Hitman: Hitting Men

Season of Sloth tomorrow then.

Patch notes:

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-3-june-patch-3-40/

Nothing spectacular there, I guess they've squashed all the major bugs by now. Gotta love the bright yellow Ducky gun, but maybe not enough to complete 40 Featured Contracts to get it. (aniki, this evening: "got the gun")

I wonder if I'll ever be able to get the achievement to unlock for completing all the mission stories in Mendoza? :(

Sloth episode looks good too. A new time of day for Dartmoor, a unique item, and a great suit.

I thought the suit looked great until I zoomed in and saw all the gloopy bullshit going on. I'd have loved if it was just 47 half-assing getting dressed.

… ah. I should have zoomed in too.

complete 40 Featured Contracts to get it. (aniki, this evening: "got the gun")

I have so far completed… checks notes zero Contracts, Featured or otherwise.

So odds are poor of me seeing this anytime soon.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

The full details of the Season of Sloth has details on the next two Elusive Targets as well - The Liability in Berlin starting on Thursday (the 17th), and The Twin in Sapienza from July 2nd.

Elusive Target: The Liability (Berlin)

The world’s worst construction inspector is in Berlin for a limited time. Find him and eliminate him but don’t take too long about it, you’ll have 11 days starting on June 17th to complete this contract.

Elusive Target: The Twin (Sapienza)

Two identical twin brothers. One is the client, the other is your target. If you kill or harm the client, you fail.

Track down the twins, identify the target and take your shot. Or cross your fingers and go YOLO, it’s your call.

What madman would give someone very vague descriptions on killing their twin?

That's the third "two identical targets" mission we've had, it's a decent enough gimmick but surely they've got some other ideas?

Here's the full roadmap:

Why does the Liability look like Toby Jones?

First level of the Sloth Depletion done, though without Silent Assassin.

I reckon it's possible, but I'd taken four or five runs at it before I got to the exit, and didn't want to immediately reset it when there's no significant reward for SA anyway.

Spoiler - click to showI'm fairly certain taking out the jogger is impossible without someone spotting the body, though I didn't change outfits so maybe options are available for a less aggressive approach than "sniper bullet to the temple". She's an optional target anyway, and more efficient work on the others might remove the need for replenishing 47's energy.

ELUSIVE TARGET KLAXON

Again.

ELUSIVE TARGET KLAXON

Again.

Done.

Took me forever to find the bastard on my first recon run, then got over-eager and ran into a trespass area in full view of the guards on my second, before managing to tail him relatively successfully on my third.

Spoiler - click to showI eventually started in the biker gang hideout, headed upstairs to the sniper nest to steal the rifle, then waited on the roof for the target to approach the juice bar; while he was waiting by himself under the disco ball, I sniped it onto his head for an accident kill. Should have worn a hard hat, I guess…

Spoiler - click to showIt would almost certainly have been faster if I'd used a pistol from the shipping containers on the ground floor, but I'll take any Silent Assassin rating I can get on these things.

Spoiler - click to showI also hit him at the bar, but served him poisoned juice and strolled to the exit. A brief panic over a security camera on the way, but made it out unspotted.

Done, easy peasy, Silent Assassin. Same method as Ninchilla.

I've not played Berlin outside of the Easter event, so I'm starting from scratch with no shortcuts or alt entrances. This should be interesting.

Got him. Just under 8:30, so not great, but it worked.

Spoiler - click to showPunted him into the canal.

ELUSIVE TARGET KLAXON

Not sure if they are up yet but today's the day.

I really need to get around to finishing the Sloth escalation. Somewhat appropriately, I've been kind of slacking off on it…

I haven't really tackled any of the Deadly Sins yet (apart from jumping into each of them briefly for a look-see and to unlock the suits). I'm tempted to just leave them until they are all done and then treat them as a Hitman 3 expansion, spend a couple of weeks immersing myself in the game again.

(I haven't really played many of the Deluxe escalations either, apart from the first level of the Berlin one and a couple of levels of the Carpathian Mountains, and they were both absolutely excellent. So looking forward to giving those a good go, as well).

Failed. Shot the wrong goddamn twin.

To be fair, it was 50/50.

Got him. Absolutely atrocious time, nearly 15 minutes. But I'll take Silent Assassin any way I can.

Spoiler - click to showThat I can see from following them around, there are only two places where the twins actively tell you who's who on top of the whole watch thing: while sitting outside the cafe when the client makes a phone call, and inside the wine shop when the target tells the client to test the wine for poison. I struck in the second place, although it takes them forever to get there. And I did it in the stupidest way possible that, once again, doesn't make me feel clever at all: the client took a sip, put the wine glass down, I threw a coin to make everyone in the shop look the wrong way and then quickly dumped poison in the glass. I was already halfway down the dock before I got the elimination confirmation.

I did honestly consider shoving him down the well, since he walks right next to it. But that's too open space and those bodyguards are a pain.

Your approach was exactly how I did it the first time round. I'm wondering if there's
Spoiler - click to showa place I can emetic-dart him earlier in the route to get him somewhere remote and drownable..?

I honestly wondered

Spoiler - click to showif there was anything heavy, like a brick or even the snowball, that you could throw at his head the moment he's level with the well and just knock him down it. He does walk RIGHT by the edge of it.

I know that Spoiler - click to showsome of the of the more powerful rifles have a knockback effect, though I highly doubt that would go unnoticed…

Sadly, I'll never be able to try it. Unless I play on a different profile… that's an idea.

EDIT: My partner's profile won't have the snowball unlocked. Damnit.

I'm wondering if there's
Spoiler - click to showa place I can emetic-dart him earlier in the route to get him somewhere remote and drownable..?

Turns out there was! Done - Silent Assassin (Suit Only), and in 2:32, which is a personal best for Elusive Targets that I'm sure will stand for at least forever.

Very nice. I woke up this morning wondering this too, but in my head it was while he was sitting alone outside the cafe and involved using the micro gas device inside a briefcase.

It did take a few recon runs to work out their path, and where along it I could shoot without being spotted. In the process, I also discovered that Spoiler - click to showtheir bodyguards can see through security disguises - or the mansion guard one, at least.

Productive evening. Did the last few assassinations on Dubai, mopped up a couple of achievements, did a remarkably easy escalation, got SASO and hit level 20. Enjoyed that!

Coming on Tuesday

I want that suit/sunglasses combo, for realises.

Patch notes and a fair few new unlocks:

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-3-july-patch-3-50/

The Dartmoor Garden Show sounds like an interesting experiment.

I'm back to playing this properly again!

Got one Escalation to go in Paris, but figured I'd move onto Sapienza (yeah, yeah, I know, shut up). I know it a little because of previous Elusive Targets, but I've never actually played the missions. Very scrappy at the moment… I've killed the guy with poisoned spaghetti and killed the lady very, very sloppily (broke her neck while a guard was in the toilet waking up the golf coach), so now I'm off to destroy the virus. Fuck knows how. Let's go!

I have to say that this is perhaps the only "game as a service" that's ever worked as designed, for me: the steady drip-feed of interesting new content keeps me coming back to this regularly.

I did The Icon in Sapienza the other night for the first time - that was pretty fun and it was nice to see the place in a different light (literally). Got a few more gruesome kills to get out of that one before moving on.

New elusive target tomorrow, too - Mendoza again, though.

Are we all killing the Heartbreaker this weekend then?

Definitely. If I can ever get my son off of bloody Fortnite, I'm going on a killing spree.

Just him, Gar. Restraint.

We've got a wedding to go to this weekend, so if I can't get him tonight, it'll have to be Monday.

But think of all the lives he'll ruin before then!

Got him - but no Silent Assassin.

Spoiler - click to showFound it impossible to get him anywhere I could pull off a Silent Assassination - sightlines on Mendoza are so long and there are so many NPCs just standing around. The obvious point to try and do it was when he stepped out of the cinema and sat on the bench but every time I tried anything, I'd get spotted by the two people hanging around in that area, and every time I tried to deal with THEM I'd get spotted by people in the vineyard about a mile away. So in the end I just used the old explosive phone trick and sauntered out of there.

In general (Mendoza thoughts):

Spoiler - click to showI'm disappointed that yet again they've not made use of any of the open space in Mendoza. It really is a big old level full of nothing. I even wandered right the way around the level hoping for something interesting, but no. This was all in the same area they used for the last Elusive Target.

My trophy for completing all the Mendoza Mission Stories still won't pop, although I did randomly get the one for unlocking 15 shortcuts halfway through playing tonight. Either that was also something I'd been owed for a while, or it's unlocked as a bug in its own right.

Got him, SA.

Spoiler - click to showThere's an item in his very obviously-marked van that gets rid of the two clients. While that's distracting them, you can poison the wine glass in the cinema when the two nearby NPCs aren't looking.

Unfortunately, I did need to

Spoiler - click to showstart by the lookout, not the car park, so I could quickly steal an outfit from the mercs by the gate, as you can't get into the cinema as a civilian. But c'est la vie.

Done, Silent Assassin.

Spoiler - click to showHid a remote emetic mine where he stops on the stairs to send him away, but the clients followed him. On top of that, instead of going for a toilet, he went to the balcony. Fortunately, I'd also brought the emetic dart gun - I was able to hide out of sight to tag both clients so they buggered off, and that specific stretch of balcony is isolated enough that I could pitch him off unnoticed.

I didn't even realise Spoiler - click to showhe had a van…

Where on earth do you unlock the remote emetic mine and (especially) the emetic dart gun? I haven't got either of those and they would be very useful. Sneaking up behind people and jabbing them in the back with a syringe (of which I have multiple versions) is a very hit-and-miss approach to assassination, I'm finding.

They're both for Haven Island mastery - the Remote Emetic Gas Device (which is in the Tool list, weirdly, not Poison or Explosive) at 5, the Sieker-1 Emetic Dart Gun at 10.

Ah, OK, that would explain it as I've only had one fairly scrappy runthrough of Haven Island on Hitman 3 so far. May need to bump that up my list then, they sound well worth the time spent to unlock them.

I didn't even realise Spoiler - click to showhe had a van…

If you start in the default location, further down the path from the gate, it's literally right in front of you behind the barricade. It's got his name written on the side!

The item inside is

Spoiler - click to showa scrapbook full of trophies of all the people he's killed, plus plans for his next victims. Oh, and a vial of poison. What a professional.

Ah. I almost always start as a barman in Mendoza.

That's probably where you had an advantage, ironically, by not really having played the level and not having many unlocks. I start almost every run of Mendoza as the waiter these days, it gives you a pretty wide run of the place from the off.

EDIT: snap