HITMAN on Stadia

Ibbe · December 24, 2020, 3:57pm

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-on-stadia/

Blogpost from August 31st

HITMAN on Stadia

HITMAN launches on Stadia tomorrow and we’re excited to welcome new players to the World of Assassination. As part of our preparations, we’ve put together some useful information for new players on what to expect.

The entire World of Assassination trilogy will be available on Stadia. HITMAN 1 and HITMAN 2 will both be available starting from September 1st and HITMAN 3 will be available on 20 January 2021 to complete the trilogy.

As we are able to have all of the games seamlessly in one place for the first time, you’ll always launch HITMAN games on Stadia through HITMAN: World of Assassination. This is your hub for all things HITMAN on Stadia. It’s where you’ll go to play HITMAN 1 and HITMAN 2 and also HITMAN 3 when in launches.

HITMAN: World of Assassination will be your destination whether you redeem HITMAN 1, which is available free in Stadia Pro, or you purchase HITMAN 2. When you launch the game, the menu and UI will be in HITMAN 2’s visual style.

You’ll also get access to the ICA Facility location from HITMAN 1 and the Hawke’s Bay location from HITMAN 2 regardless of which game you own. For example, if you are a Stadia Pro subscriber and redeem HITMAN 1, you’ll also get access to Hawke’s Bay and see how HITMAN 2 continues the campaign. In terms of game modes, Contracts Mode, Escalations and solo Sniper Assassin will be available, but Ghost Mode and Sniper Assassin co-op will not be featured.

When HITMAN 3 launches on 20 January 2021, we’ll update HITMAN: World of Assassination to include the design changes of HITMAN 3. If you can’t wait until January, we’ve lined up some unique item variants for Stadia players that are unlocked simply by playing each game from the Trilogy. Here’s how that breaks down:

Play HITMAN 1 to unlock the Sunset Rubber Duck, a remote rubber duck explosive.

Play HITMAN 2 to unlock the Orange Pinstripe Briefcase, the perfect place to hide your new rubber duck explosive.

Play HITMAN 3 to unlock the White Sunset Suit, which is certain to impress at any formal gathering.

Watch our Stadia Announcement Trailer to see Agent 47 using the rubber duck and briefcase in Dubai. In the trailer, you’ll see Agent 47 wearing the default starting suit for Dubai – and not the White Sunset Suit. As that’s a HITMAN 3 unlock, we’re saving it for a little bit later.

As a studio, it’s exciting for us to see HITMAN: World of Assassination launch and have a single place for all three games to be playable seamlessly in one place. Follow us on social media for updates and news on HITMAN: World of Assassination and HITMAN 3.

Pre-orders for Hitman 3 on Stadia;

Standard Edition
$59.99 USD / $79.99 CAD / €69.99 EUR
£54.99 GBP / SEK 699 / DKK 539 / NOK 649

Deluxe Edition
$79.99 USD / $105.99 CAD / €89.99 EUR
£74.99 GBP / SEK 899 / DKK 679 / NOK 849

Thanks Hardware for the pre-order info.

HITMAN 2 is now available free in Stadia Pro!

scat1620 · January 2, 2021, 10:21pm

Well, after all my umm-ing and ah-ing about whether I’d buy HITMAN 3 on Epic Games Store in 2021 and then also buy my ‘primary’ copy of the game on Steam in 2022 (which was dependent on being able to transfer H2 progress to H3-EGS version and then also back to H3-Steam version - if not I was just set to wait for the Steam version in 2022), I’m now going to be playing HITMAN 3 on Stadia in 2021.

My PC has died and to skip the long/boring details of my circumstances, the tl;dr bottom line is that I won’t be able to get my PC fixed to play H3 on EGS before the summer at earliest, and so my EGS/Steam dilemma is solved! I’ll be getting the PC version of H3 on Steam in 2022, and (touch wood) all my H2 progress will definitely be able to be imported into H3-Steam since it will never have been imported into H3-EGS.

In the meantime I don’t have the option of playing anything on my PC for the next few months, and so I’ve moved to the Stadia platform thanks to very kindly being gifted a code for HITMAN 2 on Stadia after I answered a random “first correct answer to my question” giveaway that @Travis_IOI did on the old HMF a few months back. I didn’t intend to use the code for myself and passed it along to a non-Hitman-fan friend who uses Stadia, in an attempt to spread the Good News about the Hitman franchise to an unbaptised heathen.

Luckily for me, my friend never got round to redeeming the code for one reason or another, and after my PC died I got in touch to ask if I could steal the code back from him as he had never used it. So I’m back in the game now, with the H2 Gold Edition in my Stadia library, and then I went back and bought H1 GOTY Edition on Stadia to get all of the older content, and have pre-ordered HITMAN 3 on Stadia for its release this month.

Having none of my H2 Steam progress to hand, I’m madly trying to go through and get all the important challenges done again in H2 Stadia so that I’m ready to go in terms of gear and progress for H3’s launch. Got most of my Classics done on Master now - only missing Classics for Patient Zero on Professional (the mission, not the whole campaign) and Embrace Of The Serpent on Master, and then I never have to touch stupid Master difficulty again (until H3!) and I can drop down to Casual to make burning through the non-Classics challenges easier and faster.

Thanks again to @Travis_IOI for the H2 Stadia code giveaway earlier in the year - I’m sorry I couldn’t spread the word of 47 further than I did, but on the plus side this code is letting me play the WoA trilogy at a time where I don’t have a working PC so it’s all worked out pretty fortuitously, and I can’t wait to play HITMAN 3 in a couple of weeks like most of the rest of the community will be doing. Cheers!!

scat1620 · January 16, 2021, 9:50am

Nope, I have got all of the Master difficulty Classics challenges completed and successfully registered in-game on every location from ICA Facility right through to Haven Island, thankfully.

I am still seeing some issues with smuggling in items to levels in Hidden Stashes (whereas Agency Pickups are all fine), and I haven’t yet tried out some of the other reported Stadia issues (like problems people have had with The Dubious Cohabitation in Mumbai and The Brief Case Of Charles Dexter Ward in Sgail).

scat1620 · January 18, 2021, 12:46pm

HITMAN World Of Assassination on Stadia is down for the count until release day now (13:00 UTC on 20th January). When it comes back, it will basically be HITMAN 3 rather than HITMAN 2 like it currently is.

https://twitter.com/IOInteractive/status/1351123103456387074

Can confirm that the servers are down now, I was playing level 3 of The Marinello Motivation, had taken out both my targets and was on the way to the exit, and then I got the repeated No Server Connection message. I was so cloooose…!

Count.Rushmore · January 18, 2021, 1:42pm

The longest maintenance of HITMAN game, huh?
What is it, about 2 days offline?

scat1620 · January 18, 2021, 1:45pm

Yep, 48 hours of downtime for the Stadia servers (although the game can still be played in offline mode). Seems reasonable to me seeing as I assume that a team will have to install the H3 launcher (and the H1/H2 Access Packs) on to the Google PCs that power the Stadia cloud service.

Looking forward to the game coming back as a brand new shiny HITMAN 3 version on Wednesday!

solderq35 · January 20, 2021, 6:29pm

Just wanted to give an update to all the 5 Stadia players here that most (if not all) Stadia specific problems seem fixed in HITMAN 3!

Puddle electrocutions now seem to be working as intended, hidden stashes are working, and they seem to have resolved the “Best Case” challenge problem by giving MK II briefcase by default (I have it unlocked though I never completed the challenge pack).

BernardoOne · April 10, 2021, 5:01pm

There’s a Lenovo promo that gives you 3 free months of Stadia Pro. Includes Hitman 3 launcher with Hitman 1 content.

Pleasantly surprised honestly, in terms of input lag. It doesn’t really feel any different from playing native. Image quality could be better though.

BEowen · April 11, 2021, 9:39am

I got Hitman GOTY & Hitman 2 Gold for a combined price of £22 on Stadia, it does play suprisingly well, i use my ps4 controller

Hardware · July 16, 2021, 7:14pm

Well I thought it was going to be temporary, but the Stadia version is unplayable for me since about 2 weeks… is anyone else in this situation ? It seems to be a regional or profile issue for some people according to discord, I don’t know.

It happens when I don’t have my PC because I’m not @home, sweet

I will reopen a ticket, last time they told me to check my internet connection (what a joke, hitman client is hosted on Google servers… it’s not a network issue on my end I can play in offline mode), so I gave up. But the issue really persists, the game is unplayable online since 2 weeks.

Anyone in EU available to try ?

scat1620 · July 16, 2021, 11:23pm

I’m in exactly the same boat, the game has been in an absolute state trying to do anything in Online mode recently on Stadia, issue dated back to at least The Liability ET in Berlin if not earlier.

I submitted a Zendesk ticket yesterday about this issue and got a similar response to you Hardware. Haven’t yet replied as Adrian at IOI has asked me to do a speedtest and some other bits that will take me a bit of time to do, but I KNOW the issue isn’t on my end. I’ve got decent, stable internet and I have no problem at all connecting to Stadia and loading the H:WoA executable nor keeping that connection to Stadia going: the executable itself stays running fine with no lag etc. The problems are all related to the Stadia hardware at Google’s end not connecting to the HITMAN server properly (and not maintaining connection on the occasions where you do manage to access Online mode).

I’m not sure whose fault it is, but the issue is definitely in the connection between Stadia and the HITMAN server and not a problem between player-side Stadia clients and the Stadia hardware/servers. If it is IOI’s problem then it needs an urgent fix, and if it’s an issue at Stadia’s end then we need IOI to use a bit of commercial clout and lean on Stadia to find the fix.

Oh to be back on PC, get on Peacock and bin this disastrous Online mode off forever…

solderq35 · July 17, 2021, 6:07am

Not from EU but North America.

I’m not sure about how it works regionally but the Hitman servers has been working on and off again for the last 2 weeks. Currently not working for me in North America as of since two days ago. To clarify in case IOI sees this (although I already contacted support too), the problem is specifically with the Hitman IOI servers and NOT Stadia servers. I can play Hitman on Stadia in “offline mode” (connected to Stadia servers but not Hitman servers) just fine. The problem is squarely on IOI’s end.

I raised a support ticket earlier, at first I got the boilerplate error message again. Ironically, the Hitman servers were back up for me by the time IOI support responded.

After I clarified that the problem was most certainly on IOI’s end (for reasons clarified above), I got a generic message about how “the team will hopefully get to the bottom of this issue”. Then, the Hitman servers went down again, so I reopened my ticket with support. To their credit, the support person did say that “we have received similar reports from other players about this issue”, so at least they know it’s not just me.

However, the final support message then morphed into another boilerplate suggestion about “network troubleshooting”, and the support person put my ticket “on hold”. At this point I assumed this meant they would be ignoring further feedback so I stopped replying.

Full screenshots of the exchange with support, so others won’t have to deal with the same nonsense: Hitman Support about Stadia Hitman Servers - Album on Imgur

Anyways. This whole thing kind of reminds me of the Smuggled item Stadia bug from way back. Different users randomly had the issue at certain times with no clear pattern as to who was affected.

I hope that the issue is resolved in any case, and that IOI does not put this issue low in their priorities simply due to the overall lower player base of Stadia. I love Stadia for how it can bring high end gameplay to users on low end PC’s, but if need be I will go back to playing Hitman on Epic with low FPS. I’ll take that sacrifice for a game that actually works.

As a final data point (this is Hardware’s own website, but just for the benefit of any others viewing this), https://hitmanstat.us/ clearly shows that there is an abnormally large number of Stadia users reporting Hitman server problems in the last week or two. Scroll down to the line graph.

TL;DR North American user also having problems here, support ultimately didn’t say much even after clarifying the problem with a lot of evidence.

Hardware · July 17, 2021, 7:01am

Thank you for your feedbacks, I appreciate it

It seems that we have the same issues then, I will reopen my ticket. I hope they are working to get to the bottom of this, they might be on vacation

Hitmanstat.us counters show a clear trend on Stadia for about 2 weeks.

@Travis_IOI @Clemens_IOI @ioi_christianco @ioi_lukasz

Hardware · July 18, 2021, 8:17am

It seems like it’s been a 1-month issue, I guess the patch broke something on stadia.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/omg75j/can_we_do_something_about_hitman_on_stadia/

For nearly a month now, server issues on Hitman for Stadia have left the game nearly unplayable. I’ve already submitted multiple support requests to IO Interactive and Stadia, to no avail. Contacting them on Twitter yields no reply. I know others in the community have been experiencing this; a few posts have popped up in this subreddit. https://hitmanstat.us/ consistently shows Stadia players having much more issues, but not enough people seem to know about the website for the issue to be considered a “significant problem.” We got 26 reports a few days ago and the threshold is 50; can some people on the subreddit submit reports so that it reaches the threshold and IOI actually decides to fix the issues?

An official statement on the situation would be appreciated. In the meantime, I have added a message on hitmanstat.us

scat1620 · July 18, 2021, 8:36am

I’ll quote that Reddit link once I’ve got enough game-state-capture examples to reply on my existing Zendesk ticket to Adrian at IOI next week, will help to show that this is a widespread issue amongst the Stadia playerbase and not because isolated individuals have dodgy internet connections.

Hardware · July 18, 2021, 8:45am

Even if some ppl have dodgy internet connections, this does not explain these problems since the hitman client is hosted in Stadia datacenters. That’s the great thing about the cloud haha, things like this can’t come from the player

Even the message says it’s a server error :

scat1620 · July 18, 2021, 9:25am

Oh yeah absolutely, I know for absolute sure that the issues we’re having aren’t because of dodgy connections at our end, but using that Reddit thread (and this one on HMF) in communications to IOI Tech Support removes the possibility for them to fob you off with an incorrect diagnosis by suggesting that it’s an isolated error at the player’s end: that kinda bullshit doesn’t fly when many varied players across the globe are all experiencing the same problem.

scat1620 · July 19, 2021, 8:13pm

Just replied to my active Zendesk ticket about the ongoing Stadia issues, copied in my reply below. The ball is firmly in IOI’s court, IMO:

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply. My issue is still persistent and I can still connect to Stadia smoothly and without any problems (including playing HITMAN: World Of Assassination in Offline mode on Stadia): my issue is 100% a problem between the version of H:WoA on the Stadia-side having trouble making connections to IOI’s HITMAN Server, because the only thing I have trouble with is running H:WoA specifically in Online mode.

To go through the troubleshooting information you requested below:

Platform ID/ Gamertag/Username: Stadia / scat1620#8472
IOI account and associated email address: [redacted for HMF]
Locations (Where is the issue occurring?): Across the entire game when playing in Online mode; no issues at all when playing in Offline mode
When did the issue first start occurring: Since at least The Liability Elusive Target in Berlin (17th June), maybe a week or two earlier
Frequency ( Has the issue occurred one time, multiple times, or every single time?): Happens most times I try to play the game. Occasionally I’ll get a completely responsive/uninterrupted session in Online mode, but usually this is after several frustrating experiences of the game struggling to connect to the HITMAN Server beforehand.
Have you requested a profile data deletion in the recent past: No
Screenshots/A quick video directly showing any error message you receive, or the disconnect as it happens: Please see below several examples from Stadia game state video captures over the past couple of days, videos captures on Stadia are limited to 30 seconds so can’t show the entire looooong attempted connection times for these captures, just a 30 second excerpt.

Also, from a computer connected to the same network you are playing HITMAN on. please perform a speed test here and send me a screenshot (Please make sure to be connected to a server relevant to your current location): [Attached to email I sent Adrian]

For your information, this seems to be a widespread issue amongst the playerbase on Stadia and not just an isolated problem with my account. Please see the following threads on Reddit and HitmanForum for examples of other Stadia players experiencing similar issues which may or may not have been directly reported to IOI via the Zendesk support system.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/omsmc7/if_anyone_here_plays_on_stadia_could_you_take_a/

The fact that a number of Stadia players are experiencing the same issue and that it relates to the Stadia copy of H:WoA connecting to the HITMAN Server rather than players simply struggling to connect their individual client devices to Stadia itself strongly suggests that the issue is a systemic problem that IOI and Stadia need to solve together, and that player connections are not the cause of that problem.

I hope that this can be investigated ASAP because the game is currently very-near unplayable for me on Stadia, and for a number of other Stadia players located across the globe.

Thanks and kind regards,

[scat’s IRL name]

Hardware · July 19, 2021, 8:37pm

Hardware · July 20, 2021, 2:14pm

Just found this. Both Google and IOI acknowledged the issue between them 5 days ago, and yet IO has not officially communicated about this or even notified its own support team. This is very strange.

Hi everyone, I wanted to chime back in here and let you all know that both the Stadia team and IO Interactive are aware of the issue and attempting to track down a fix. Stay tuned and I will update this topic when I know more.

ChrisFromGoogle, Community Specialist
‎07-15-2021 02:35 PM

I have updated hitmanstat.us accordingly.