Obviously in WoA there’s the Institute for Human Betterment, from Birth of a Hitman and Hitman 2’s story
And then in the Classic games there’s Ort-Meyer’s asylum which you arrive at in the end of the first game, escape from in Contracts and your Uncle and Mr X ransack in H2SA
So, where did 47 escape from? In the prologue to 2016 he tells the ICA where he came from - presumably giving the same location as the one he escapes from in the opening to Codename 47 - but it’s said to be deserted. Then presumably this is the same location Max Valiant pilfered to get the research data necessary make his own clones
Now if this is the same area as the Institute for Human Betterment, there’s multiple plot holes: why didn’t the ICA secure this if it had research on the clones, why was Ort-Meyer using it after it was compromised at the end of Birth of a Hitman, I’m sure there’s more
If it’s the same as the Asylum at the end, that raises the questions of why he or the ICA didn’t recognize it from the location 47 provided, how they were able to move back and forth so quickly to make it seem deserted and probably another one
In one of Blood Money’s cutscene, Cayne says that the research was stolen by 47 after he killed Ort-Meyer and that he sold it to the highest bidder. Highest bidder was probably the ICA itself so no need to secure an abandoned asylum in some remote place in the Romanian mountains. I still liked it more when the asylum was in a city, right under everyone’s noses as shown in Codename 47.
In C47 it is very clearly implied to be the same place. The location at the beginning and the end of the game share the same hallway which is the entrance to the secret facility downstairs. And Smith even spells it out that it’s the same place. 47 just doesn’t remember because of PTSD induced memory loss (or plot reasons).
Now the novels, comic books, and WoA that ties into them reveal the rest of the backstory which I suppose retcons that out with a facility tailored specifically to training super soldiers, not disguised as an asylum, but I don’t know much about those.
I mean, there was always just one Asylum - the Satu Mare one from C47/Contracts. That´s where Ort-Meyer did his research and grew the clones. It was always the site of his “personal” project funded by the remaining four Fathers.
WoA then introduces the Institute, which was ostensibly a place where clones would be “raised” and trained, and the place funded by the KGB/Providence. Now whether Ort-Meyer started the Asylum before, concurrently, or after the Institute (specifically after Janus cut off his funding), I don´t know.
As for the WoA prologue, 47 should definitely be referring to the Asylum, since that´s where he escaped from. He has zero memory of the Institute due to the memory wipe, as shown in H2, otherwise he would´ve remembered the place.
Now, why do the ICA say the place was deserted? I have no clue. Sounds like either a(nother) sloppy retcon, or an oversight. UNLESS… the place 47 escapes from at the start of C47 is actually different from the Asylum featured in The Setup / Asylum Aftermath, despite sharing the same hallway (could be just one part of the layout that is the same, or a reuse of assets). This would explain both why it was deserted when the ICA got there, as well as why 47 has zero reaction to the Asylum when he arrives there to kill Kovacs. (I mean, one would presume he could recognise the place he busted out of a year prior)
There were two locations. The Institute is where Ort-Meyer raised and trained the clones after creating them in the basement of the asylum from C47. Think of the asylum as Site B from the Jurassic Park sequels where the dinosaurs were made, and then shipped to the island with the park.
The Institute burned down in 1989 when 6 and 47 led a revolt against Ort-Meyer and Providence, which failed, and the surviving clones were moved to the asylum for the rest of their time in Ort-Meyer’s care. 47 escaped from the asylum, but his memory was hazy, as it’s implied his mind was wiped again just before the start of C47 and so had no memory of his life before that moment when he wakes up at the beginning of the game.
As such, when he gave ICA the location of the asylum he claimed to have escaped from, he gave them the location of the Institute instead, and that’s why Soders says the place is deserted.
The parts that are still not clear is what happened to Ort-Meyer’s research - the Ort-Meyer files Cayne talked about. Did 47 take them after killing Ort-Meyer to keep anyone else from making another clone like him? Did the Mystery Man take it when he and Sergei went there at the beginning of H2:SA? For all of Cayne’s lies, the fact that he still wasn’t able to make a Class 1 clone like 47 without taking his bone marrow implies that he never actually did find Ort-Meyer’s notes, or at least not enough to figure out how to make a recombinant clone without taking existing samples from 47.
As for Max Valliant, he seems to have found enough of Ort-Meyer’s research to be able to clone himself, but not enough to make clones with genetic enhancements over normal humans. The doctor he hired to actually create the clones mentioned that she found a new way to successfully create clones that didn’t die prematurely, a way that Ort-Meyer didn’t use. So the Valliant clones are just plain clones; no enhancements, no mixing with other DNA sources. The information on how to just plain clone a person with nothing fancy added in was likely obvious, given the state of the equipment in the asylum basement. So we can assume Valliant found that information in the asylum and not the remains of the Institute.
To me it seems that it was definitely supposed to be the same place. The hallway, the same desk at the gate with an orderly, and the fact that Smith is saying 47 was there before.
Why 47 doesn’t remember initially? Either his memories are blocked out because of traumatic experience – after all, he doesn’t immediately recognize Covacs, and the fleur-de-lys at the gates seems to hint at a certain connection to this place that 47 doesn’t realise yet. Or devs just didn’t think too hard on that…
Good questions. I get how the double asylum stuff might be confusing. I happen to have encyclopedic knowledge on that part of the lore so I wrote all these answers, based on concrete details we DO know along with some interpretations of mine on the lore. Here:
World of Assassination and its supplementary comic book introduced the lore contrivance of there being another asylum all along. Making it so that in the modern lore, Ort-Meyer had two Asylums in total and different stuff happened in both of them.
The Institute for Human Betterment in Brasov, Romania - introduced in the shitty Birth of the Hitman comics and later in the games proper with H2 - was Dr. Ort-Meyer’s first and original Asylum in-universe.
The Institute in Brasov is where 47, 6, and the first batch of clones grew up, and which 47 and 6 would burn down when they attempted to rebel from Providence in 1989 (events of the lame Birth of the Hitman comics). It’s also where 47 would confront the Shadow Client in 2020 (HITMAN 2 post Mumbai cutscene).
Ort-Meyer’s Asylum in Satu Mare, Romania - the Asylum that was shown in all four original games - is the second and final Asylum in-universe.
The Asylum in Satu Mare is where Ort-Meyer moved his operations to after the incident in 1989 (shown in Birth of the Hitman). It’s where 47 would escape from in 1999 to later kill his father there one year later (Codename 47 / Asylum Aftermath from Contracts), and where Sergei and Mr. X would get their info on 47 in 2002 (H2:SA intro cutscene).
Click here to see all your other doubts adressed, point-by-point (long read!!!!)
47 very clearly escaped from the Satu Mare Asylum, NOT from the Brasov institute, they’re two different places entirely.
Additional lore Context behind 47's escape
As shown in awful Birth of The Hitman Issues 5 and 5: By the year 1999, Ort-Meyer was already long-by settled in the new Asylum, and the Partners were planning to shut Ort-Meyer’s project down and take 47 for themselves, as the other clones had become complete total failures after their minds were wiped, as a result the 1989 incident, while 47 only become much more effective from it. In fact 47, killed all the other clones by 1998 as they could no longer function as proper assassins, which is when he truly made his potential known to the Partners.
This caused Ort-Meyer to secretly engineer 47’s escape in 1999 (first level from C47), making it so that Providence couldn’t get their hands on his most gifted assassin while forcing them to keep the funding going. Ort-Meyer would keep track of 47 joining the ICA that same year, all the while developing the Series 48 batch of clones (Meet Your Brother mission from C47) as direct, superior successors to 47, which the comics imply were the result of his promise to Providence to make up for the absence of 47 and all the other clones that 47 had killed.
47 only told ICA about the second Asylum in Satu Mare, the one he had escaped from on that same year, as that was the only Asylum he could remember at the time.
Due to his amnesia, 47 had no clear recollections of the Brasov Institute, so he never told ICA about it (he couldn’t), leading to ICA only investigating the Asylum in Satu Mare.
Neither 47, nor Diana, nor the ICA were even aware of there being a second Institute up until 47 confronted the Shadow Client there in 2020.
Longer explanation with story context
As we know from the main WoA story and from the comics, 47 suffers from amnesia due to the mindwipe process that was forced on him in the 90s, and can only recall his pre-1989 memories as disconnected blurs with no connecting context between them.
47’s “clear” memories extend from the moment he wakes up on the day of his escape in 1999 (intro of Codename 47) to the ones he has in the “present day” (events of every game from Codename 47 to WoA Season Two when he takes the memory serum). Before that, it’s all a blur, but he remembers everything that’s happened from 1999 to 2020. Meaning that he remembers the second Asylum that he escaped from and later came back to as an ICA Agent to kill his father there, but not the original Institute where he actually grew up alongside Grey to be shaped by Providence.
This is why 47 did not initially recognize the Brasov Institute in H2 when he was sent there after Mumbai, up until Grey started reminiscing about it (showing him the handprints they made on the wall as children) to get him to remember.
This also is the same reason why 47 believes Providence to be a myth in the Colorado tornado shelter cutscene. He did not remember the Hidden Hand existed or that it had been his life’s purpose up until Grey made him remember in Brasov.
As ICA did not know about the Brasov institute (cuz 47 didn’t tell them about it in 1999), they had no records of it. Resulting in Diana not recognizing the place or connecting the dots when she informs 47 about that place in that cutscene, believing the Institute to have been a mere soviet research fund with no connection to 47 himself.
It required Grey injecting him with ETHER’s experimental memory serum, for 47’s memories to become unlocked, allowing him to connect the dots and remember, amongst many other things, that there had actually been two institutes all along. Before that he legit had no idea.
For starters, that line from Soders refers to the Satu Mare Asylum, not the Brasov Institute. As part of his major plan against the Five Fathers, Ort-Meyer made the Asylum look deserted to throw ICA off their initial investigation while he continued his operations underground.
Longer explanation, made from analyizing the lore and some dialogues
In the lore of the classic games, it was shown that the Satu Mare asylum was a mere front for Ort-Meyer’s activities: the outer building had the cover story of being a regular mental health institution while the super secret cloning shit happened underground, with the orderlies/employees being in on the lie too.
Ort-Meyer plan for 47 began the second he let him escape the Asylum. As shown in the comics, his final command to 47 was for him to come unto the world on his own as an assassin so that he could later manipulate him to do his bidding. He tracked 47’s career from the very beginning, ensuring he could control him later on in his own war against the rest of the Five Fathers, as he did not like being subservient to them.
When 47 joined the Agency, Ort-Meyer knew they’d be coming to investigate his origins eventually, as he had kept track of 47’s movements all along. The doctor laid low and retreated underground, continuing his work on the 48s in the underground basement facilities of the place, making the outer building look deserted and locking the entrances to the basement (hidden behind the elevator) so that ICA wouldn’t find anything of importance and drop the investigation entirely. The employees were likely told to lay low with him as well.
The plan worked and ICA found nothing, leading to Soders to mention how the place was “deserted” and that there were “no records of anyone being there”. Notice how Soders didn’t mention the place was “in ruins” or “burnt down” or whatever, it was a simple abandoned building, not a destroyed one. That’s another clue pointing that 47 told ICA about the second Asylum, the one that he could remember, and not the Institute, which he couldn’t remember due to the mind wipe.
Ort-Meyer’s plan in Codename 47 (acting as the shadow client behind every mission in the game, orchestrating not just the hits on the Five Fathers but also 47’s eventual return to the Asylum) required total discretion: the Agency could NOT have any trace to him or know he was their shadow client all along, or else the whole thing would afail. What is revealed by Soders’ dialogue in the Prologue of H2016 adds another step to that plan: Ort-Meyer was very careful in covering his tracks up to the point of fooling ICA in the leadup to his plan.
The Asylum’s front cover building would resume operations by the time 47 returned there in 2000, as its stated in the briefing for The Setup that the place operates as a regular mental health hospital. Ort-Meyer played the ICA from the very beginning: from the second they started investigating his asylum to when he became a shadow client later on…
Valliant Group obtained all their research from the second Asylum, as the Institute was too burnt down to get any usable data from it, while the Asylum remained with all its equipment and data still intact.
Explanation
Remember that the Institute burnt down and only its ruins remained. With Ort-Meyer packing up and moving operations to the Asylum soon after, its unlikely anything of use remained in the original facility.
The Asylum and all its equipment, however, remained intact. It got shot up and investigated by the Romanian SWAT team a little but the equipment in the lower basement levels was still there, as shown in Asylum Aftermath where you are escaping and all the cloning vats and other machines remain operational.
It’s mentioned in the story of WoA that the ETHER Corporation (owned by Providence) acquired Ort-Meyer’s entire estate after his death, and that Grey anonymously bought the original Institute 20 years later using cryptocurrency.
As is outright stated in The Splitter, it’s a given that rests of Ort-Meyer’s research and records still remained in their original location, something that Valliant Group would later exploit for themselves.
This more or less implies that ETHER saw nothing of value in the ruins of the old Institute so they sold it to Grey, while keeping the new one after recovering it from the Romanian police, meaning that one had valuable info and the other one didn’t. Leading us to conclude that that Max Valliant and his team assaulted the Asylum, not the Institute.
How does this all fit into Alexander Cayne’s (FBI director slash wheelchair guy) fake cover story of 47 ransacking the place clean that he tries to sell to that reporter in Blood Money? Well he made it the fuck up and in reality, ETHER kicked his decrepit ass and he got nothing, but Valliant came a few years later with a higher power level and he won ez pz.
Going over my answers, I don’t see any Plot holes here.
Explanation
ICA had zero reason to secure some random abandoned hospital that had no traces of anyone or any valuable research ever being there in the first place. They did their investigation, found nothing, packed it up and called it a day.
Brasov Institute is the one that got compromised (incident of 1989), while the Satu Mare Asylum was not.
Ort-Meyer kept using the Asylum as it hadn’t been compromisedyet and it was the only place he still had to continue his project… don’t forget he still had to complete his research on the Series 48 clones that he’d later use against 47.
I think I explained all of that in all my previous points.
Summary of your last questions
To sum all those points up: It’s not the same asylum. ICA didn’t recognize it 'cause they thought there was only one asylum. No moving back and forth was necessary for Ort-Meyer as he simply laid underground. Place was made to look deserted to fool ICA so that they wouldn’t interfere in 47’s plans.
Hope I could clear some doubts. It’s all relevant lore stuff, some of it is outright stated by the games but for the rest, you have to build your own answers from what the games are trying to tell you. The clues to make it all fit with the context of the older games are all there though, and you can do a nice job at it…
That’s incredible how so much people (including Valliant) have heard or have access to this, literally the way to engineer the perfect clone assassins imo
I think it should’ve been made canon that it had been destroyed or kept as a deep secret or else it could make the whole universe as cheap and doable anywhere by anyone
Urban legend stuff. Everyone knows about it but nobody knows if it’s really true or not because there’s no confirmed proof on the public record, just like with the ICA itself.
For a real life example of such, it was the same with Area 51 until the government confirmed its existence.
It looses its mystique when everyone knows it and talks about it. Another problem I had with Absolution’s story is how they portrayed the ICA or the fact that they portrayed it at all. It was shrouded in mystery in 4 games, and it took only one game to show that they are just a bunch of generic power hungry mo-rons. Sometimes it’s best just to let the reader / watcher etc. use their own imagination.
Well, to be fair, it was understandable for someone like Blake Dexter to know about ICA since he’s part of the wealthy class who pass along such info to each other, and he’s used them before; it’s strongly implied that he was 47’s client in the Sniper preorder bonus. But as for everyone else, Diana did expose a lot of the agents and so, while it wasn’t the global leak that happened after End of an Era, a lot more people learned about the rumors of ICA at least. And the ICA members we see are working under Travis in the North American branch, and everything indicates that they were basically one step away from going rogue on the rest of the organization, so what we see of ICA’s actions in Absolution are not typical. Also, the fact that everyone knows cloning is a thing that can really be done by the time of Blood Money likely contributed to the urban legend of the “super assassin killer clone Agent 47,” and along with him, the “mythical” ICA. People apparently knew about Providence too, but believed it was just a theory. The Devil’s greatest trick and all that.
/jk