That’s what contract mode is there for
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I can see the whole point about targets being ‘super villains’ but IMO it stems from the fact it is about fighting the illuminati than anything else, so it comes across like every person is a ruthless dictator plotting world domination
Things I enjoyed about the classic Hitman games is that the ICA isn’t good or bad; they are a neutral party. They work with various intelligence agencies as well as crime bosses, and they get 47 to do it if it’s a particularly difficult contract. It’s not whether the targets are bad or not; it’s if the client can afford to get a risky, high profile hit. So I can see why a crime boss wants someone in Witness Protection taken out, or taking out someone in a motorcade that’s escorted by the UN (without killing any of them) As much as I like knocking off Clarence due to an amusement park accident, it seems below 47’s paygrade.
In regards to ‘good’ contracts, if the story can spin a story that makes it engaging to kill a supposed ‘innocent’ target, then fair enough. It’s just harder to expect a player to go along with it if they don’t agree with it, regardless of how morally neutral 47 and the ICA are. Cognitive dissonance and all that
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The revenge contracts in HITMAN tend to be pretty petty. And Lucas Grey’s missions are all in that category.
They only have value in the context of his revenge.
I for one am glad he’s gone and the Diana revenge angle is over.
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That and eliminating the people who had committed countless international crimes without consequence, and would likely resume doing so via their numerous equally morally bankrupt allies if Grey didn’t seek his revenge…
I don’t think the Highmoores wanting their daughter avenged was particularly petty or unhelpful, given that Jordan Cross is entitled and unstable enough to kill again and they did try the conventional approach of having him prosecuted first, only to be thwarted by Providence’s corrupt influence.
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There’s some dialogue in Mendoza where Vidal asks Diana why she always goes after “bad guys”, which means that’s not just a storytelling convenience any more, it’s something Diana has been doing on purpose all along (& will presumably keep doing).
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Yes but in H2 you play both sides really. You kill both Providence and Grey allies. It’s bad guys vs bad guys.
The Highmoore contract is one of the more plausible ones in that it’s a bit like those celebrity death conspiracies where personal stakes become too heightened.
I think Penelope Graves is the most sympathetic target for me. Once you know the whole story you realize she’s fought terrorism and then realized providence were the real terrorists and switched to fighting them, just like Grey did, and she has no real bad aspects like others you killed on Grey’s team before joining him..
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I always thought she switched sides because the people on interpol took bribes, which made her join the terrorists because she realised neither side is actually good.
I suppose Contracts was very much like that. Very limited story and kind of just focused on the hits. I absolutely love Contracts as well and it has some of the best missions from the franchise.
Not sure how IOI will handle the next game, but having that dark tone in H3 very much like Contracts was awesome. Who’s to say they might shift that tone even further in the next game and have a story going on in the background, but have the game more focused on the hits like Contracts?
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Good post man! Yeah like many other things about Hitman 6, the fucking story sucked too. I noticed and hated the whole emphasis on moral justification and the new bullshit personalities Diana and 47 had in Hitman 6.
I gave up my interest in the character of 47 and the cool atmospheric tone of the Hitman series after Absolution because IOI got everything except the mechanics and gameplay horribly wrong in H6. At least the gameplay is perfect.
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How is 47 different post Absolution? it’s quite obvious if we solely look at the dreadful characterisation of Blood Money and close our eyes and ears to everything that came before. 47 in Providence Trilogy isn’t drastically different then his more fleshed out humanity we saw explore in SA and Absolution, the true departure that was drastic was BM.
It’s fine not to like the characterisation, but calming that 20 years of character development was thrown out of the window, is simply plain wrong.
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If you gave up on the story of the Hitman franchise after HITMAN but not after Absolution, then all I can say is we have very different tastes. I sure am glad that IOI have been catering to my tastes rather than yours for the last 5 years, here’s hoping that continues in whatever future awaits the series when it eventually returns.
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Dude, this is literally the first thing in the manual for Codename 47 (after you get past the boilerplates and the “how to install” bit).
The emphasis on moral justification is literally the first thing the series was introduced with.
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I like how IO adressed players with the nostalgic preference for more detached contracts in the Greed-DLC, when starting the first escalation stage. They’re definitely aware of an evolution having taken place in that regard.
“Don’t you long for the old days? Before things got personal?
When it was all just about seeing those numbers grow in your bank account?
Your friends corrupted you. It’s time to rediscover your true purpose…”
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I see your point, about cold blooded kills, but I always felt that the way 47 makes his hits is indeed very cold blooded. You know, killing the target in his own pukes, strangling them to death, killing with a pen through the eye socket… they are mostly a VERY cold blooded kills. Just imagine beeing killed like that.
Well I do like the moral justification in the series. I like the theme of whether 47 is just a tool in Hitman 3, which I think was also touched upon on C47.
However, I don’t like the direction on the theme in Hitman 3 like at all. It’s cheesy and cliched for me.
In my opinion, Hitman (2016) through Hitman 3 required a through plot. There have been a few games that have had zero plot elements at all but generally those are nothing but simulations or ones where the player is expected to create the story themselves. Flight and Racing simulators, for example, don’t typically have story elements, but they don’t need them because they are simulations and really nothing more. A game like The Sims doesn’t have a plot because the player creates the plot based on how they play.
A game like Hitman is either a murder simulator or it’s a story. If it’s just a murder simulator, then there is no reason to kill anyone other than just murdering them. If you want that sort of play, then Contracts mode is probably where you want to be. If it’s a story, then it requires at least some sort of plot line, even if it’s a flimsy one.
I, for one, do enjoy playing some of the contracts, but it gets tiring to just repeatedly kill without any real justification. The maps are built around having one (or more) very specific targets and it’s those targets that have the most complex paths, routines, opportunities, and kill methods. The rest of the NPCs generally are much less defined (some of them never even move). Just having a game where you go kill some target for zero purpose wouldn’t be as engaging and would be pilloried as being nothing more than a murder simulator.
The way that this trilogy is structured, you can skip the cutscenes and almost all of the plot elements if you want to so I’m not sure what else plot wise would need to be removed.
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