It’s that damn Untouchable mission. One of the most ridiculous ways to end the WoA trilogy. The Constant should’ve been situated in some expansive/open-ended, high-tech, high security Illuminati compound in the middle of bum fuck nowhere or somewhere of comparable scale, not on a damn choo choo train.
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Did the last entry feel too short?
That’s what she said.
It should have started with the train as a surprising, false-start beginning like the one on Berlin or Dubai. And then the train should have gone off the rails around the old Institute For Human Betterment, and a real open final Hitman level should have begun there (including a twist where Ort Meyer had cloned himself and had been pulling the strings or some similar OG lore twist). That would have also made the game’s length way more appropriate. Ah, a man can only dream…
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I honestly thought that was going to happen. I thought the train part was just the introduction to the “real” level. 
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I think you’ve been reading too much fanfic, mate.
Okay…but I can’t imagine it playing out any differently. No matter which way you put it, the final level was always going to be somewhat linear; the goal is to get to The Constant before he erases your mind again. You’re going to either be funnelled around a maze-like military compound (as that’s where 47 is being sent) that is spacious for the sakes of it, or funnelled into one direction to get to the Constant while avoiding/ killing guards on the way to dismantle the organisation. If I wanted to make a story-themed ending level, I know which approach I’d choose.
I see Untouchable as the equivalent of Requiem; it’s an ending level to give closure to the story (this game does have one, which people seem to forget on here) and is not really designed to be a sandbox level, so don’t treat it like one.
I find it rather amusing people praise Requiem in Blood Money, but hate on this level, despite that level doing the same thing and being MORE linear. Untouchable is doing the same thing better (giving you both a stealth and loud option, instead of all-guns blazing and relying on insane amounts of luck, prayers and restarts).
whatever, choo choo train bad, swanky-ass white suit good.
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I think both are very bad endings.
And I don’t think that Untouchables fit the whole WoA storyline. The Constant was so careless in the end, loosing all of his former intimidation. He was ridiculous, just like his whole motive. Very disappointing character development.
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It kinda does. Hitman 2 had already established that The Constant was untraceable, and that was BEFORE he usurped The Partners. Pulling the same trojan horse gambit was the only way for 47 to get close to him.
He was less careless, and more over-confident with his plan, assuming the stars would align in every part of taking over Providence, and to his credit, that’s basically what happened. Most of his plan went off as expected.
His fatal flaw is that he had completely misjudged the power dynamic of Grey and 47, and 47 and Diana; both true companions that never betrayed each other. That’s not carelessness, that’s just not realising how much of a bond they both have (something which he’s mildly confused by at the end anyway, outright dismissing Diana’s attitude of avoiding power for the sakes of it).
He didn’t want Grey to kill himself; strongly implying he wanted to capture him in much the same way 47 would be to use for his own ends.
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He made decisions that I don’t understand and that make his character seem careless and ridiculous. Why doesn’t he hold the anesthetic of 47? Why does he let him decide to take the serum? Why didn’t he inject it directly when he was lying on the table? The fact that he had underestimated 47 just seems unbelievable to me for a man like him.
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From the TvTropes page for Aurther Edwards:
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: At the end of Hitman 3 , he expresses disbelief at the notion that Diana would resist the corrupting allure of power and go through with dismantling Providence from the top down, telling 47, “This is not how people work.” 47’s response is that she accept the responsibility but rejects the power, which is proven true despite Edwards telling him to join him in “the real world.”
So, as @Dribbleondo is saying, Edwards had dealt with a certain kind of people, and had achieved nothing but success by thinking and acting in a particular kind of way, for his entire adult life and career within Providence, that it was beyond his capacity to understand that 47, and especially Diana, would behave any differently, especially since they spent their whole careers taking lives for money, and particularly after showing Diana that 47 murdered her parents, making her whole friendship with him a “lie” from his perspective. Why would he think they’d be any different from everyone else he’d ever dealt with? So he wasn’t being ridiculous or careless, per se, but rather overconfident and unaware that the 47-Diana dynamic was a situation entirely outside the context of the world as he understood it.
Not sure what you mean here.
47 had him cornered; the train car had been disconnected from the others so it was just the two of them, 47 had weapons and Edwards didn’t, and even if he did, he knew he was no match for 47 in any capacity, so all he could do was try to convince him to get on his side, especially since 47 can now never be completely sure that Diana isn’t plotting some revenge against him someday, when she no longer needs him. That’s a reality 47 has to live with now; that he can never be sure about her completely. So Edwards was giving him incentive to just clear his whole slate and start over without Diana being part of his new reality.
He says the answer to that during the cutscene before the level begins: the serum was still being prepared. The dose was delivered to Edwards just before 47 finally woke up, or that was just a second dose, just in case, and the one they were gonna give 47 was just minutes away from being finished for injection.
Ort-Meyer himself underestimated 47, and he made him and raised him. Even Diana still shows surprise at some of the things 47 is capable of coming up with and pulling off, like when he uses the train to kill Shah and the Malestrom. If those two still don’t fully understand what 47 can do, how could Edwards ever have a prayer?
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That is amazingly well put.
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It’s refreshing for you and I to hold the same position on a subject.
Isn’t it just? twenty freakin’ characters
It may surprise people on here, but It’s usually the negative disagreements that people tend to remember opinions, not the positive ones. If you agree with what’s being said, there’s no reason to bring it up. Welcome to the Negativity Bias.
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No need to be condescending. Mate.
I see how the train makes sense as an ending in the context of the whole WoA-story. But that doesn’t change that my initial reaction to it was one of disappointment. The thing is, they had really built our expectations that there would be some major revelation about 47’s past. I mean, the last mission was even set in Romania. This turned out to be meaningless (or maybe symbolic). It wasn’t totally far fetched to expect a last level in Romania to be something more than a linear train level. They could have done so much with it.
And I never gave a shit about fanfiction, btw.
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That´s an apt comparison which I completely agree with (and would easily throw Redemption at Gontranno and Meet Your Brother there as well). They´re both meant to be epilogues closing off the story, not full-blown levels.
Problem is that Untouchable is part of a trilogy based around big sandbox levels, and was expected to be like that according to pre-release marketing. So many people expected something and didn´t get it. With Requiem, there were no such expectations to begin with. Hell, you don´t even play it unless you tap the movement keys during the funeral scene.
Couldn´t agree more. 
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Untouchable is not ridiculous from a story perspective, as you and @Heisenberg have explained well; Untouchable is ridiculous from a gameplay perspective, in fact, not all that differently than Requiem is ridiculous (albeit Requiem is much more intentionally so), I agree.
I’m speaking on gameplay in particular, as this topic pertains to perceived playtime. No one can convince me that the WoA trilogy doesn’t have more of a gameplay bent than it does a story one, and consequently, no one can convince me that Untouchable, as the culmination of the WoA trilogy, should not and could not have likewise had more of a gameplay bent than such a linear, story-centric one.
Yes. Precisely this.
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I wasn’t trying to be condescending. It was a tongue in cheek comment, not an attack on you.
It was literally designed to be an epilogue. The narrative was very intentionally put first to close out all the remaining threads and let you go kicking up a firefight. Or, alternatively, stealth the whole thing. We still got some good gameplay out of it, it’s just not what anyone expected.
I think people just assumed Six locations in marketing would mean six sandboxes. The two terms are different from one another. And people got disappointed when they found out otherwise.
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I might be wrong, but didn´t they say something like six levels with level 20 mastery? I think that´s what implied that all of them would be sandboxes.
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To be honest, I haven’t checked in a while, and given how hectic the marketing was a year back (A LOT of the marketing was deleted initially due the whole Steam to EGS kerfuffle), but I don’t recall those words being said. I remember them saying six levels, but were tight-lipped on everything else.
There’s a difference between audience inference (the audience assuming sandboxes) and implication (IOI itself hinting at it).
By all means, correct me, because I’m rather curious myself.