If I remember correctly it was once stated that when the server was taken offline they’d make a patch, this was many years ago, but I don’t have too much trust in that as Absolution was abandoned and HITMAN 3 doesn’t really get the love it deserves either.
Technically, yes, the game can be played partly but not in what I or I think most people would say is a satisfactory way.
Would be really sad to see this trilogy disappear some day.
For now developers have no plans of removing “online only” thing.
That’s all I can say
All IO has said is that there is no plans to shutdown any of the servers, so there is no need for them to look into a proper offline mode at this time.
No idea where they’ve supposedly said there is no plans for removing the online requirement - which just makes it sound like they’ll kill the servers at some point and the game will just be nerfed.
I think it’s been asked in recent IOI streams – Travis said multiple times that there’s “no plan” or they aren’t ready “to talk about that now”.
Once they’re done releasing the Live Content in a year and a half or so, I’m sure we’ll start hearing about what they might want to do to bring the game online… *orrrr, maybe it’ll be a long time from now! H2016 still has its servers up, as well as H2. Hitman 3 might still work for the next 6 years before we see any kind of potential server shutdown.
I just don’t think IOI is at a point right now where they want to start talking about/addressing the heavily critiqued online format. Especially while they’re still making content for it – they want Online to seem way more lucrative than Offline at the moment. At least that’s how I see their reasoning.
I really hope they do, but remember it’s not profitable to fix the game to work offline in 5-6 years time which is why it’s bad they require it now. There’s no guarantee they’ll actually make it work offline and the servers will not be online forever no matter what they say.
Even a patch to play offline doesnt work when you have no internet. If in 20 years I wa ne replay but need to reinstall still doesnt work. I hope for a 3pack with disc working offline from the disc itself. Maybe a ps5 remaster in time.
Welcome to the modern world - where if you don’t have internet access, ye be fucked.
And tbh, most modern games are in a situation where if the patches/updates are ever removed, the game is severely nerfed since most games add a fuckton of game stuff in the Day One patch that are missing in “v1.0” - with some games using the patch to add in the end of the game. So one day the patch that adds the offline mode would be deleted anyway.
Yeah. But even with internet, I was talking about servers going down. Srry if I explained myself not all that clear. Not native english speaking. Hehe. And yes, I’m getting oldfashioned… I don’t like the idea not “owning” what you buy. I don’t like games with an experation Date… Just my point of view. Not trying to undermine people’s opinions…
This is a problem when Sony/Microsoft shut down the servers and is unfortunately a problem for almost all games today, but you could still backup the game on a separate storage device unless that isn’t possible on newer consoles.
On PC it’s probably a bit easier since a game will never truly be gone and is easy to backup and the game luckily has no DRM except for IOIs server.
Get used to that though. You don’t “own” the digital movies you buy on Amazon, or anything on Netflix or Hulu or the other ones. You don’t own music you listen to on Spotify or YouTube. Digital content isn’t owned by the consumer anymore. It’s licensed and effectively rented.
But you can buy these on blu-ray or download mp3 files that you can back up. Same with games on disc or even digital games that are stored on your drive. With Hitman you can’t do that, no internet/servers = you lose single player content.
You can for now at least, but there will come a day when even that is no longer possible I think. It’s the way the industry is trending at least. IOI (or their parent company at the time, who knows) made the decision and it’s unlikely they’ll do anything to change it until the day comes when someone makes the decision to shut the servers down. Anytime they’ve addressed the question the answer has always been “we have no plans to shut the servers down and no plans to remove the online requirement”.
Maybe in 5 to 10 years that will change but for now it’s what it’s.
I of course have no hard fact on this, but a few years ago it made the rounds that it was actually IOIs current CEO that wanted the game to be always online.
I do hope they change it, and them having made GOG releases of everything they own up to WoA is hopefully a good sign.
TheKotti uploaded a video about the online requirement of WoA games.
While I don’t necessarily agree with his perspective, the video contains statements from developers and the key points to consider when discussing the topic. I think it will help any potential future discussion.
Great video by Kotti, agree with everything he says there. 
I don’t think that we should be demanding or expecting anything in the immediate- or short-term future, but equally if IOI don’t end up delivering a fully functioned Offline mode for the WoA trilogy (at least just for HITMAN 3 plus Access Passes) in the longer term then I think it will be fully justified for the fans to get the metaphorical pitchforks out, because it’s just unthinkable that this amazing game could be lost to an eventual shutdown of the servers.
tbh, IO have already started laying the groundwork for an offline mode and no one seems to have really noticed.
With any DLC any the game (on PS4/PS5 at least) the game is able to detect what content you own and it tells the servers which determine what content you have access to. But despite this, each piece of DLC has a small 1MB file that is currently completely pointless as the game doesn’t need this to know what you should be able to access (ie you can play the 7DS escalations without downloading these).
The only reason that these small files would need to exist would be to let the game know what you can access when the servers aren’t there/reachable. But you can’t currently play escalations in offline mode, so why would the game need to know if you can access them? 