Since we’ve been getting a lot of celebrity ET’s, I was wondering what if we could get back the very first celebrity ET - Gary Busey, which made it into game way back in 2016.
But there are some problems:
Gary Busey was, similarly to Conor, recently in controversy regarding sexual misconducts. After fiasco that was IOI’s decision to use likeness of McGregor, I doubt they would want to get another sexual abuser as ET.
There probably is a lot of red tape in regard of getting him back, considering it was before IO went independent. Also, they would have to bring back second Gary, Gary Cole.
The ET itself is just not that well designed. It suffers with same issues as many Season 1 ET’s, being too much in open space and having very little ways to eliminated him without raising suspicion. This could be redesigned, but IOI seemingly refuses to ever redesign their ET’s.
So, IMHO, there are four possible outcomes:
They somehow manage to bring Busey (and Cole back) which will probably kick up a lot of dust and will cost them money and reputation
They will hire another celebrity to replace Busey who has similar bombastic aura around itself (like Nick Cage, but I don’t think he would fit into WOA)
They will use some of their existing VA’s to replace both Gary’s and create either new, fictional celebrity to try emulating original Busey’s behavior, or maybe even use their likeness to create a new celebrity VA, which would probably be something very meta. There are some moderately known actors who provide voices for characters in game (Matthew Gravelle, Oliver Cotton, Vera Chok, Royce Pierreson) but they aren’t really a big names, so there wouldn’t be a DLC.
Won’t probably do anything about it, and will just let The Wildcard catch dust in game files (most likely case)
I was thinking about it when I’ve played latest ET and thought it sucked many people never got to play The Wilcard. But, again, it would probably be pretty hard to bring him back because points I’ve mentioned above, and it wouldn’t even be likely worth it.
If they were to replace Gary Busey, then they may as well re-write the entire character since the whole schtick with it is that Busey is known for saying random and outlandish things on a whim. I suspect a lot of the dialogue wasn’t even scripted - that they just told him to say whatever the hell he wanted.
Having a fictional character with the same traits just wouldn’t be the same.
Isn’t the Wildcard a genuinely mediocre mission? Even by Hitman 2016 early ET standards?
It is bad.
It doesn’t change the sincere desire to see all content be available, no matter what.
The same way there are ask about the cut escalations. (I’m one of them there)
Personally, for the mission itself: meh, a low meh. Especially if standing alone, or even headlining a pack.
And for the allegations: no.
Since the only value to the mission is the celebrity cameo, the gameplay being empty. The latter wins out for me.
But revoice acted?
And as part of a larger “Legacy Content, everything is there” package with the cut escalations? Sure, why not.
The thing with the allegations and reputation is that, for now they are just allegations, and IOI didn’t even act on McGregor until it became official. And since Busey was already added to the game before this became a concern, and so he’s already part of the game history, it’s not a mark against IOI for having partnered with him during that time. Bringing him back now, despite the similarities, is not really stinging as much as McGregor, about whom it was basically an “open secret.”
As a person who has heard the raw voice lines in the files, yeah, you do get that impression.
I agree with the thesis presented, just not the whole deal. It’s still not a good look, and while IO seems to not care about their public image too much (they seem to have largely avoided any accountability for collab’-ing with Conor, which is honestly frustrating!), I wouldn’t poke that bear too much.
This will probably stay unused, and frankly, I’m not sad about that. Some stuff is just better left to be eroded by the sands of time; this is one of those things. It wasn’t fun to play, it was quite random as promotions go, and has double the red tape to get through. A triple-whammy of obstacles to get through.
I wouldn’t bet on it releasing anytime soon. If they do, then that’ll be surprising, but I suspect not. A Better use of their time can be spent on redoing old escalations to play better or re-adding some of the challenges that were unfairly culled.
I don’t think it’s a great investment. It is something already existing. It’s just a matter of readapting everything in Hitman: World of Assassination and reshaping the agreements with Gary Busey and Gary Cole.
They did it with almost all Hitman 1. Many people thought that IOI would have never brought back Sarajevo Six. But they did. Maybe with The Wildcard is more difficult, but I hope they’ll do it
But what’s that special with this ET to want it back?
I myself missed it back in the days just because bought the game couple of days after it was gone, but seen a walkthrough of it and then had a chance to play it with mods and see nothing speacial in it to want it back. I would say, this target was somewhat difficult and failure chance was quite high
I still think one of the reason Sarajevo Six were brought back is because Hitman 2016 was delisted. Fulfilling the exclusivity agreement and its end. The rights to S6 might have been IOI to give then, and to have naturally returned back now.
So it might be even less transferable. The core rights of the Wildcard might not be IOI at all to begin with.
The only people ioi would have to re-negotiate with are Gary Busey and Gary Cole for the return of their likeness and voice acting. Everything else is their work and belongs to them.
Totally unrelated, but damn I want to hear him in Hitman at least one more time. For being such a great actor he was kinda underutilised, appearing only in handful of main missions.
