Pitch Your Own Escalations & ET Arcades - Megathread (+ links to every other "Design Your Own Live Content" thread)

[Grim47]

The purpose of this topic is to share ideas for Escalation and ET Arcade contracts, in case IOI wants to make them again. I’ll ping @Combatglue just this once so he knows about this thread, but don’t ping any IOI staff with your idea. If it’s good and escalations are feasible to make again, hopefully this thread can inspire them:

—Escalation RULESET—

In your post, include:

• Name of escalation
• What map or variation of the map it’s set on
• A short description of each level, max three levels
• If you have pictures or names of the NPCs you want to be targets in the level, post them in the relevant levels
• Alternatively, if you have a set of contracts that you want turned into an escalation post the codes of each contract corresponding to what level it would be and add any further description from there

—ET Arcade RULESET—

In your post, include:

• Name of ET Arcade
• What ET(s) it includes and in what level of the Arcade is each ET
• An arcade match has a maximum of 3 levels
• Each level can include up to 2 optional stipulations, like no disguise changes, or 1 non-optional like restricted loadout
• At least one level has to have a stipulation
• Specify if a stipulation is across the whole Arcade track or only on a specific level
• Stipulations can be swapped out. So if level 1 has no disguise changes, level 2 can have a different stipulation as long as no disguise changes isn’t in level 2. This is the only way to have more than 2 stipulations per track
• If a target has a kill condition (a specific weapon or disguise), this counts as one stipulation per. So both a specific weapon and disguise being required for the Arcade level would come out as two stipulations
• Objectives within the ET can be changed in a level or an entire track. This counts as a non-optional stipulation, examples of which include: “Do Not Eliminate” added for specific NPCs in the map, “Eliminate” added for specific NPCs in the map, Making specific targets non-targets in two target ETs or both Making specific targets non-targets in an ET AND adding “Eliminate” for specific NPCs in the map

Links to all other “Design Your Own…” Threads:

Hitman WOA - Challenge Ideas

The purpose of this topic is to share ideas for challenges - feats and assassinations in Hitman: WOA. Consider this an opportunity to inspire IO Interactive. In your post, include: Name of challenge Type of challenge Conditions of challenge Mission Feel free to add a short description, an image, or any necessary information. I’ll leave you to prepare… [image] Please note that posting Your idea means You are giving IOI full permission and consent to take Your idea and use it in the game.

Create Your Own Fan-Made Elusive Target

Originally created by @DangerousPack49 in the old forum.

Pitch Your Own Escalations & ET Arcades - Megathread (+ links to every other "Design Your Own Live Content" thread)

The purpose of this topic is to share ideas for Escalation and ET Arcade contracts, in case IOI wants to make them again. I’ll ping @Combatglue just this once so he knows about this thread, but don’t ping any IOI staff with your idea. If it’s good and escalations are feasible to make again, hopefully this thread can inspire them: —Escalation RULESET— In your post, include: Name of escalation What map or variation of the map it’s set on A short description of each level, max three levels If you…

If you make a thread for pitching design ideas for other aspects of the game’s live content link them here and I’ll add them to this list

Please note that posting Your idea means You are giving IOI full permission and consent to take Your idea and use it in the game.

My ideas for Escalations

Idea 1: The Omnivorous Dinner

• Set on Santa Fortuna, Colombia. Embrace of the Serpent variant

1. The first level will involve eliminating or KOing the Hippo instructor and Rico Delgado then feeding them to the Hippo. There are no disguise restrictions yet.
2. The second level involves feeding the Hippo instructor, the Shaman and Rico Delgado to the Hippo. There are no disguise restrictions yet, but a secondary objective is that you can bargain for a target’s life by finding either meat or fruit to feed to the Hippo. The amount of fruit/meat needed is 5 pieces.
3. The third and final level involves feeding the Hippo until he’s full. This includes feeding him either 5 Villagers or 5 Guards. Again, bargaining for their lives with meaty bones and fruit is possible but the amount of fruit/meat needed is now 8 pieces.

Idea 2: The Santa Sleigh

• Level 1 tasks you with opening 5 of the gifts around the map, with each gift’s reward being changed to a piece of coal, which acts as a reskin of the gunpowder item. After doing this a new objective shows up: to eliminate Santa
• Level 2 starts in the attic with you in the Santa disguise, with the objective to Eliminate Santa using a Cannon. Santa will now spawn in several different points of the map, standing in front of a cannon each time with the objective to find gunpowder or coal and cannon balls to eliminate Santa
• Level 3 involves reskinning several NPCs in the game to have the same models as targets featured in the trilogy, with you assuming Santa’s wardrobe but starting in the auction - with all the auction guests being targets sitting around bidding. With the other reskinned characters being Ljudmila as Helmut, Marcus as the Sheikh and Noel Crest as Kurt for example

[Kevin_Rudd]

[Dribbleondo]

I’d be more inclined to post stuff in the wishlist thread if that thread was ever read.

…bread.

[Combatglue]

@Grim47

I’ll ping @Combatglue

Thank you for the ping,
I am having a internal meeting about similar things later this week, will bring this up there.

appreciate it!

[Yellow_cat]

100%
I don’t remember ever taking anything from this thread and adding it to the game

[Kevin_Rudd]

Hey, they took half of two of my suggestions posted there

[Yellow_cat]

4 years ago…And now they add something?..

[Dribbleondo]

That was also during the tenure of Travis and Clemens, two people who reliably read this forum fairly often.

The only wishlist-esque thing that comes to mind in recent memory is moving the location order of ambrose and sgail. Other than that, the thread has been left to be neglected since the start of 2024.

[Dribbleondo]

Just to start us off btw:

The Piracy Luminescence
Ambrose Island, Andaman Sea

1. The first level will ask the player to turn on the light at the tower to draw Akka and Noel Crest to the office. Kill them with any means necessary.
2. The second level requires the player to turn on the light at the tower, and kill Akka and Noel Crest while in their office while disguised as one of Akka’s pirate crew, and without anyone seeing illegal actions.
3. The final level requires the player to turn on the light at the tower, and kill Akka and Noel Crest with the cannon at the ruins while disguised as The Buccaneer.

Reward: Cannonball:

The Ambrose Omission
Ambrose Island, Andaman Sea

1. The first level will ask the player to create a Makeshift explosive as a metalworker, and kill Rahul Patil (the lone engineer at the back of the pier on Akka’s side of the island) with it.
2. The second level requires the player to create a Makeshift explosive, kill Rahul Patil with it, then kill Shuchun Tan (a woman reading the new york magazine near the docks outside her home) with an oil canister.
3. The final level will have both items in the players’ inventory, and will ask the player to kill Rahul Patil with a Molotov cocktail, Shuchun Tan with the Makeshift Explosive, and Siddarth Mogul with the Oil canister.

Reward: Makeshift Explosive.

Rahul Patil:

Shuchun Tan:

Siddarth Mogul:

The Neighbouring Dormancy
Ambrose Island, Andaman Sea

1. The first level will ask the player to kill three people sleeping with a silenced pistol within three minutes: Nirmal Lad, Mahodol Songprawati, and Durgeswar Dhingra.
2. The second level will ask the player to kill three people sleeping with a silenced sniper rifle within two minutes: Nirmal Lad, Mahodol Songprawati, and Durgeswar Dhingra.
3. The final level will ask the player to kill three people sleeping within two minutes: Nirmal Lad with a silenced sniper rifle, Durgeswar Dhingra with an unsilenced sniper rifle, and Sri Narasimhan with an unsilenced pistol.

Reward: Antique Sedative Syringe:

[LandirtHome]

A return of escalations could be interesting.
Especially if they are “secondary” roadmap content. Even more if items unlocks are linked to them, and not just a challenge.
But I don’t see them the best course for the game as “primary”, “flagship” roadmap content.

---

The kind of escalations like The McCallister Ransack (link to the wiki for the curious).

• This sort of escalation brings a kind of gameplay you cannot do in Contract Mode, Freelancer… (here traveral, but it can be anything not “elimination of target” based)
• It is simple to produce
• It arrives with a gameplay relevant unlock (here it was the only unlockable crowbar)

I’m also really curious of what the devs could come up with.
Other examples are the The Quimby Quandary (traversal, throwing a briefcase around), The Dubious Cohabitation (bit sized, but a unique sniping nest obligation)…
Anything that doesn’t fall in the “could be remade in Contract Mode”.

---

But for “flagship” escalations:

• High production escalations (with map revamp) are a bit of a waste and limited by the structure of the escalations.
  • The Dartmoor Garden Show is best played when made a custom contract with 5 targets present in one stage. (It being a three stage esclation comes with a mandatory run around the map to arrive a the target every time, and the loadout being refreshed meant the map and its item were useless to use)
  • They would be better as bonus map.
  • Halloween Escalation in Whittleton Creek is a frequent ask and would be better as a bonus mission if it comes to be.
• (almost) all escalations since Hitman 3 were made “limited loadout”, and so poor re-playability, and frankly poor gameplay.
  • (I suspect it is cause by the 10 years worth of unlocks that allows to break their design without this limitation)
• The game now has evolving objectives, better suited to bonus mission or ET. Escalations are just the worst version for scenario/map/deluxe escalation now.

---

Honestly if IOI is looking for roadmap flagship primary content goes, I will stay with my wish of the Lessons Learned Campaign. (wink wink nudge nudge @combatglue before your meeting)

But if it’s to have some bit sized fun, enhance the unlocks condition, and give more spice to the roadmaps, I embrace it.

[Dribbleondo]

@LandirtHome

The Dartmoor Garden Show is best played when made a custom contract with 5 targets present in one stage.

That is…debatable. 5-target contracts on any map is already a big ask (especially if they have extra annoying complications such as not being spotted and destroying security cameras) – it is not uncommon for players to be put off by 5-target contracts, even on more manageable maps because it takes too long and it’s too much hassle…on a mode that forbids saving, no less, let-alone on a map where it has so few scripted NPC’s and a lot of crowd NPC’s.

@LandirtHome

They would be better as bonus map.

I don’t think that’s inherently true of escalations, especially since DGS is quite a small play space anyway – in a map that was already quite small. This is more true of Elusive Targets, as their time-limited nature makes the bigger production values feel more pointless, even with ETA preserving the levels. Less so with escalations, as those are permanent (In fact, my main complaint with the Banker’s ETA contract is the fact it doesn’t meaningfully remix the level on each stage).

Meanwhile, 7DS has plenty of production value in its mechanics and some of its aesthetic, and none of that feels wasted or would be “better as a bonus map”.

@LandirtHome

(almost) all escalations since Hitman 3 were made “limited loadout”, and so poor re-playability, and frankly poor gameplay.

Having a limited loadout does not mean escalations have poor replayability, most locations are vast enough to have plenty of tools and weapons to find in the field, and there are very few very small maps in the game. Nor does it mean their gameplay will suffer?

@LandirtHome

(I suspect it is cause by the 10 years worth of unlocks that allows to break their design without this limitation)

…No, it’s more that escalations are themed, and therefore more like a challenge run, or have their own unique mechanics. It has very little to do with items being more powerful.

The Unpalatable Termination forces the use of an unsilenced shotgun, the Cheveyo Calibration forces sniping. The Dexter Discordance asks you to kill people in (Amos’s?) room. Lust is all about traversal and using what you can to get keys and work who the admirer is. None of these are bad because they are limited loadout. They are designed in a specific way to follow a theme, and are fun in their own right.

I just do not follow the logic here.

The game now has evolving objectives, better suited to bonus mission or ET. Escalations are just the worst version for scenario/map/deluxe escalation now.

This is just reductive now. Having escalations with objectives that change or get added might actually add more replayability to them, on top of what they already offer. They are not a worse version of anything, they are a valid game mode in their own right.

[Tom-Kannaduki]

Escalation name: The Mills Nightmare
Destination: Ambrose Island, Andaman Sea
Description: Mills seems to be having another dream.
Scare him by performing a designated assassination to wake him from his slumber.

Level 1:
Disguise yourself as a Cook and drown Orson Mills.

Level 2:
Disguise yourself as a Militia Soldier and assassinate Orson Mills with a cannon.
Complication: One Disguise Change.

Level 3:
Disguise yourself as a The Buccaneer and assassinate Orson Mills with a Jarl’s pirate saber.
Complication: Restricted loadout. Do not get spotted.

Reward:
Mills Militia Soldier uniforms

[magicdave94]

— The Illusory Hematophagy —

Destination : Paris
Description: Disguised as the Vampire Magician, drain the blood of unsuspecting victims for your targets to consume.

Starting location: Empty Attic Room
Starting disguise: Vampire Magician

Level 1:
• Acquire the “Bloodsucker”
Note: Located in Dalia’s room.
The Bloodsucker would act as a sedative syringe with the addition of giving a “Blood Vial” (lethal poison) upon use.
The Bloodsucker is reusable, but can not be used while carrying a blood vial i.e. you cannot just sedate everyone and stock up on vials.
• Drain the blood of an unsuspecting victim.
• Use a blood vial to poison Emmanuel Bourgeois.

Level 2:
• Additional complication: Blood Degradation; blood vials must be added to a drink within 60 seconds.
• Use a blood vial to poison Emmanuel Bourgeois and Olivier Lauzier.

Level 3:
• Additional complication: No Disguise changes.
• Use a blood vial to poison Emmanuel Bourgeois, Olivier Lauzier and Sheikh Salman Al-Ghazali.

Reward: Vampire Magician suit, +4000 XP

[Yamitora1]

I think it would be cool to do an escalation where you have to collect every coin in a level, than kill that many people. kind of like that one Hokkaido one where you had to kill anyone who entered and trespassed into 47’s room.

[Tetrafish_21]

@Yamitora1

you have to collect every coin in a level

Don’t do this in Miami.

[Dribbleondo]

The Jackson Retaliation
New York, Golden Handshake

1. The first level asks the player to pacify Logan Jackson and take his clothes, then exit the level.
2. The second level asks you to pacify Logan Jackson and take his clothes, without pacifying Marty Allmon, then exit the level
3. The final level asks the player to pacify Logan Jackson and take his clothes, without pacifying Marty Allmon, and then kill Athena Savalas with an explosive.

Reward: The Freedom Pizza Slice (Basically a pizza slice that you can put on the ground and acts like a banana).

Logan Jackson:

Marty Allmon:

[Dribbleondo]

The Rooftop Suppression
Colorado, Freedom Fighters

Water Tower spawn is enforced:

1. The first level asks you to pacify Aaron Collier and Jake Day, then kill Franklin Crew in an electrocution accident, then exit the level.
2. The second level asks the player to pacify Aaron Collier and Jake Day, then kill Franklin Crew in an electrocution accident, then exit the level. MODIFIER: Once the player accesses the rooftop, they cannot leave, and if they do so, will have 15 seconds to return to the rooftop or the mission will fail. This modifier will end when all objectives are completed.
3. The final level asks the player to pacify Aaron Collier and Jake Day, then kill Franklin Crew in an electrocution accident, then kill Maya Parvati in an accident, then exit the level. MODIFIER: Once the player accesses the rooftop, they cannot leave, and if they do so, will have 15 seconds to return to the rooftop or the mission will fail. This modifier will end when all objectives are completed.

Reward: The Apricot Jam Jar (throwable melee item that smashes).

Aaron Collier

Jake Day

Franklin Crew

Maya Parvarti

[magicdave94]

— The Cushat Incarceration —

Destination : Whittleton Creek
Description: Lock away the sleeping police officer Billy Pidgeon, and clear some pigeons from around the Creek.

Level 1:
• Pacify Billy Pidgeon.
• Shoot 3 pigeons around Whittleton Creek.
• Complication: Billy Pidgeon must be hidden in a container.

Level 2:
• Shoot 4 pigeons.
• Additional complication: You are only allowed one pacification.

Level 3:
• Shoot 5 pigeons.
• Additional complication: Restricted loadout.
• Additional complication: Once a pigeon has been shot, the next one must be shot within 30 seconds.

Reward: Remote Sedative Stuffed Pigeon, +4000 XP

[magicdave94]

— The Hammer Disharmony —

Destination : Whittleton Creek
Description : Use a hammer to deal with Hammer and The Hammer, grab their guns and cock the hammer.

Level 1:
• Acquire a hammer.
• Pacify Spencer “The Hammer” Green using a hammer.
• Eliminate Malcolm Hammer while disguised as Spencer “The Hammer” Green using his shotgun.

Level 2:
• Acquire a hammer.
• Pacify Malcolm Hammer using a hammer.
• Eliminate Spencer “The Hammer” Green while disguised as Malcolm Hammer using his pistol.
• Complication: Items cannot be thrown or dropped.

Level 3:
• Acquire a hammer.
• Pacify either Malcolm Hammer or Spencer “The Hammer” Green using a hammer. Only one of them may be pacified during the mission.
• Eliminate Spencer “The Hammer” Green while disguised as Malcolm Hammer using his pistol.
• Eliminate Malcolm Hammer while disguised as Spencer “The Hammer” Green using his shotgun.
• Complication: Items cannot be thrown or dropped.
• Complication: After picking up the hammer, the mission must be completed in 1 minute. Every NPC pacified with the hammer extends the timer by 30 seconds.

Reward: Sledge Hammer, +4000 XP

[Kevin_Rudd]

The Ardern Marksmanship

Based on my modded mission Sniper Assassin: Hawke’s Bay (I grant permission to use my files )

It is normal escalation mode BUT uses the Sniper Assassin scoring system. Scoring system but not sniper rules, meaning accident deaths are allowed to be discovered without penalty.

Level 1:

• Eliminate 12 militia members
• Get at least 90 000 points

Level 2:

• Eliminate 12 militia members
• Get at least 100 000 points
• WILDCARD: Some things have been changed (Hanging potted plant kills removed, time of day is now sunset)
• Complete the mission within 7 minutes

Level 3:

• Eliminate 12 militia members
• Get at least 120 000 points
• WILDCARD: Some things have been changed (body hiding sand pile removed, time of day is now night)
• Your targets are no longer marked in instinct
• Complete the mission within 7 minutes

Unlock: Tactical Gear (No Hat)