Hitman: Hitting Men

Repeatedly bumping into someone you're specifically trying to kill seems a bit… suspicious to me. And not really in keeping with being a secret squirrel.

Curiosity got the better of me and I've now seen multiple sub-60-second runs on YouTubelol, thoroughly dispelling any sense of accomplishment I might have felt.

Ambrose Island might be the first Hitman level I've completed every Challenge on. (The lack of Escalations probably helps.)

This looks much better than I was expecting.

Anybody got a code for the Freelancer Closed Technical Test? I've just received one for Steam; I'm not sure my PC can handle it, but I might find some time over the weekend to give it a look.

Finally got around to checking out Ambrose Island and I really like it. Much better than Haven Island. The two characters roam around a lot and there are plenty of opportunities. Actually got Silent Assassin on my first real go at it

Spoiler - click to showCrest with the gasoline after the slapping contest, Akka with poisoned whisky, destroyed the satellite unit but there’s lots more to see still.

Looks like they are finally streamlining the purchase process for this game (and renaming it in the process).

Hitman 1, 2 and 3 are no more. Now you will only be able to buy:

Hitman - World of Assassination (comprises Hitman 1, Hitman 2 and Hitman 3 levels)
Hitman - World of Assassination Deluxe Pack (the above, plus the bonus levels for H2 and the 7 Deadly Sins pack)

Very sensible, maybe a little bit late in the day but leaves the game in a good state as they move on to other things.

Freelancer launches on the 26th. That's two weeks away.

Definitely going to give that a go.

Freelancer is out now. Going to give it a go later on I think.

EDIT: first impressions are very strong. Randomised targets and a very limited loadout make for an interesting challenge. There's no requirement for Silent Assassin so you're able to go to town with whatever you can find - and there are optional challenges for tackling targets in different ways too. It's definitely a mode for people who are already intimately familiar with the maps as knowing where things are is crucial. I haven't got to the bit yet where you have to work out the target from clues you are given as I think you need to do two or three "regular" hits first. Either way, it's a genuinely new way to Hit Men and I am on board for this.

OK, so I've played a fair bit of Freelancer and I think it's excellent. Surprised there's no chatter in here about it, am I the only one that's played it?

It's absolutely hard as nails. Essentially you are being sent in to random locations to kill random targets with a very limited loadout. So you need to know where stuff is on the level (I spent ages in Marrakesh last night trying to find a screwdriver) and in a lot of cases the item layout has changed from the main game too. You can't rely on the mission stories as you're not chasing down the usual targets. You only get one shot, there's no save scumming and I think almost every mission I've tried has ended up in a desperate fistfight and a sprint to the exit. If you fail a level, the subsequent ones become even harder as everyone is on alert. Fail an alerted mission, and you fail the whole campaign.

Then every third/fourth mission involves a Syndicate leader, where you have a number of different suspects and have to work out which one is the right target through observation (grey hair, wears glasses, etc). So there's a lot of stalking and planning to do there before you even work out how to get to the targets.

Make it out alive and you can bring your inventory back to your safehouse for use in future missions. There are 100 levels of mastery specific to Freelancer and each one unlocks new areas of the safehouse and/or other goodies.

It genuinely feels like a whole new game in itself (shame it has no new achievements!) and is an ingenious way of getting more mileage out of the existing levels in the game. It's a much better addition than Elusive Target Arcade was, and if this is Hitman's swansong, it's going out on a high.

I haven't had a look at it yet, but it's shot right up my list of priorities now.

I've taken Freelancer out for a spin and it's fantastic.

The mode totally changes how I approach even the most familiar levels, mainly by shoving my usual equipment priorities in the small of the back off the precipitous edge of a balcony.

The roguelike scenario gives every job an Elusive Target tension, with the added danger of fucking the last couple hours' efforts into a cocked hat if you slip up and knock off the wrong grey-haired, bespectacled tattoo-and-hat enthusiast.

I love it.

Glad you're enjoying it, I think it's tremendous. It's surprisingly hard to get out of the mindset of "I need to do this as quietly as possible" and think more along the lines of "I need to get this done by any means necessary". It shakes the whole game up yet somehow doesn't lose the essential Hitman-ness of it all.

Huge patch incoming:

https://ioi.dk/hitman?panel=hitman%2Fpatch-notes%2F2023%2Fhitman-woa-may-patch-notes

Crazy amount of fixes there for a game that's been out two and a half years by now (or since 2016 if you consider it an iterative thing). Lots of tweaks and enhancements to Freelancer as you'd probably expect but plenty of fixes for the rest of the game too. Really reinforces what an enormous undertaking maintaining this game must be.

I really need to play this again. I've still not done Ambrose Island yet, or even looked at Freelancer.

Had my first wander around Ambrose Island the other night. Killed one of the targets, but got spotted and had to leg it. It's a real maze of a place, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.

In other news, they've announced the summer roadmap, including the return of the previously PS-exclusive Sarajevo Six missions.

Unfortunately, it's "premium content" with a price tag of $4.99, so we'll see whether or not those of us who already had it back in the day will need to fork out…

Sarajevo Six is a genuine surprise. I didn’t think we’d ever see them again, let alone across all platforms.

I've not played them since about 2017, obvs, but they were neat little missions that mostly involved the less-used areas of the Hitman 1 locations. The last one, in particular, does something very interesting.

I'll bite. Anything to make me get back into this again.

Just realised: if the S6 are back, bring back Sean Bean next you cowards.

Just transferring Mart's Miami chat from last month's PWB:

Back on the Hitman bullshit - went back this weekend and cleared the Hawke's Bay escalation I missed, then went through Miami with a bulldozer. Not sure how I feel about it… it's a huge, confusing map and the separation between the track and the building makes for a lot of running about. I got lost a lot. But it's done, there are more than enough satisfying kills (those car snipes!), and I don't have to do it again. Well… except the seven escalations and a bonus level. Sheesh.

I like Miami a lot, it's one of the few Hitman 2/3 maps that approaches the complexity and open-endedness of something like Paris or Sapienza. There are loads of little sections in that play out quite differently and stringing together a SASO run is very satisfying. It's also a really good Freelancer level because there are so many possibilites. And I'm fairly sure one of the escalations has you knocking out joggers by throwing cans of Coke at their heads, which had me in helpless giggles when I tried it.

There is a lot of running about, though, I'll give it that.

There are loads of little sections in that play out quite differently and stringing together a SASO run is very satisfying.

I got SASO and Sniper in one run, though it was weird. The racing daughter, I had the briefcase stashed in the marina cabin, grabbed it and snuck into the empty marshall stand, then took her out. Back to the marina, lured the father down by unlocking the food cart with the lockpick, then waited until he took a stroll along the water. Hid in the corner, popped him in the head when he stood on the edge… and no-one cared, not even his bodyguard, because the corpse fell in the water. Packed up, got in the speedboat, job done.

And I'm fairly sure one of the escalations has you knocking out joggers by throwing cans of Coke at their heads, which had me in helpless giggles when I tried it.

When I was doing my Chameleon clean-up, I was cheating a little and just running up to someone I didn't have the outfit for, knocking them down, changing clothes and then reloading to avoid the inevitable shitshow that followed. Weapon of choice? The fish. Of course, the fish. I was literally in howls of laughter over the following exchange with my other half who was sitting next to me:

Debs: What are you doing?
Me: Looking for a racecar driver, he's in this area somewhere…
(proceeds to run past him twice)
D: No, look, he's there!
M: Where? There? Oh, THERE. (smacks man with fish)

Miami escalation and special mission time last night. More fish slapping, which was good. The special mission was okay, I think… pretty isolated to a small part of the map, but still fun and satisfying to get SASO on. Only did three of the seven escalations, so still a fair bit to do before I move onto what looks like a jungle mercenary camp? Maybe.

(I believe one of the sub challenges guys in Miami is in the next level, but I killed him to get a block of cocaine so… time paradox?)

I quite like the Hitman 2 special missions, they're not on the same scale as the ones they did for Hitman 1 but they're a nice change of pace and they use specific parts of the map quite well.

It's a shame that in Hitman 3, they basically just went all in on escalations - not that I dislike escalations but variety is always good.

Miami 100% done, and I went back briefly to Hokkaido to do two feats that have been added since I last finished it (one involving hitting people with snowballs, the other needing you to lie down on gurneys in the morgue).

Dunno how I feel about Santa Fortuna yet, but it's obviously early days. It's seemingly a huge map with three very distinct areas, and it's all a bit confusing. My issue isn't really the size though, but more the sheer number of aware enemies on the map… it's a bit silly. Like, at one point I put on a drug maker disguise and immediately everyone in the room could recognise me even though they had the exact same outfit on. It's really, really tough.

I managed a very messy trio of kills on my first run, following the mission stories for the tattoo artist, shaman* and the box of circuit boards on the cliff. Lots to learn then.

(* How blasting the lady in the back with a concrete mixer in plain view of three different people counted as an unseen kill, just because her body was buried, is beyond me… she was literally right there talking a moment before! )

Been back playing Hitman 2 again, I am really bad with remembering names of levels but really enjoyed the US suburbs level where you have to kill Janus and this chief of security. Just completed that last night.

I also got incredibly lucky on the Mumbai level, I was trying to disguise myself as the actor and got caught by a witness, I couldn't be bothered to reload so just subdued them, then got the V/O that this was the elusive target that you are meant to put work into tracking down.

Grabbed the Sarajevo Six, since it was less than a fiver and I still had enough points to cover it, even after buying Mortal Kombat 1. No idea what to expect, I've never played that set of missions before.

Ah, thanks for that, I didn’t realise it was out.

OK, so the Sarajevo Six are basically just Elusive Targets on the Hitman 1 maps. You can't save during the missions and there's no more than a couple of challenges associated with each of them.

I don't have a problem with it really - more Hitman is more Hitman! - but I don't understand IOI's pricing strategy for this game at all. They're charging for this, but gave away Ambrose Island and the enormous Freelancer mode for nothing?

They're still chucking out free content for this game, nearly three years after release. Here's the latest roadmap:

I need that Christmas jumper.

Finished Ambrose Island for the first time! It was… unsubtle.

Now trying for SASO (yeah, second run, because I'm a madman). Save-scumming the heck out of it (as the Lord intended), but I've manged to take out one target and the computer system without being spotted. Admittedly, there are rather a lot of militia guards piled up in a cave on the beach…

Guys, I'm not sure if anyone else has played it, but Hitman is really fuckin' good.

Ambrose Island is a neat level. I've done the Classics and Versatile Assassin now, though is it just me, or are a weirdly high number of the other challenges [REDACTED]?

Also noticed two (new?) suit unlocks in Hokkaido, so guess I'm off back to Japan - wonder how well I remember the place…

FINALLY, HE'S BAAAAAAAACK.*

https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1760366389909475490

(* for a bit)

He's back "for a bit" unless you buy the new £5 DLC in which case he is back permanently. I think.

If that's true, then sold. But I have a feeling the DLC is mainly just cosmetics. Will have to look into it.

EDIT: Yeah, it's complicated. From the website:

Additionally, we will be releasing a brand new cosmetic DLC pack to all platforms, The Undying Pack. This includes:

• The Ephemeral Suit with Eye Patch
• Kronstadt Mini Flash Robo XOI-2900
• Kronstadt IOI-1998X Surround Earphones
• Kronstadt Explosive Pen (Gen 2)
• The Oroborous - A three level Arcade contract featuring The Undying Elusive Target.
• A set of cosmetics for the Freelancer Safehouse inspired by the iconic Elusive Target mission.
• The Undying Elusive Target will be available for approximately 4 weeks from March 22nd.

So, the actual one-shot Elusive Target is a four week thing, but the Arcade mode Contract with him in is a permanent addition with the DLC. Got it.

That's fair. I'll throw a few quid at the devs to keep adding more Hitman to my Hitman.

I really do need to go back to this. Thing is, the level I'm currently on, I hate - it's totally disjointed, not fun to explore and a real slog. I'll have to push through it (maybe with a guide) to get to the next one and find my assassination mojo again.

Which level is it? Colorado is the only one that I think fits that description…

It's the jungle drug lab / village / fortress hacienda from Hitman 2 (the level after Miami, which I really enjoyed). I really don't like it, it's got some weird behaviours. Like, if I'm in the drug shack and disguised as a drug making person, everyone goes on high alert? That makes no sense. The main guy's home is like Fort Knox, you can't get in while disguised as anything, and the lady in the village is a pain to get to. I don't like it at all.

Oh, Colombia. Yeah, I guess it's one of the more opportunity-driven levels. There's one disguise that gets you into the house relatively freely, but I seem to remember doing a lot of recon and save-scumming my first couple of runs.

Oh, I really like Colombia. It’s got great mission stories, loads of variety and plenty of places you can sneak around.

But if it’s not doing it for you, complete it once using the mission stories then move on. No need to plug away at full mastery on something you don’t enjoy. It’ll still be there waiting for you when you’re done.

But if it’s not doing it for you, complete it once using the mission stories then move on. No need to plug away at full mastery on something you don’t enjoy.

sorry, what

30 days and counting.

I missed this back in the day, so I can't deny I'm quite excited.

More new stuff incoming. Genuinely surprised at this point at the level of support. I think it's great.

Didn't they already announce this a while back, or is it a new one? Could swear there was meant to be some DJ guy getting the elusive target treatment.

EDIT: I think I'm confusing it with this which was a new ET and I totally missed it?

Meanwhile… Sean Bean got an explosive pen shoved through his right eye. See ya Sean.

(I bought the DLC so I have him forever now)

More new stuff incoming. Genuinely surprised at this point at the level of support. I think it's great.

I just realised that's an MMA octagon, so it's going to be a UFC guy. Interesting. Hope it's not Connor McGregor, because he's a cunt (though the chance to kill him is… huh, hmmm). Can't really think of anyone else it might be, but then I've not followed UFC for years now.

Zuckerberg does mixed martial arts, so I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed we get to put that slimy replicant in the ground repeatedly.

Zuckerberg does mixed martial arts, so I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed we get to put that slimy replicant in the ground repeatedly.

Sadly, ET means it'll be once and once only. What a pity.

More new stuff incoming. Genuinely surprised at this point at the level of support. I think it's great.

I just realised that's an MMA octagon, so it's going to be a UFC guy. Interesting. Hope it's not Connor McGregor, because he's a cunt (though the chance to kill him is… huh, hmmm). Can't really think of anyone else it might be, but then I've not followed UFC for years now.

That aged well then.

https://x.com/Hitman/status/1806281543129743845

Fine, I'll shoot Connor in the face if I must. Glad he's sticking around for a while, I'm nowhere near my Xbox for another week and a half.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is going to be an Elusive Target for a month starting next Thursday (December 12th) and I'm giddy with excitement. If there isn't a way to kill him mid-splits, I'll be very surprised.