Injured 47 in that moment:
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Hereās my take on the ICA being mentioned:
Although itās called Freelancer, the ICA is mentionedā¦ why? Well, IOI have been flagrant with ICA involvement in Hitman 3:
- Elusive Targets sometimes have
ICA Sanctioned Targetcontained in their briefing, when for the entirety of (the events of) Hitman 3, 47 and co. are not affiliated with the ICA, they ābroke this offā shortly after the events of Ambrose Island. - The Data Core sequence (IOI please fix) has targets missing and some other targets spuriously added (The Brothers).
- Last, but not least, it showing up in new Freelancer media. Although the full context is not public, why does something called Freelancer have connections to the ICA?
I think that Freelancer being a gamemode is a ticket for it not being officially canon or taking place after the events of Hitman 3, as thatās new game territory, even if Freelancer is themed that way. It would be great to hear from IOI officially about this, but it would be great to hear from them for a multitude of issues.
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You know whatās also of little to no consequence? What you just said ā it still keeps happening, both in F&F and comic books, and beyond (lol Dragon Ball Z lol). I agree that it can take one out of a story and engender a sense of apathy in some fans. But that it happens so often in various franchises is because, at the end of the day, most fans wonāt give a shit.
I personally wouldnāt care all too much, simply because I hope to God IOI outright reboots all of this shit in the next Hitman installment anyway.
Thatās what I ultimately figured; that this is some non-canon Escalations type shit.
It being a game mode isnāt the tell, though. Sniper Assassin is a game mode and is canon, unless I missed something.
Very true! But in Hitman 2 they were under actual locations in the menus, just moved to a gamemode section in Hitman 3 to clean up the menus a bit (which was a good decision considering what weāre getting now).
I think new gamemodes in Hitman 3 not being canon is the ticket.
Good point on escalations too, Freelancer is just one big and random escalation that just goes on, and on, and on, and onā¦
Certainly, you say? Dunno why that would be a certain thing, as that very post already explained how and why it could, and Iāve even mentioned that before. If Umbrella can come back in Resident Evil and still be called Umbrella, then it would be no problem for ICA.
Anyway, this new trailer did show some interesting new crime titles. One new one is called Arms Trafficking, which is a little confusing because the previous reveal back in January showed Weapons Trafficking, so I donāt know if thatās been renamed, or if those are going to be considered two different things. Weāve also got Sick Games, Eco Crimes, Psy-Ops, and the one that amuses me the most, Big Pharma. I canāt wait to get into these.
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I wonder if there is a way of ācompletingā your weapon and tool collection. Youāll loseā¦ everything? if you fail? I, having started the āplease allow saving in escalationsā thread, hate the idea of losing progress. So I can see two possible problems:
(a) The completionist problem: If weapons are only unlocked for one campaign and then reset OR if we actually lose EVERYTHING we collected on failure, that would really hinder my enjoyment after a few runs. I mean, letās say Iāve played maybe 20 campaigns, completing the last 6 or 7 of them, having collected quite a full arsenal. Then I would really think twice about trying another run because the risk of losing all the stuff Iāve collected would grow bigger and bigger until it reaches a āno way Iām risking my full arsenalā point 
(b) The Prepper problem: You know this feeling when games give you a very small amount of something very useful - that you end up never using because āyou might need it laterā? You get a super weapon but only three rockets so you always think āmaybe in the next level there will be a boss so letās keep itā and then the boss comes and you think āoh I can do that, I should save the ammunition for the next bossā and then suddenly the game is over and you have never used the super weapon?
I fear that this might happen in Freelancer when you find a great weapon or tool. Say you find a Sieger Ghost. Will you really take it with you? Risking it? Or, just for fun: letās say iO gives us the electrocution phone back (!!!) - would you really pack it ājust in caseā with the risk of losing it or would you be like me thinking āIāll save that for a really difficult targetā that never comes? Iāll be honest: If Hitman had a limited inventory system that would only allow to use each item a specific amount of times (not per level, at all I mean), I would have enjoyed the game way less. Takes away the fun of experimentation. Thatās my biggest problem with Freelancer right now.
Possible solution: Keep the arsenal after campaigns but give an option to āretrieve itemsā after a failure for a price. A massive price, this should be a last resort! But then at least you would not risk a valuable, rare item.
Other than that: AWESOME!! Iām really hyped, more than before. Looking forward!
EDIT: added soultion ideas because letās be constructive.
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Can the link to the video be added to the opening post?
Cheers
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ā¦Uh, what? Writers do it because fans who like those characters demand that characters return, consequences of the plot or story be damned, which they then try and do with the ways I describe. Comic books, more than most other mediums, tend to lean more into their regular readersā desires because thatās what makes them money, especially before the internet where the only form of distribution was a comic book store. In essence, the vocal minority controlled comic book lore, in a sense.
That doesnāt mean they shouldnāt do it! X does it, why canāt Y? F&F does it because, as I mentioned, executives know that the celebrities are a big draw to it, and are very much incentivised to keep the actors alive between films, meaning thereās very little story-wise to gain. Nobody dies, very little of consequence happens, and anything bad that does happen gets reverted in the following films.
Spoilers for No Time to Die:
Bond being killed off at the end was quite refreshing as no other Bond movie had done that before then. Thereās finally some consequences, he isnāt as superhuman as many portray him as. And while MGM are obviously going to replace Craig (Itās a franchise after all), the fact they decided to end the movie this way really does help give a nice end to his era, instead of going the very easy route of keeping him alive and merely āout there in the world and/ or retiredā.
Of course, listening to your readers is usually a good idea, sometimes writers can very much fuck up a story (see: The Incredible Hulk 2008 film and its very inconsistent tone and writing, or hell Thor: The Dark World where its tone clashed with past and future entries, and messed up Thorsā characterisation), but a mark of a good writing team is managing audience expectations, and keeping the course of the narrative, without screwing up. You shouldnāt have to avert course for the vocal minority; itās only when the rest of the fanbase protests, only then you should consider changing course.
And unless Iāve missed something, Iāve not seen many protests outside this forum of the ICA being destroyed.
I wonder if Silent Assassin rating will be pivotal around here to get some extras or isnāt even taken in count, given some challenges ask you to eliminate guards. You know, others than the target.
I think the guards are still targets, but optional, and if you kill them in the SA way you will get SA rating for the mission. But you are right it remains to be seen how the SA concept will impact the gameplay and the rewards.
I feel like if you lose a mission youāll lose what you brought in and your arsenal at the safehouse will remain untouched however if you lose a showdown, your campaign will be reset and anything you gained from that run will be lost. If you win, all the stuff that youāve gathered will persist to the next campaign. Thatās the way I would do it, to have consequences for losing while not making building up a collection of weaponry and tools pointless.
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Really the entire franchise is one big escalation by those standards. When did escalation become a swear word meaning ābad contentā? Theyre just a variant on contracts, which are beloved
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Bros i feel like this can somehow lead to the hitman 1&2 suits being unlockables. Iād love that
As of lately I have been playing in more non-SA ways to see the variety of playstyle titles there are and has been pretty fun! So Iām eager to see how all this translates to Freelancer.
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I donāt think anyone is saying escalations are bad content, only that this mode is similar to them.
Thereās a good chance that there wonāt be any rankings, at least not like the main campaign, like SA and such. My reasoning for that is, in one of the data mined sections showing info on the mode before Freelancer was even announced, there is an optional objective in some missions to leave the body of the target in order to send a message. Such is not really compatible with SA ranking, except with accidents and such. Also, during the gameplay trailer, some optional objectives mention to not get spotted, and cut-aways to later parts of the mission show that at some point that was lost, indicating that, rather than being part of the ranking at the end of the mission, stealthy play like going SA or suit only will be part of the optional objectives that determine how many Merces you get. Personally, Iād be fine with this, because that means such things are at the clientās request, and 47 always follows the clientās requests, so if they ask him to do something that is ordinarily against SA, that means that any action other than the optional objective would invalidate SA, and we wonāt need a rank to tell us that, because by now we know in our hearts if we did an SA run or not.
So if Freelancer is doing away with the ranking system as weāve known it and is basing it solely on objectives, I can make do with that, and adjust my parameters of perfection accordingly.
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I maintain a lot of the data core sequence can be considered canon information, but there is some really weird oddities (why is Zoe and Sophia in the list; they were never Sanctioned Targets!), the lack of Wazir Kale or Sniper Assassin targets is a little odd as TLY got referenced fairly often. Itās just strange.
It also needs updating due to SITW as Crest and Akka were targets too.
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I maintain that IOI just put in all the images they could of WoA targets just to make that list seem long, and that it was never meant to be paid close attention to, or paused to see who all is in it and take it seriously. They were trying to pad the list; the ones that we can clearly see from the trilogyās main campaign are ones that really happened and belong there, while ETs and targets that were not ICA sanctioned are just there to extend the list. Agree that at least Akka needs to be added; we donāt know if ICA knows Crest was taken out in that mission, too, they were kinda just going off of whatever Diana told them.
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I feel like comparing it to escalations to me seems spurious and moreso a way of expressing cynicism the mode will be good and implying IOI doesnt change or listen to criticism. Them being obsessed with escalations peaked in ET arcade, which already has original target routines and multiple locations but I can see the criticism that it is an escalation. This? Weāll see. Iād recommend we hold our tongues on the E word unless itās especially shitty and escalation-y. I still need to remind people that escalations are just variants on contracts, and the entire trilogy was built on contracts mode as a live service