He shut them down because they were a threat to his promise to Grey to take down Providence (and as we have been shown, and as Colorado shows, the ICA is the best of the best at tracking and hunting people down). Don’t twist 47’s actions into saying it was done out of “convenience”, it was done because they were in the way, and he was more than willing to take down the ICA, an organisation he knew had been compromised by Providence, in order to fulfil their pact.
Yes. It’s fecking grating how much stonewalling you’re doing.
Hitman is over-the-top, super-spy schtick. It is hard for the writers at IOI to develop an overarching storyline that makes sense, connecting the individual target kills in each of 20 plus locations / missions.
Fundamentally, you are to be motivated to kill your targets because you are told that they are bad dudes or dudettes. Good enough for me.
Freelancer is rogue-like Hitman.
If it is a rogue-like akin to Hades, you are caught in Hell and have to repeat and repeat killing that damn Minotaur, in order to escape Hell.
Maybe that is what is in store for Hitman…
Agent 47, the orphan adopted as killer in this Frankenstein lab in Romania. He gains a conscience and to escape his hell, he must repeatedly, kill, kill, kill to escape his life of killer-dom, and to be able to adorn his pad (safehouse) with chandeliers and pianos, target practice range and a gold-plated toilet etc, like every suburban family wishes. In the Hitman world, repeated killing in the correct way, rewards you with a gold-plated toilet, piano and chandeliers. Pretty F’ed up if taken literally – but this is Hitman, a power fantasy. Writer at IOI are paid good money to make up the super spy schtick, but it isn’t really meant to be taken seriously.
And in true fashion, you didn’t pay attention to a damn word I said. What do you think made it convenient? Because they were in his way, and the best way to get them out of his way was to expose them. If he could have talked to them, or presented any evidence to them of why he did what he did, and how Providence was planning to deal with ICA after the Shadow Client was killed, to prevent them from ever being a threat again, he would have. He was expecting Diana to do that eventually anyway; that’s what he literally talked to Grey about after Dubai. But, he couldn’t get them off his back by just talking to them, and he couldn’t go and kill off every agent they had so they’d stop sending them. The easiest way? The most convenient? “[T]he path of least resistance”? Shut them down. It wasn’t personal, it wasn’t because he didn’t want to work for them anymore. He just felt it was more important to fulfill his promise, which is something I said in my previous post while you act like I wasn’t aware of his motives.
That’s your problem, both for not understanding that you are wrong, but for reading my posts when you stated you had me muted. You didn’t have to get involved in this discussion, you chose to do that. You literally asked for this argument; don’t whine to me just because you’re getting nowhere and willfully choosing to be in denial of where this story can and should go just because you don’t like it. And yes, unlike you, I’m aware of how I’m coming off the same way with that statement.
IOI had to remove references of the ICA in Freelancer because it’s set post Hitman 3 Campaign and it wouldn’t make any sense the ICA being referenced as working with Diana and 47 as they are both obviously Freelance operatives at this point. That doesn’t mean the ICA won’t return in the future at some point though because like @Heisenberg has pointed out, 47 has disbanded from the ICA before and returned to working with them.
Like others have mentioned, it could be that the ICA remains dissolved so to speak and 47 and Diana remain as Freelance operatives and operate their own murder for hire service, which I’m happy with as well.
This is the most likely outcome; it’s just that, since the reasons why 47 and Diana choose to continue down this career path means that it can’t just be the two of them forever, their little freelance business will likely end up expanding into a new ICA.
I’m thinking that’s how it’s going to go as well. I believe Freelancer is just 47 and Diana working together slowly building their new organisation and by the time the next big game arrives they’ll have largely expanded.
I’m hoping the ICA stays dead going forward because I’m tired of ICA turning on 47 stories in the series. Admittedly, I liked the one in World of Assassination the most because there was some actually build up to it in the trilogy rather than a conspiracy being enacted, discovered and destroyed all in one game. But hey, if 47 and Diana build up their own agency and call it something other than the now thrice destroyed ICA, sure. A game about them building up their won agency might actually be interesting and give a new story to tell before having another person within the agency turn on Diana and 47 again, again, again.
Or, they do call it ICA, imagine that twist for a moment!
You’re wasting both our time at this point, because I’ve already countered why ICA can return story-wise, just as you’ve countered the opposite, so all you’ve got left is “because I don’t like it,” which means that’s all I can counter with, too, because there’s no actual argument there anymore. We’ve reach the point of going “nuh-uh, you’re wrong” now, with both of our points made on the matter, with no wiggle room for compromise. You want and think it should and will be scenario A, I want and think it should and will be scenario B. We’ve explained our reasons for both the sake of the lore and our own personal preferences. Neither of us will find out if we’re right or wrong until the next Hitman game, and that’s gonna be four years out at best. I suggest we drop this now. I can go on forever if necessary, but you’ve made your weariness clear. I’m giving you an out now, without even taking the position that you’re flat wrong; I’m declaring it a we’ll see someday. Let’s cut it off here, or start preparing for the next round.
If someone’s going to betray them inside their own agency, it won’t matter if it’s called ICA or not. If they’re the ones who rebuild it and Diana is the top manager or administrator, then the organization itself won’t betray them, because not only will they be in charge, but the other administrators, analysts, field vendors, handlers and agents will all be picked in accordance with 47 and Diana’s ideals, just as the agency will be founded upon. With that being the case, there’s no reason for Diana to not rename it as the company she spent her career working her way up in.
I know it’s a bit late. But I personally saw that as IO referring to the rise in the public consciousness of Open Source INTelligence (OSINT) in recent years.
Which would make sense, since contrary to before 47 does not have access to the ICA ressources. That would be the way to go, in and out of universe.
That’s essentially what both are 47 and Diana are currently operating as we play Freelancer. Don’t think at this point there’s anyone else involved in their new business arrangement, but that could change by the time the next game arrives.
When does Freelancer take place on the Hitman game timeline, if it does at all?
JBJ: Freelancer exists in a separate parallel timeline. On the one hand the narrative of being a freelancer and operating solo with Diana, but without belonging to a bigger organization like ICA, fits with where the story of where Hitman 3 ends. But on the other hand the actual on-mission gameplay in Freelancer takes place on the same time as the main missions, in most cases, so that gives a narrative disconnect to make the post-Hitman 3 idea work fully.
We decided that it was preferable to keep most of the main-mission content in the Freelancer versions of the maps, rather than flushing that layer, because it gives more gameplay opportunities to the sandboxes than the vanilla versions would do. But we also decided to leave a bit of ambiguity so that players who like to pretend that the gameplay takes place after Hitman 3 can do that, without too much distraction from the established canon.
TVC: Early on in development we had to choose between reworking a few locations to fit the timeline to post Hitman 3 or use almost all locations in the trilogy in Freelancer. In our minds the choice was easy, as we wanted to get the biggest possible playground for the game mode.
It means that it is post-Untouchable, but it doesn’t look like it because it would have been too difficult to accommodate as much content as possible, and they decided to go with content. So it’s essentially the same as what I’ve said all along: ignore previously killed targets, story-wise.
The key word here is pretend. I’m glad that’s it’s more of a what if scenario, then a continuation of the events past H3. It would tie down the eventual continuation of the series. The parallel timeline will give the mode it’s own playground without being beholden to future narratives.
I see it as more of: 47 and Diana do start freelancing together after H3, 47 does stay in this safehouse, and he starts assassinating bad guys all over the world. Who and how, you can each make up on your own. When the story continues in another game, he’ll have done this, but we won’t provide details beyond that he went freelance, because that period is all in your own heads. Isn’t this meta?!
So while it turns out Freelancer’s not as good as Contracts Mode to create self-contained little stories (I blame the lack of briefing), it can still do a decent job now and then.
I just played through a Dubai / Marrakesh / Santa Fortuna Psy Ops syndicate with lots of sniping, and it worked pretty well as something like “drug lords trying to expand in the muslim world”. Yesterday I also got an Arms Trafficking syndicate with all the right maps - Mumbai, Colorado, Santa Fortuna, Ambrose - that run sadly ended right at Mumbai “thanks” to the Rangan Tower guards all going psycho on 47 in less than a second And at some point during an Organ Trafficking syndicate run I had a one-target mission in Whittleton Creek where I had to eliminate Batty with an axe (conveniently there’s one right in his garden!).
All of that stuff’s definitely part of my own 47 headcanon now.
This is exactly how I took the answer from the developers
TVC : Early on in development we had to choose between reworking a few locations to fit the timeline to post Hitman 3 or use almost all locations in the trilogy in Freelancer. In our minds the choice was easy, as we wanted to get the biggest possible playground for the game mode.
This paragraph seems to me they’re are referring it’s post H3 like we all expected, however, to rework all the maps would have a heavy piece of work like removing certain NPC etc. Plus, this would have restricted the amount of maps playable if they fully reworked them all to fully fit the post H3 scene like they’ve said.
And at some point during an Organ Trafficking syndicate run I had a one-target mission in Whittleton Creek where I had to eliminate Batty with an axe (conveniently there’s one right in his garden!).