I never noticed it before but only today I realized that there is not a single elevator in Hitman World of Assassination trilogy. It might seem a bit unrealistic when we don’t have a single elevator even in an advanced place like Chongqing, China, not in the ICA headquarters, nor even in the place where Hush is experimenting.
It is quite unrealistic that such an advanced hospital in Japan for the ultra rich, an expensive ultra rich hotel like the Himappan Hotel, DaWood Rangan’s tower- none of these places have working elevators. At least the hospital should have had elevators.
Now I can’t think of any reason why elevators were not included -
Even in Hitman Silent Assassin, we had elevators in the Russia mission where you escape with Agent Smith, and the final India mission.
If I remember correctly, Even Traditions of the Trade had working elevators… in Hitman Codename 47.
Despite so much realism in the games, what could the reason elevators are not there in World of Assassination trilogy?
I believe @Robin_2024 meant a functional elevator like, for example, in Hitman: Blood Money.
Elevator shafts are in Hitman:WOA but not active elevators.
If we go deeper, there are not many things that move and are part of the active area of the map. With small exceptions like in mission The Icon with fire robot.
Which I would completely understand if they hadn’t already done that very thing eleven years earlier in Blood Money, in not one, not two, but three different maps, with far worse AI and more antiquated technology to pull it off.
WoA is based on the Glacier engine first used in Absolution, while all the other games weren’t. There obviously must be a technical hurdle the Glacier devs/users/programmers can’t overcome to implement a functional (e.g., up-and-down-moving) elevator.
But who knows? Maybe we’ll see it in the 007 game.
It’s certainly possible to an extent. @Notex made a somewhat functional one (a while ago now, late 2021). It’s a bit rough around the edges, things IOI could refine.
It’s missing one important thing, AI support. While I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t be theoretically possible to add this in, it would be a massive undertaking. From HITMAN (2016) onwards, Glacier uses a middleware, NavPower, for pathfinding and, as far as I know, it doesn’t have support for elevators OOB. You’d have to specifically add support for it.
While I can see IOI opting to do this (or NavPower might have better support for it now) for 007 or future games, it just doesn’t make sense in terms of cost and time to add it for WoA levels, especially when the same result can be achieved with stairs (EDIT: which have a bigger footprint).
Too complex of a feature that would require loads of testing and polishing, potentially being a breeding ground for countless glitches, and that wouldn’t really add any substantial depth to gameplay.
Sure, it would be cool to ride elevators for esthetical reasons, but simply waiting inside to get to the needed floor would get boring real quick. Running up or down the stairs at least feels like you’re doing something.
I always wondered why they couldn’t have them and then just have a fire escape staircase directly next to them, but of course, the player would typically or nearly always just opt for the stairs due to it being quicker. The fix for that? Key lock the fire escape but not the elevator… which would just aggravate the player
Given how often guns and other things can fall through floors, probably a good thing they skipped them. Would be annoying af to watch something related to a mission story fall through the floor and out of bounds down an elevator shaft.
I believe IOI decided not to use elevators cuz they couldn’t pay the construction team enough as they already had functioning stairs. The budget would have been too high for the team to afford that
Regarding traveling up and down floors… Going up is the slower method given you have the ability to slide down ladders and pipes. There’s also a speedrunner’s tactic/exploit of firing, and holding aim while moving backwards down a stairs, but I don’t think most regular players would bother with that method. Running and climbing up to the next floor is okay. If you had multiple floors to go up - hypothetically, an elevator would be optimal. It would be the alternative to the slide method of going down.
Another thing to consider is floor/ceiling height between stories and how long it takes to run or climb up. That would be an interesting comparison to make. How long does it take 47 to run up a stairs diagonally vs climbing a pipe or ladder?
47 loads up an elevator with KO’d bodies. Diana radios in asking why he put all those people in the elevator. 47, in a bellhop disguise responds; “To take them all down.” (ding)
in-game cutscene only
