That is very debatable. Have a look at them, and you’ll notice a running pattern in their creation; A lot of these “substantial” missions were basically officially added contracts-mode puzzles, with a small modifier attached (kill with explosions, and then later, kill with explosions without pacifying someone else). Some do have unique gimmicks, such as the one with lasers in Villa Caruso, but again, that was, far as I can tell, not liked by anyone who tried it, as it was a painful gameplay experience. Quelle surprise 47 being a minesweeper didn’t test well.
This is why the escalation format gained the ire of players, because…well…that’s what many of them played like. Officially added contracts mode contracts.
What matters is the mechanics and how they’ve aged, and I’d argue IO should always put their best foot forward. Embrace of the Serpent is not a particularly good mission, but neither is it hair-pullingly maddening like The Lupei Sensitivity was. It’s just a fairly average ET Mission-turned-special assignment that was put on a pedastal because of its surrounding context. Nothing really wrong with it, other than being Paid DLC and being a bit underwhelming to play. It has unique trespassing zones, new character model, and new voice lines.
a challenge isn’t a tangible piece of content it’s just a checklist.
I think for preserving Hitman as this wholistical multi-year project we need to include and credit all the substantial work that went into it
…You do realise some of the challenges have work put into them, right? Heck, depending on what you have to do, it’s a lot of work. I don’t like many of the old challenges, but implying that it’s not worth saving them seems antithetical to that idea?
I do not agree that everything in WOA should be preserved; at least not on the surface level. If you really wanna play the older contracts, then mod them back in. But the best thing about a medium designed to provide entertainment via gameplay is that if something is not entertaining to anyone, then it probably shouldn’t be in the game by default.
Hardcore mode has balance issues, it’s not inherently a bad idea to have a harder-than-hard mode for a roguelike game (in fact. it’s a fairly common difficulty!).
So I think a couple free, medicore escalations is fine
Six is a couple, Thirty-six is a deliberate understatement.
I also think new escalations and a rework of the challenges systems in Featured Contracts and Escalations to be global rather than game-specific would be a better solution
Completely agree. I’ve never really been fond of this system as it feels so arbitrary and artificial.