Hitman: World of Assassination -- Sapienza

Hitman: World of Assassination
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To IO (pray tell, maybe even someone who’s not on the community engagement roles who might be reading this):

Please, please do reconsider this decision; it’s a bad note to start off Year 5 on, and takes away any shine off whatever may be in store.

Not only that, but it reflects very poorly that a studio that used to command much respect and loyalty from its playerbase feels a need to resort to such marketing plots to obtain as much money from WoA as possible.

A key complaint about Hitman 1, 2 and 3 was that of a convoluted purchasing system; a great step forward was taken by uniting everything into the WoA umbrella, but then all of that has been undone by the addition of the Sapienza access pack.

This just gives off the impression that you don’t care about either new players who want to buy your products, or about older players who’ve stuck with you through thick and thin- even during the leanest of times during Hitman 2.

While I wasn’t worried about how either Project Fantasy or Project 007 would’ve turned out earlier, I most definitely am now. I’m concerned that questionable decisions like these will eventually percolate down to every aspect of the coming games’ monetization components too.

Ending this pointless essay with worry.

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Gosh I hope we will at least get some communication from @Combatglue

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So if this were like a pizza… The whole pizza would cost $80.00 (and it’s cut into 8 slices). So that’s $10 per slice.

So IOI is selling one super special slice at say… $30(?).

To get the remaining slices would you have to pay $50.00? Total price (still): $80.

Or are you still paying $70 for every remaining (not as super special) slice? Total (new) price: $100

I’d be interested in a more simplified graphical breakdown, or something that represents how the money put in for the whole product could be broken down for each (shall we say) “slice”.

Perhaps the (supposed?) surcharge is to help fund development either for the 007 game, or the content that H:WoA will or should be getting for Y5. Because in the end, even though this “strategy” doesn’t seem right, you still have to wonder…

Why!?

Or maybe sales have leveled off and this is a way to keep an upward trend. :man_shrugging:

Don’t take this as me defending their actions. I mean, I already own most of what there is to own outside of the ET DLCs (but I’m tempted to get the Splitter DLC) and the street art pack. So I’ll never have to worry about buying Sapienza.

But if customers, in hindsight, realize this offer was a rip-off - then that’ll reflect badly. I just hope that, for them, buying the rest of the game is offset by the amount of money they’ve already put into it.

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I understand that IOI needs to make some money before 007’s launch, but HITMAN WoA split sale looks like a bad idea.
Instead, how about putting out a product as DLC that benefits existing users as well?
Personally, I’d like to see “permanent play rights to elusive targets”, “All content offline play rights”,“Wildcards and Fixers to the Elusive Arcade”, “Resale of Disruptors (how about making it a masked fighter?)”etc.
I would gladly buy it.

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Putting a proper offline mode behind a paid DLC would go down worse that this has.

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  1. IOI are already profitable off this game’s base sales alone. What they’re doing is just finding new ways to make more money on top of that. Game development is expensive, but there are definitely ways to make money that doesn’t piss off your userbase.
  2. Relisting controversial content is not going to satisfy anyone in the larger user base, only the people like yourself who don’t care about said controversies and just want everything, irrespective of why they were removed. Meanwhile, the Fixer is just a badly made ET that people consistently failed because of its linear setups, handoffs, and escort mission. It’s impending re-run only happened because this forum wanted it to, and a few people on here have said they hadn’t played it and so wanted to, which I don’t think is good enough rationale when we know from experience the ET is badly designed. We don’t need new data-points to prove that again, unless IO is going to rework the mission (which they should). I know I say that IO should listen to us, but they should also consult their own internal stats to make more informed decisions. Not everything we say or do is pure gold.
  3. The disruptor should also be reworked, but I’m not sad to see it go for the reasons I gave above.

The game should just have its offline mode reworked; with offline scoring and support for offline escalations (especially 7DS which I paid for!).

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I just noticed that today, did the Sapienza pack also used to have a store page? It can be bought from the WOA main site but besides the title the user gets no information what it is. “Sapienza” is a fantasy city so you need to know the game a bit to know it is a map.

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Honestly, if they included New York and Haven Island in the standard edition of the game, added Paris into the starter pack, and then released Woa part 1, 2 (With New York and Haven Island included), and part 3, splitting the price of the game in 3 parts, I could get behind their reasoning of having cheaper entryways for people to start playing the game, but the Sapienza edition is just plain ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

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So, it is going to satisfy someone in the larger user base?

Just because it’s complex doesn’t mean it’s bad, and just because you think something is bad doesn’t mean it objectively doesn’t deserve to continue to be in the game. You’re not the patron saint of how the game should work, Drib, anymore than I am of how the lore should be interpreted (according to some people on here, anyway).

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So, it is going to satisfy someone in the larger user base?

I literally gave the description of the types of people it would satisfy, nothing I said was contradictory.

Just because it’s complex doesn’t mean it’s bad, and just because you think something is bad doesn’t mean it objectively doesn’t deserve to continue to be in the game.

I agree, something being complex isn’t bad. However, the information told to the player to understand the complexity of the situation is not done in a satisfactory or reliable way, be it via level hints, diegetic gameplay cues or via the briefing. All the players knows, is that there’s a courier meetup at the shisha den, and you have to kill Xander. You are not warned of the other marketeers, and players may not be expecting a stalking mission, and try to take out the courier while he walks about, which leads to a failure.

I am not the only person to think it is bad; there is plenty of evidence on forums and the reddit that display how much players dislike it, or at the very least, find it hard to complete.

You’re not the patron saint of how the game should work

I don’t have to be. We have actual evidence of the mission being bad, footage of people failing, people online complaining how annoying that mission is to complete; there’s even a mod to get rid of the failure conditions. Not to mention, IOI’s own internal stats saying lots of people failed, and Travis even admitting it’s not liked by fans as players find it frustrating. Is that not enough for you? Is that not a good reason to keep the mission locked away until it can be reworked?

It is a terrible contract that subverts player expectations and is outright confusing. People would not be emphasising the use of, or recommending the use of, guides if it weren’t. Shit, the level doesn’t even have a sub 7-minute speedrun time. I’d be more okay with it if an ETA was made at the same time (or even specifically just an ETA), but no such plan has been put into place.

You are being a devil’s advocate for the sakes of it, defending a contract you know is problematic for the sakes of selfishly playing it later in the month guilt free. For once, look at the bigger picture.

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I don’t know, in the case of The Fixer, the proof is in the pudding here. The Fixer having instant fail conditions was a really bad idea as is. It’s not a bad ET, but having instant fail conditions is inherently bad and ruins the fun factor for people. A lot of people complained about it back in the day and for our Speed Running community it’s arguably the most annoying target to do.

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As a matter of public record, and to get this back on-topic, I have sent Eurogamer an email with information on this whole situation.

Will be contacting Kotaku’s tip-mail soon.

Have now contacted Kotaku.

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Feels like the new trend among companies is to make stupid decisions (i.e. Disney). The major problem is that this one is affecting players who buy the wrong bundle and shows tha IO didn’t learn or improve with H3 Year 1 or H2016 episodic format.

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Not exactly a new trend for Disney considering they’ve been making stupid decisions for almost a hundred years :x

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More lately, like buying everything and then ruining everything.

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Opera Снимок_2025-02-06_194139_ioi.dk

Anyone remember this?
With all those Part 1, Part 25, this Sapienza Pack it looks like complete mokery of [potential] players.

Or exactly this was their vision…

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