12 hours – I stand corrected. Larger point being if I fail I can’t play again until the next day (and likely won’t be because it’s such a frustrating experience).
All I want is the option to opt-out of the lock-out. If that means I don’t qualify for whatever cosmetics the ET unlocks, then fine.
Hmm, not a bad trade off, that. @Combatglue, maybe pass that along as a suggestion?
Why couldn’t IO have just made it a bonus level? They already revamped the mission design so heavily, had unique opportunities/mission stories, had Mads Mikkelsen as a voice actor, etc. Imagine all the future players who would want their shot at Le Chiffre who would miss this if they bought the game after July.
This sentence could be the final lament of WoA.
Probably because “can’t play it for 12 hours” is better than “can’t play it ever again”.
Because the standards for a Bonus level are quite high. Also, the most changes they’ve made are to the Paris fashion showrooms and to the runway, the rest of the level is mostly intact (Even the top floor is just missing the table, plinth and chairs), everything else is accounted for. This feels more like a special assignment, not a bonus episode.
That said, one could compare this to AHBOS, which is the weakest of the bonus episodes, so who knows what qualifies these days.
It has one mission story, albeit more complex than most.
…But…you can? DLC being delisted notwithstanding, the mission is in ETA. That’s not even a What If? that makes sense. I think ETA has its issues with this level too, but availability to players is not one of those things.
Also, to IO’s credit, even these missions re-run…a lot. To the point of annoyance.
They seem to get focused on one mode. Remember when they were all about making everything an Escalation? 
Freelancer doesn’t lock you out, but it has similar issues in that it takes away all your unlocks and makes you start the campaign over.
I remember people complaining about it back then too. Any praise I remember was more of the “at least it’s not a permanent lockout anymore” variety.
The weakest of the bonus episodes is this:
There are three ways to get an invitation to the poker game, an event where Smith can save you, you can poison Le Chiffre and you can disguise as the croupier. It’s far more elaborate that Hokkaido Snow Festival as I stated, or Hitman 2’s “Special Assignments”
Is this ETA not time-limited? I assumed it was.
ETA’s have never been time limited. The only time limited part is the free play for the first month.
One mission story is still one mission story. I’m not saying it isn’t elaborate, I even said it was quite complex It just does a bit more of a CYOA-twist.
By free play you mean it being an ET?
…No? If you’re referring to 7DS, that was the premium content, which plays very dynamically and are essentially mini-game modes. It’s funny, in retrospective hindsight, Year 1 was the most consistent content we got for Hitman 3. They did make a few escalations in Year 1, but stopped doing so because people complained about it.
Ambrose not having an escalation is basically a meme at this point.
I recall WildGold asking players to respond to a Youtube Poll about if people hated escalations, and the poll basically revealed that most of his audience either outright likes them, or are passive to them. Not saying that’s indicative of the whole userbase, but it’s interesting data nonetheless.
I do remember ETA’s being spammed a lot, and those were annoying because it’s all IO released for a while.
Freelancer doing this is why I dislike Freelancer. It’s unnecessarily punishing.
The ETA mission is free for the first month of release, then it gets locked behind the Paid DLC, where it can be played forever.
The Elusive Target mission itself goes on rotation.
SA/SO NKO, just followed the mission story and took Smith’s contract.
I went for the safest route (livestream spoiled me the antitoxin location) since it was an ET, I’m gonna use the ETA/reruns for actual creative kills (whenever I buy it, should’ve been a special assignment like all of the other celebrity ETs).
Also I feel like the dialogue should be more specific about where the antidote actually is, since it tells you it’s somewhere in the parking lot but not that’s it’s in the actual building nearby (I first thought it meant near one of the cars).
7DS being all escalations (even if several had unique mechanics) was part of it, yes. And the deluxe content escalations. And the Berlin Egg Hunt. And the Dartmoor Garden Show. And the Elusive Target Arcade.
I’ve played this mission a while ago, and I’ve to say I was enjoying playing this new mission. The developers have done a beautiful work with a good rework of Paris map.
Also, the fact that the different games are predictable (roulette or poker hand) is not a bad thing. The main core of Hitman games is learning the path and how any action could alter the routine of targets. Therefore, the intorduction of any random elements could interfere with such mechanics. That’s why I don’t care about having same hand every time.
The big downside is the usual ET restriction. Yes, the Arcade is present, but it would be great to play this mission as we really want (no 12h-ban in case of mistake, retry whenever we want…). But I have to say, it’s still better that than having nothing at all.
Great work IOI 
Do you mean the basement or have I missed yet another fun part of this wonderful ET?
Yeah, my bad, I meant the basement.
I have fixed my post.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Hey @Dribbleondo.
I saw on nexus that you made a mod to remove the opening security camera dialogue.
Can I ask you, or anyone with the mod, to go the reporter and cameraman near the fountain and see if they have new dialogues?
I think they do, but because of the picture in picture, it is impossible to hear what they say in vanilla and verify it.
Go to https://mediabrowser.hitmaps.com/audio, search by file name and put “newsbroadcast” and you’ll see that there’s actually a few different takes, although I’m pretty sure the cameraman just uses the lines from the default mission.
