Basically this. I’m not sure why people thing an exclusivity deal somehow translates into “remove two dead game modes”. That’s not how anything works.
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At least they’re working hard on Freelancer Mode, which should stretch out the experience a bit.
Am I right to assume that will be a free add-on?
After squeezing these days Hitman 3 I still think it is somewhat smaller than Hitman 2 or 1, however, I am finding that there are a lot of assassination possibilities that are discovered more organically rather than being in the mission stories category. Very much in the style of the classic Hitman games.
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No one knows yet. There are players who think it will be free and those who think it will be paid DLC. Until IOI says one way or another though, we don’t know.
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It most likely won’t be free.
Why put this amount of work into new content without getting anything in return? They are a company with salaries to pay. It’s only fair.
Can’t wait for the entitled backlash though…
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I think there’s still a distinction between something being shorter versus being too short.
Tom Cruise is shorter than a lot of other actors, but he isn’t too short…
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It would still lead to more sales of the base game by making it more complete, same reason they patch in stuff like ray-tracing and ducky guns etc.
I don’t feel “entitled” to it since I got the game I paid for, but still it would be disappointing and against expectations since it does just seem logical imo.
Also it will be great to finally have a safehouse like in the classic games, but I can’t justify paying extra for it.
To clarify, I don’t think your worries are entitled. I was thinking of the highly probable future backlash of cancelling, boycotting, and whining loudly online if the price is deemed to be unacceptable.
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Yeah, I understand what you’re getting at and didn’t take any offense.
I might even whine a little bit but more as a criticism of it being a bad decision, they seem to be doing well and wouldn’t need to scrape for quick money like that imo, like it would lead to greater returns long-term to just include it free and keep the playerbase strong plus entice new players who inevitably buy proper DLC maps, outfits etc.
I expect Freelancer to not be free.
I also want it to not be free. People worked on this. They deserve to get paid for that.
Paidlancer Crew 2022 represent!
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I honestly don’t care. If it’s a free update that’s cool, if not that’s fine too, but i won’t buy it without waiting for some reviews. 7DS was a huge disappointment for me and I won’t buy blindly something just because i like IO Interactive.
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I’m pretty sure the devs get paid either way
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I would still maintain that the update will be free for the simple reason that in all of the discussion so far from IOI (which has admittedly not been that much) they have never referred to it as DLC, or as an add-on. It’s a “Mode”.
From IOI’s latest blog post (emphasis mine):
Let’s start with the most relevant piece of news first. We’re moving the release date to make the mode all it can be. Here’s more detail.
We see HITMAN 3: Freelancer as the next evolution of Hitman and an entirely new way to engage with the world and characters that we’ve built into the World of Assassination over the last 7 years. We’ve concluded the main campaign with HITMAN 3, but the world has so much more to offer and we didn’t feel as though we’d quite achieved everything we wanted to with Agent 47 in this trilogy.
In short, this mode is quite expansive and involving. It’s built for players that want to dive deeper into what a Hitman game can be and for that reason, we’ve decided to give it more time.
The truth is that it’s a luxurious decision for us to make. HITMAN 3 has been a success and with that, we’re able to give our team that extra time to tighten the bolts and make sure that the mode is as close to our ambitions as possible. We want it to land well and be a platform for Hitman players to enjoy this game world for a long period of time.
In fact, we’ve had several rounds of internal testing, and we’ve even shared playable builds with some of our trusted and core community members to give feedback and share insights after lengthy playtests. This was all done on their own machines and in their own homes to truly replicate what it will be like when we launch the mode.
The feedback from the playtests was largely positive and the mode is in very good shape. As we’ve said, we’re taking some extra time to tighten the mode up and improve several elements that we think will greatly improve the gameplay experience. Whilst we work on those improvements, we’re also preparing to dive deeper into the mode and share more of what you can expect.
With all of that in mind, we’re now aiming to release the Freelancer game mode to HITMAN 3 in the second half of 2022. We think it will be worth the wait.
It’s never referred to as “paid”, “DLC”, or even “content”. It’s a “Mode”. There has never been a point in the World of Assassination that a game mode had a cost outside of the base game.
All that said, I’d probably pay for it if it was not free, but I just don’t see any indication outside of “IOI needs to charge to make money” that would suggest that it’s not going to be free.
IOI, in my opinion, would be well served to clarify whether this mode update will be free or not.
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Good point, also it was scheduled to be out by now, but is postponed,
so I’d like to think they would have said so by now if it is or isn’t.
I’d probably end up paying too, just saying my opinion is it’d be the wrong decision.
Yes fine, and I’m familiar with that reality. Let’s put it this way instead:
Company makes thing. I want thing. Company charges me money for thing. I agree, because money is the thing that gets me the thing. I now have the thing that company made, and company has some more money because they made the thing. A fair exchange.
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I think most of us agree that it’s a fair exchange, but the open question still remains as to whether they will or won’t charge for it based on their own statements. On the one hand, it’s work product. The development of that product has taken time of employees that got paid so IOI has spent money to develop this new mode. They should therefore be able to charge for that mode to recoup the money spent developing it.
On the other hand, they have never indicated that they will charge. Not even a “price to be released at a later date” type of statement. They have mentioned the mode several times in the last few months and at no point have they ever mentioned anything about a price. If I develop something and hype it over a series of months, the consumers would naturally expect some discussion of a price point. There has been nothing so far.
The only way this question will be answered is by IOI stating the answer. Anything beyond that is just conjecture. @Clemens_IOI @Travis_IOI is Freelancer going to be free or paid content? You don’t even need to tell us what the cost will be, just whether it will have one.
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For me, the issue is moot. I’d pay for it no matter what and no matter the price. I want it; I’ll get it. If it’s not free and some refuse to pay for it, guess they didn’t want it.
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“It’s not personal Sonny, it’s strictly business.”
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They are not gonna give that info responding to a forum post. It’s not an oversight that they have not told us yet.
They are holding on to it either because they’re still settling on pricing and they want to control the narrative around it when the time comes to avoid a backlash, or because they want to make a big splash about it being free and cash in on the IOI-love they are in need of in light of recent controversies.
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Wouldn’t doubt that at all, but as my good friends here have said, it doesn’t hurt to ask.
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