Hitman Freelancer Q&A - IOI Devs Talk About Designing the Game Mode, Its Reception Upon Release and More Don’t know if this was shared, few days old, might as well be spelling it out that if the mode isn’t popular, they’re probably not gonna add new content 
11 Likes
But the mode IS popular, right?
Referring to the recent news of Hitman being big in Twitch streams.
4 Likes
I would argue it is, but we don’t know by what metric IO is measuring by, nor their expectations. Concurrent players? New players since launch? Online presence? Sales since it’s launch? Video game companies, and unrealistic business expectations go together like peanut butter and jelly. Hearing that they have all these plans but that they’ll “wait and see”, doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. I’m probably just in a pessimistic mood, feel free to ignore me lol.
5 Likes
I don’t get from that they see it as a “do it or not” decision. As usual, IOI is making statements that could easily be taken in multiple ways though.
You could read it as “if people don’t like Freelancer, we just won’t release any additional stuff”
or, you could read it as “what we have planned might be released if it looks like people will be receptive to it but we might decide to release other stuff if they won’t be.”
I’m intrigued by the notion that, at least according to these two developers, there may be more to discover that people haven’t found yet.
We also made sure to add some surprises and unexpected unlocks. Some of them have already been found, and it’s fun for us to follow the reactions.
7 Likes
About to start a new campaign. Before that I wanted to ask, it is worth playing the Hardcore mode? Like do you get higher XP or anything? Or is it just a challenge with no extra reward?
Hold on, can we pickpocket couriers or am I missing something out?
Can’t take the Courier’s income if I can’t KO that dude
4 Likes
You can kill him DEAD!
8 Likes
There is a (fairly) minor experience bump for hardcore mode, but if you aren’t interested in the any of the 3 challenges, I wouldn’t bother unless you just want the harder experience.
1 Like
Speaking of the safehouse, do you plan on adding more customizable features to the house or its exterior?
>
TVC: We have a lot of ideas for additional customizable cosmetics in the safehouse, so there’s a potential for more to come. But until we have evaluated the launch of Freelancer, we don’t know what the future will bring.What else are you planning to add to the mode down the line?
TVC: Currently, we closely follow how Freelancer is received by the players. We want to evaluate this information first before we decide on the future of the game mode down the line.
Interesting, glad to hear there’s been some small planning in adding to the safehouse; though they don’t say whether it’s meeting their expectations or not. I’d say it’s doing pretty well and I hope to see what they might have in store for it.
And I think at the very least, its pretty likely we might get an end-of-year patch with the Halloween and Christmas decorations, since we know those are already in there…
JBJ: I’d say that the hardcore mode is intended for those players who really want a challenge. Especially the rule that you have to complete a Prestige Objective is punishing.
Noooo 
that doesn’t sound like they feel people think its too hard, probably won’t change, awww
4 Likes
that’s 500 mercer lost I still end up losing mercer
1 Like
We realized we have quite a few talented HITMAN players out there who would appreciate much harder objectives. I’d say that the hardcore mode is intended for those players who really want a challenge
This reads slightly oddly to me - the objectives are not any harder than on Normal mode - just mandatory. There’s so much scope for interesting objectives on the Hitman maps that’s it’s pretty sad they currently seem to be bucketed into “do things in a time limit” or “don’t get seen”. Even some of the escalations and featured contracts had more interesting restrictions (and we all know how divisive those are!).
If the maps were all totally airtight and all the bugs were squashed I think I’d be happier at least trying the mode, but I’ve been seen through a rock wall on Sgail, from the floor above the room in the chawl where the safe spawns sometimes, and I lost a Silent Assassin PO next to the barge (objectively the worst start with a briefcase, the number of times I’ve thrown it in a place I can’t reach…) in Paris after luring and knocking out the first two bodyguards. Nothing else on the HUD suggested I’d been spotted. Just boom, run over.
Unlike, say, the destination Master Modes which felt designed to be tough-but-fair and really had a sense of achievement when you worked your way through them SASO, hardcore mode just feels tough. The rewards don’t come close to being worth it, as before starting the run you’re likely to have all the guns and Merces you need anyway. All this interview says is the hardcore option will never be for me.
3 Likes
just lost 200k because of accidentally shooting a fire extinguisher i did not see. will be taking a long break now.
3 Likes
Part two of the suspect setups, since people seemed to enjoy the last one!
Ancient cannon massacre!
13 Likes
You only lose 50 merces when you kill a courier, and they usually carry around 1000 merces. If you can kill them without getting spotted it’s way faster to shoot them than to try to KO them and the loss is negligible compared to the gain.
7 Likes
Unless you’re playing for SA, you can kill him.
Even if you had the SA PO, that objective is still optional. You decide as a player whether you want SA or not.
1 Like
Wait fr? Hmm nice to know, still annoying to know that
1 Like
A similar “hack” is once you have all the items on the gear wall, the reward crate in the safehouse after completing a Showdown will contain Merces - anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000. So you can then kill all the suspects in the mission and lose 1,000 per kill, but you’re going to still end up with more Merces overall once you open the crate. 
IO really didn’t think the “punishments” they implemented after the CTT through that well…
5 Likes
IMO a large part of why HC feels annoying compared to Master is that the guard AI in alerted levels is completely derpy and broken. When I was playing Master I didn’t really notice it, because getting into a gunfight for more than 2 seconds meant a restart, since I was generally going for SA. With Freelancer we have to deal with the consequences of mistakes for far longer, and I regularly see guards going full psycho whenever a body is discovered at the other end of the level, deciding to shoot that bald cook first and ask questions later because an orange NPC appeared near you for no reason.
Master felt difficult, but rewarding because it was deterministic and you could learn from your failures. In Freelancer a mistake in an alerted level will just devolve into utter chaos, meaning you can’t learn anything worthwile from that and adapt your playstyle.
Yeah honestly I’ve been yolo sniping suspects in Mendoza for a while now. When you don’t have to kill suspects in specific ways for challenges anymore it’s just way faster to do that than to deal with showdowns normally.
7 Likes
It’d be cool if the tool crate offered Merces when you have a full tool kit. Maybe a low but not insignificant number like 5,000.
I get that the point of the tools is to use them, and I do. But opening up an empty crate is kinda silly.
Right now I have a full toolkit but still only half, or slightly less than half, of my gear walls filled. The economy has been fairly well balanced to me (what with my deaths and all), so I’d just like a little boost from the tool crates to allow me to buy epic and legendary weapons from suppliers.
5 Likes
Didn’t someone say we can enter that church behind the shed? On which level is that possible?
Edit: Nevermind, found it!
2 Likes