Playing Hitman the Wrong Way

If I might just quote myself from earlier in this thread, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this…

Do you have any ideas for how non-target objectives could be implemented in more interesting ways in future? Personally, I remain deeply sceptical that they can provide engaging, rewarding and replayable gameplay on the same level as assassination objectives.

One that I can think of off the top of my head would be sort of how they did the climax scene in Thomas Crown Affair where you have some piece of intel that is in a briefcase and you have to collect it. The gimmick though is the the intel is constantly moving around. The briefcase could change hands repeatedly. Be locked in a safe for a while and then someone get is and moved it somewhere else. You wouldn’t necessarily need to kill anyone, but you’d have to figure out the movements of the intel and how to obtain it. You could randomize the route or the carriers or the safes to make it more replayable.

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Little trivia: All games except Blood Money and HITMAN 2 had at least one level where you didn’t have to kill anyone.

  • In Codename 47’s “The Jungel God” you just had to reach the exit which was guarded by a Jaguar. Simply running past the Jaguar was possible.

  • In Silent Assassin you only had to reach the exit in “Hidden Valley” and “At the Gates”, while “Graveyard Shift” required you to hack a server.

  • In Contracts, the goal of the first level was to escape from the Asylum.

  • Not sure about Absolution, but I think there may have been one or two missions without a target. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

  • This may be a bit of a stretch but HITMAN 1 (technically 2 as well) had the two tutorial missions in which everything was simulated. Killing included.

  • And finally, HITMAN 3 allowed you to spare your final target.

That said, I don’t really want a Hitman game without targets. That’s like a GTA game without police chases and gun fights. It may still be funny but not what I want from the franchise.

However, the franchise could possibly take some inspirations from the Dishonored series and offer the players a nonlethal way to deal with targets. Storywise this could be explained with no longer working for the ICA and thus the goal is to neutralize the targets, which doesn’t necessarily requieres killing them.

For example, you could trick Penelope Graves into thinking that the Militia is planning to kill her and then distract her bodyguards, making her flee form the compound. Or have a target’s crimes exposed to the public leading to an arrest. Or revealing to a criminal organization that the target intended to double cross them, forcing the target to go into hiding.

Of course, that may not work for every target on every map but once in a while, it could be nice to have a non-lethal option. And since killing is still a valid method you aren’t missing out on creative ways to put the target six feet under.

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In Hitman Codename 47 there was also mission Gunrunner’s Paradise without any targets.

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I think having Hitman levels where the objective can be resolved without killing anyone OR killing targets is okay. (I think Dartmoor and New York could’ve easily just had Diana approve their objective carriers as approved eliminations, but not mandatory)

However, I don’t want this series to go full old immersive sim and make a nonlethal playthrough possible.

I think these nonlethal elimination ideas are great when they’re feeling like they’re empowering the player, (like how the Kashmirian kill in Mumbai does, for example) but not when it feels too restrictive or that there’s a “right” way to play per se, which is one of Dishonored’s major downfalls for example- You have a lot of tools but only about a third of them are approved for nonlethal runs.

Also, re. Happy_Squirrel’s question on how non-target objectives could be done better in the future, IMO a good idea for a future Hitman game, regardless of non-target objectives would be a proper dialogue system for manipulating NPC behaviour.

As an extreme example of how this system could be implemented if done well, an alternative to killing a target could be interrogating them at gunpoint based on the story setup, which could be done dynamically in any location as long as you can get them alone. In terms of how you achieve that condition, it’d be pretty similar to what you have to go through to assassinate them.

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“Hitman without killing anyone”

What’s next, GTA without stealing cars and motorcycles?

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No problem, you can still use boats, planes, helis and bicicles. :grinning:

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Also Find the U’wa Tribe in Codename 47 had no targets. Think now we got all missions without target, at least in classic games.

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Technically, in all the cases of outsourcing, 47 didn’t kill the targets.

But, the cases where there are no targets are for plot and gameplay purposes, and the few where he doesn’t kill the target (simulated missions, Soder’s heart, the Constant) are very special occasions. Don’t want a game called Hitman where I’m not actually ending a target’s life, unless it involves setting things up where they will die, but you can still complete the mission before they do, like crushing Soders’s heart.

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True, there were no targets but you still had to kill some guards to progress. If you’re fast enough you can reach the crashed plane before the guards and grab the idol without a fight. However, when you have to rescues the chieftain’s brother you need to take out the NPCs watching him before he makes his escape.

I am just wondering how it can be OK to get SA raiting for a level, where you have nobody to asasinate?

Hitman Absolution actually tackled that problem with Silent Assassin just… Not being possible on most of the levels, I think with only 4 exceptions.

Anyway, we have technically already crossed this bridge with the final mission of Hitman 3, Untouchable. I think it’s reasonable for “Silent Assassin” to just be a title representing your prestige and not always a literal descriptor of what you did.

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47 wouldn’t be very good at his job if you could do this :joy:. Absolution has the one level where you can spare Lenny. It fits within the story of the game. I can’t see this becoming a regular or even semi regular aspect though. It just would not make sense.

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