With just a little time left on the Summer roadmap, although we may be a little early, there is nothing quite like a bit of good speculation to discuss what’s next on the horizon in the forthcoming roadmap.
Discuss below potential ideas on what you’d like to see, or what you might think we’ll see in the Autumn/Fall roadmap?
On a personal note, I’m hoping we get those Autumn/Halloween Safehouse decorations! I won’t post any pictures for those that don’t want to be spoilt, but it seems likely we’ll be getting them with us now having the Easter and Xmas decorations!
I kinda wonder if we could have three roadmaps left to end of the year.
We have two roadmaps that will headline a CelebrET, one in fall another in winter.
But then we have Hitman Codename 47, and the Hitman Franchise itself 25th anniversary in November.
It is deserving of its own roadmap headline.
So I could see:
two months CelebrET roadmap September to October
one month Franchise Anniversary roadmap in November
two months CelebrET roadmap December to January
Then the usual February rest.
Which then go to the 10th anniversary of World of Assassination in March 2026.
As for content, the usual.
One item or suit per month. (please no brick reskin, or “cheap suit” based suit)
A twitch drop during the headline.
Featured Contract Batches.
And yeah, definitively the Halloween Safehouse decorations.
I expect those McGregor challenges and stuff from Freelancer safehouse to be removed at some point for those who didn’t get the bundle and can’t achieve and get them.
Any comments on that @Combatglue ?
I want a butcher suit, seriously…
The worst part is that a team worked on this or that content and in the end it didn’t make it into the game, although players found it and want it to be in the game itself.
I remember how we thought that the butcher suit would be connected to the Deluxe Escalation in Berlin, but I’m glad that we got a deeper idea of the beginning of Agnet 47 as a patient escaping from the clinic.
There’s not many ETs left for them to rerun once the current one ends, so the roadmap might be a bit light on the ETs. I believe the only ones left in the normal rotation are:
The Serial Killer (wasn’t run earlier in the year in its usual spot in the lineup)
The Entertainer
The Badboy
The Food Critic
The Pharmacist
The Warlord
The Sensation
Yes, it will be a very similar looking roadmap to summer I would imagine.
We can expect the current FC submissions to feature presumably (I would guess the horror one will come out at Halloween).
Like @Lewisnic1 says we will likely get Halloween freelancer decorations too.
For wishlist items I always would like a Vampire Magician suit unlock, around Halloween seems fitting. And of course a ‘Halloween in Whittleton Creek’ mission but that won’t be happening (unless it’s for the CET where we can only access it the once and not use in contracts )
I can definitely see this happening now you put it like that
Looking at the Summer roadmap again, I believe that ends on 21st September, so I expect the Autumn/Fall roadmap to cover us throughout the remember of September and all of October. The Anniversary roadmap could be purely run throughout all of November, before the Winter roadmap covers us throughout Christmas and the New Year!
Makes sense that they would finally drop. We’ve got the Easter and Xmas ones now, so we just need the Halloween decorations to complete the set
Halloween themed set in Whittleton Creek has been requested for many years! Hopefully it happens one day!
I have a feeling we’ll get some more weapons for the new Freelancer weapon wall as I’ve noticed there’s a few gaps ready for new potential items
Well, when IOI dropped the image of the classic titles, it had the headline ‘2026’ under it, but I suspect we’ll potentially get more info around it come the 25th anniversary
Well, The Surgeons Elusive Target doesn’t end until the 21st, so sometime around then (or after) most likely. Personally, i’m betting the first week in October.
This isn’t “next roadmap” speculation, but this feels like the most appropriate place.
(I hope it’s cool @Lewisnic1)
What does everyone think will be the road forward for Hitman once First Light releases March 27th?
(by the way, do we even truly know if First Light will be live service?)
Year 6 nonetheless?
Continuation of the life service, and of the roadmaps?
Some maintenance (we have the co-op coming up after all)?
Sunsetting the game as is, to the same state as H2016 and H2 are, missed content to remain so forever to new players?
Sanitization of the ET unlocks, ET themselves, and the twitch drops to make them available?
Soft repackaging of the game into a final long-tail version?
If it’s as usual Year 5 will finish with the Winter roadmap going to January.
Usually it’s followed by a February of rest, and start of the new year starting in March.
And the 10th year anniversary of the World of Assassination is March 11th, two weeks before First Light.
I have a musing of:
"the menu is revamped to remove an obsolete going forward live tab, insert the Co-Op, ETs playable with unlocks in their career tab by adding a play button to them, then just some maintenance/technical update and maybe some irregular non-missable goodies. But no roadmap and live service. Bonus if revamp of the store now that IOI can have a new last release revenue."
It’s not my most probable, but I’m would keen to it.
(I’m a completionist and tired of the ETs, ok)
Once they permanently sunset the OG ET format, I think its much more likely that they’ll move the ET unlocks over to the Arcade in new “Complete one level of an Arcade Contract in [location name]” challenges, and the complete 5/10/13 ETs and complete 1/5 ETs with SA getting similar challenges for the Arcade as well.
Its even more likely that they don’t even do anything (like they did for H1 and H2) to make the unlocks available.
I like the idea of “playable in the carreer tab” because:
I think it’s relatively easy to implement. I think the career tab is, in-game-engine, an actual ready to use mission select screen, currently limited with an added “no launching menu” flag. (Also I saw influencers play of ET where they literally had access to no limit replayable ET this way from IOI, so…)
It will automatically take care of making available the ET unlocks, by just using them as is.
I like the idea that Hitman WoA can become an Ambassador to IOI, the Brand, and the Hitman Franchise that is fully welcome to new players. Nothing missable or greyed out to sore their eyes, their heart, and kill their sincere motivation. (I already feel bad for Steam players with Year 1, and cannot imagine how it is for switch and IOS players.)(and if HItman will become dormant for the rest of the decade, it’s the foot forward to have. Thinking to those that will arrive and would have been just plain too young to play at the start.)
IOI has to care. (I say hopeful and naive)
As for H2016 and H2, they had the justification of going to their sequel, and not willing to undermine them.
WoA will have to stand by itself, the brand, and the company.
I also expect them to not adress the no-chance-of-your-own missed, as they do the offline question. Because as long as the Live Service is on it’s undermining its foundation. Which you do not do.
But once it’s off…
Then it become the good rock to build on.
I don’t see World of Assassination going away any time soon. They’ve been making money hand over fist for the entirety of Hitman 3’s lifespan. Every Celeb ET seems to really boost the game with a bunch of new players, they’re still finding new platforms to release it on, and despite the game being so old it still has several thousand people coming back to it consistently (even coming back for the same ETs over and over again).
The system is already in place where a small team does stuff for Hitman while much larger groups of devs work on First Light and IO’s fantasy RPG. I don’t really see that changing after First Light’s release, where a small team still does Hitman and the First Light devs will either do live content support for First Light, be moved to Project Fantasy, or start working on First Light 2. I don’t know if First Light will even have live support. It seems to be much more linear and story-based in design.
Honestly at this point I’d say it’s more likely that WoA continues to get this level of support clear until the next Hitman game comes out than that it gets ended within a year. They’ve even boosted their support of the game over the past few years: Year 3 had 1 new ET, Year 4 had 2 new ETs, Year 5 has 3 new ETs, Year 6 is getting a new co-op mode and I’d say at least two more new Celeb ETs as well since Le Chiffre seemed to be pretty popular.
I hope that they have a good plan when they do actually sunset the game cough cough offline mode expanded, but right now it looks more like The Sun Never Sets on the WoA Empire
This is my thinking too. They’ll keep milking WoA for as long as they can.
Their next financial report should come out later this month and may give a broad look at their plans for it as last year’s referred to a new game mode (Co-Op) and it also referred to getting the game onto mobile as well. I believe that was also the one that said the CelebrETs were highly successful - which led to them producing even more of them this year than last year too.
in November.
)
