AMBROSE ISLAND, Andaman Sea (Mission #7) - Location Discussion

Hitman: World of Assassination Ambrose Island
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This is the loose ends with the militia being tied up. Other than whoever Edwards bribed to free him on the ship, there is no further activity from any of Grey’s people following this mission. The militia is disbanded after Crest’s death, as Grey had told them to stand down earlier, some went rogue with Crest, and now that he’s dead and their plan ruined, they’ve likely scattered, and any others were told to scram in the email Edwards mentioned Grey sent out. So the militia is done.

Damaged, but not destroyed. Remember, the satellite uplink we’re trying to destroy in this map is Ether. They’re too big to go under just because their South African corporate office was destroyed; they’re a world-wide company. These pamphlets could be teasing one more map that could be coming in Year 3, and if so, that is the one that should be set after Haven. We don’t know what path 47 and Grey took to get to Dubai, or how long it took them to get there, or how they knew that that’s where the Partners were since they’d only been there a few days prior based on their dialogue in Dubai. So, it’s possible that they flew a plane over the Himalayas or something to find a secretive, roundabout way to get into the UAE without anyone knowing they were tracking the Partners.

It’s possible they may have stopped at some Ether lab in a snowy environment first. This latest mission even gives a reason why, one that should have been obvious to us for years: 47 killed Caruso and DeSantis and destroyed the virus prototype, but he never destroyed any of the data about it, so Ether still has the info needed to make more of it if they can find someone with the skill to follow what Caruso was onto, which is probably what they wanted Liebleid to turn Nabazov’s virus into, using it as foundation and adapt it to Caruso’s work. Since we now know Crest wanted to make more of the virus and use it to kill the Partners, that means it’s still a threat, available for anyone to replicate. Olivia could have found the info for the lab being redirected to Edwards’s control after Haven, when she saw all the other assets being transferred to him, and so that could be how they find out about this lab and go destroy all info on the virus before heading after the Partners.

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They did? I thought it released at the time they anticipated. It was available right after their server maintenance as anticipated. I don’t see any reason currently to assume that they’ll somehow mess up their Freelancer launch based on the Ambrose Island release at least.

Also, I wouldn’t call the classic challenges being omitted as “messing up the launch”. It was a pretty minor thing all in all.

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710

Nope. It released exactly when they said it would - the only timing they didn’t follow through on was the estimated end time for the maintenance. It finished way earlier than they gave.

Missing challenges is such an incredibly nitpicky thing that I’m quite surprised anyone is trying to use that to justify “IO fucked up the launch”. :expressionless:

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711

I know when I think about it, I could justify saying the release of Hitman 3 (with the progress transfer) was “f***ed up”. That was a debacle for a lot of people, for sure. I remember playing the game for a while and having to redo everything when the progress transfer finally worked. I was knocked offline quite a bit in that first couple days too. That was messed up. By comparison, this release went smooth as butter.

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712

Definitely a bug. Can’t see why they’d give us a small SMG if not to add it to the already small SMG section in the starting weapons menu

What’s not quite a bug (probably) but works in the same way is the Sawed-Off Bartoli. It can be carried in your pockets yet somehow can only be smuggled in an agency stash

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I haven’t posted in a good while but if there’s one thing that will convince me to it’s a new map.

My attempted brief review of Ambrose Island.

Firstly - I wasn’t overly excited about this new map. When they announced a new map back originally, I was incredibly excited. Then I saw it was a tropical island map, with a jungle and militia and I lost that excitement.

This map screamed to me ‘re-used assets’. It’s a big jumble of Haven, Santa Fortuna, Colorado, Sapienza and others.

And then I played it. And honestly, it still screams ‘re-used assets’, but, if IO can make a map this good (a free map at that) then they can re-use whatever assets they want, I’ll be game.

This map is greater than the sum of its parts. You can see all the elements from other maps stitched together, and yet this jigsaw puzzle of a map still works wonders.

I think 47’s re-used lines is a testament to this. Does every Hitman fan who has played since 2016 immediately recognise that the lines 47 says have been stitched together from previous missions? Yes. Have IO done it pretty commendably? Absolutely.

Is it the best Hitman map? No. Is it top 5? No.
It’s pretty standard, run of the mill, but seeing as I think all Hitman Maps since 2016 have been nothing less than good, this maintains that high quality IO have set out.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied. Are lack of Mission Stories a problem? Honestly…for me, no. You can clearly see where the Mission Stories would have been, and apart from having a checklist there on an options screen, you actually have to pay attention to dialogue etc.

People said Mendoza felt like an old school Blood Money mission.

I actually think this might feel like the most old school Hitman Mission since 2016.
Maybe that’s because you can see where IO have had to save money, cut corners, be a bit imaginative and show a bit of ingenuity. And I think that’s a vibe the older Hitman games had, because of their niche market and nature. (Contracts is still my favourite Hitman game ever).

As a post 2016 map, it’s right down the middle in terms of quality (to clarify, even the worst post 2016 map is no less than good in my eyes).
As a free map, to help round out Hitman 3, I think IO have done a commendable job.

Well done everyone. :+1:

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714

Reusing 47’s “a hidden hand” line during the slapping contest is a work of genius.

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Agreed. I have about 20% of the challenges left to do and I’m very satisfied. This is pretty much the kind of Hitman content I love the most. Nice location, a lot of details going on, plenty of opportunities.

I didn’t mind the lack of mission stories either. In fact, in my experience Ambrose had the best intel delivery system in the trilogy.
Didn’t even feel like hunting for opportunities because plenty of it were just being delivered to you seamlessly, naturally and worked out even better than having the mission story menu.

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717

Molotov/banana combo!

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I honestly don’t know how the Ether pamphlet could be teasing a new map, the way I see it, it was there as little hint to understand Crest’s plan. The pamphlet was advertising Ether’s DNA storage plan located in the satellite (that’s probably how Crest got the idea), then we find out through the laptop in the cave that their intention is to kill every person in that database using Caruso’s virus (which could also be stored stored in the satellite?).

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That is true, though you can’t fault us for having any semblance of hope, since last time this happened on a new map, it ended up teasing another location…

I have since left the leaks section after the new update dropped so I’ll be living in blissful (and agonizing) ignorance of what will be coming in the future.
It is a little worrying though that we’re over halfway through the year now, just getting the new map and yet there’s still no indication of when Freelancer is coming, let alone of anything else we might want to look forward to.

im hoping we get a mid-year update in August that could tease a Freelancer reveal and other smaller content drops. No spoiler, just wishful thinking

If Year 2 is their big send-off for Hitman 3, I would hope they at least end off December with something substantial (instead of just being used as an ET re-run month). I doubt they’d hold back Freelancer until then, so I hope there’s a nice surprise or two up their sleeves other than that new mode.

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To be fair, the last time this happened, it wasn’t some surprise hint at something no one had any idea about. It was a tease for a map that had been announced months beforehand.

I’d love a new map as much as anyone, but this “Pamphlet = New Map” idea seems wildly premature.

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I think it is something that was handed out to Crest’s men to understand what they were in for (Or Read: It is there for the players to understand what is going on), the snowy vault is clearly a stand in for a Svalbard-esque gene storage facility where the DNA is kept.

Could it be a teaser? Yeah but for now it seems like Po Family Syndrome, it was mentioned in a map so it HAS to be a teaser for something that comes up later.

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Honestly, the one map I could see to end the trilogy would be a bookend of it. A return to the first target, the training mission : the Sparrow, the Yardbirds.

Aleksander Kovak, confirmed as a target in Mendoza, was caught and send in prison following Himmelstein (per New Zealand news report)

Now, obviously a prison level has been asked for a long time. But it was explained that the largest difficulty of it was from the way NPCs work : there is no faction system / conflict, no way to have them have restricted/forbidden area, and I think also have them behind a door they couldn’t open if attracted/in panic. As a consequence NPC could wander off course and break immersion.

But Ambrose give us those two, so… :

Prisonners, can we appreciate the scripts on them
Prisonners, can we appreciate the scripts on them1920×1080 121 KB

(I don’t think we talked enough of how big it is that they are first enclosed, can escape and be caught, granted in a bit of a janky way. But it’s a rather big leap from the devs. Good on them.)

Maybe not a full prison, but a court of justice could work. (or it’s just a concept/prototype testing for a future game that made its way here)

But mostly I’m a big fan of the concept of bookending.

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Now I’m curious. That has happened before? How?

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New York had a pamphlet for Haven that you could pick up from the teller booth.

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To be fair, something like 85% of the time, that’s been exactly what happened (although usually for things nobody actually noticed or thought about). I mean, Crest was mentioned all the way back in Paris, for fuck’s sake, and is only showing up now, six years later, as part of a story that took place between the one where he was mentioned and the one he actually showed up in. It’s usually the big, regularly mentioned things like the Po family, the Church of Ascendants, Hamsun Oil, and the Moreno cartel that end up not actually playing a part.

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The chances are IO only used Crest because he is one of the two capable, high-ranking and named militia characters that was still alive in the story. IO needed to tie off the militia plotline because they had neglected it and couldn’t pick Orson because he lives to come back again Romania.

Those with Po Family Syndrome put the cart before the horse so to speak, to them IO have to be geniuses making a highly connective story with so many dangling threads instead of thinking that IO are smart enough to have had a rough plan with some hanging threads they could weave if they ever thought it would be something nice that the fandom came up with because that is one of the benefits of episodic and compartmentalised story telling.

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The moral of the story is that the next Hitman level is going to see 47 head to an Ether lab in the South Pole to assassinate the leader of a smuggling ring named Torres Piombo as he tries to smuggle out a combined Nabazov-Caruso Virus hybrid.

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I’d pay for that DLC. Only, let’s make it the Alps, or the Himalayas.

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