a mission. I literally froze for like 5 whole seconds in a shocked panic, everyone in the room turned towards me too, and the suspicious doctor kept talking, then I suddenly just dashing into a nearby bathroom stall literally just about 10 feet outside the room across the hallway, and the guy didn’t follow me in and gave up. Not even a witness. That was a super close one though.

In Miami I was trying to find the suspect and found one in that isolated pink building on the corner of the map. Knocked them out and used their burner phone. This attracted a couple more suspects but also along with a couple assassins. This was good because the place was so isolated. Unfortunately none where the prep but I eventually got 'em in the underground parking garage using the same burner phone method.

In Paris, my optional objectives were to use sedative, and also kill a target by breaking their neck. The moons aligned here. One of the targets was a security guard in the dining area of the basement. Everyone else in that room was non-security. He also had a drink and would get up and go to the security room sometimes. I poisoned his drink with sedative, something you almost never use in story mode because all it does is knocked them out. After he fell unconscious everyone got scared and ran out of the room to go get help. Press E to break neck. Two birds. One stone. It was clockwork.

As you progress the campaign the missions do become a bit different with NPC placement. Also where you randomly start the mission is a big factor. I’ve operated in areas of the map I’ve never really gone to because there isn’t a reason to go there in the normal story mode which I find really refreshing.

A lot of targets were pretty hard to take down without the dart gun. That weapon was the MVP of the whole campaign. Some targets were actually added to the entourage of story mode targets, or in a crowded room surrounded by other NPCs so you’ll need to get crafty. In one such case I had to make a big distraction outside the room to turn all the heads, then dart gun the mark while no one is looking to isolate them.

I was dreading the last mission of my campaign because it was in Columbia, one of the largest maps in the game, and there were nine suspects all over the shop. It turned out to be hilariously anti-climatic because the target was in the starter village close to my starting location and immediately walked to an isolated area along the riverbank. Total RNG luck. Done in 60 seconds.

You don’t need to care about collateral damage or being silent assassin at all unless you choose it as a prestige objective for more cash. Feels like freedom unlike the story missions where you are penalized for everything.

They REALLY need a suspend save though. If you need to quit out of a mission you already started, it auto fails. And if it is alerted mission or showdown you fail the whole campaign. Some of these missions took me upwards of 40 minutes to finish. They are not quick. I guess they could be but I am super careful not to screw up.

Overall I like the feel of the mode a lot. You start out with almost nothing and need to scavenge more at the start but eventually you’ll get enough tools to pull off more competent hits. Also tools like poisons and explosives, when you use them, you lose them and they need to re-acquire if you want to use them again. Not so with the dart gun though. (MVP!)

This 110%!

I love what they’ve done with this mode, and it even reminds me of how the Prey’s Mooncrash DLC breathed amazing new life into that game. But my gaming habits don’t lend themselves to being unable to step away from the computer for up to an hour at a time. :(

Ok, time to come back to Hitman. Although in my case, I won’t play the Freelancer mode, for now. I still have to start playing the normal Hitman 3 missions! and I wouldn’t like to spoil the maps by playing them first in the new modes.

You know what, with the 3 games together (and the expansions for the first two), and all the updates the game had until now, it’s a mastodon of a game. I’m counting:

-22 environments (not counting the first tutorial)
-19 main missions, + 11 bonus missions
-Around 1500 challenges? I’m not counting them! But some of the bigger missions have 120 challenges already.
-63 escalation missions, with 3-5 stages
-3 sniper assassin maps
-110+ elusive targets
-The new roguelike mode, Freelancer
-The Contract mode

How many hundreds of hours would that be if you play it all?