I got the Idea to write about this on a comment about enemies and hostile assasins.
Essentially as it currently stands not one Person can hold up to 47 as Assasin. He is a specialized but Overpowered Protagonist bringing hard writing challenges with him.
A bad Example for writing around Overpowered characters would be the TV Show of Flash. Its inconsistent for the sake of Drama. In Hitman you just have the exact opposite its so uncompromisingly consitent not a single enemy has the wits to get the upper hand on him.
This however only applies in his limited Stealth amd CQC skillset.
An option i am upset that it was left untouched is that everything following and including Apex Predator is not utilizing its narrative stakes.
47 is supposed to be unprepared and kind of improvising against former allies who know him deeply. This should have obviously led to some stakes being applied contained in the sandbox format. 47 is a mortal and a human. He has just discovered his consciousness and free will asides from Moral dilemmas he could have been faced with absolute aggression on mistakes.
If for example Apex Predator punished 47 for being spotted by the ICA by alerting a tactical SWAT-like unit armored and armed to the teeth similar to the “Train guys”, He would have been left bare as he is now in a disadvantage. This would up the stakes requiring skill and wits to maybe deactivate the ICA onsite coms but loosing easy acces to spotting targets (the spotting system would have to be revised slightly) or if you had to KO gas the Units onsite HQ loke in the Bank.
While these kind of changes would be far to late it still shows us what can be done to challenge 47 and create a feel of tension and with Freelancer mode coming up it would be imperative for them to create some sort of stakes in between contracts aside from cheap auto spots. While Modular maps would be far out of budget for IOI a simple Guard counter and alertness (routes alter) could already create a more dynamic and stakeful world.
Also in a outlook on Project 007 a protagonist who is far from superior to most people in James Bond will add the ease of allowing mistakes into the character design.
I would love to hear some opinions about stakes in Hitman without changing the core philosophy of the game.
On a side note i think the insane skill of 47 is what made the movie adaptions ultimately flop as it is really hard to recreate a highly skilled person without cutting short on time.
