Season of Undying (First Roadmap 2024)

I see, so it is part of the winter roadmap until the four elusive targets without announcement that are currently underway are finished.
Then you are right, it will most likely be updated with the March 21 update.

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Well, these 4 ETs (plus the FC batch came in sudden curated by Frote7) are not Year 3 winter roadmap content. They just belong to an unannounced ‘Year 4 - February Roadmap’.

The reason why they don’t change roadmap for now (that’s an IO server change, which requires no game client updates) is just no contents of the new Undying roadmap will be available in game recently.

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21st March can’t come quick enough. Give me them Safehouse cosmetics :joy:

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Must ask, is the FC Batch on March 21st just the 2nd Half of the Frote batch or is it a new batch?

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Interview with IOI conducted on 04th Jan 2024.

Interesting read to be fair. They discussed the production and release of Absolution, briefly about Blood Money and the release of the WOA trilogy.

One part of the interview that did catch my eye.

"There’ll be more chapters written in the Hitman story, that’s for sure," Elverdam says. But for now, 47 is preparing to put down his weapons for a little while. Support for Hitman has started “ramping down”, we’re told, and is now the smallest team in the company.

We know that 47 will return in years to come, but it sounds to me that ‘Year 4’ could very well be the last year of content before 47 puts his feet up in the Safehouse for a little while :smiling_face_with_tear:

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Bro I was genuinely surprised Year 4 even exists, good on IOI for even supporting a single player game for 4(!!!) years from release.

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Dunno if these numbers were already known, but I was quite surprised reading that “Hitman 3 was 33% of the [already reduced] budget of Hitman 2”.

Also, this bit about the cooperation with Sumo Digital (who did Santa Fortuna and Isle of Sgail) during the time of the Squexit seems insane to me:

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I could tell Hitman 3 had a lower budget than Hitman 2, but the fact they were able to make it as good as it was with only 1/3 of the budget is honestly really impressive

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Personally, I found it very interesting how much the studio knew that Absolution wasn’t the Hitman they wanted to make. They knew there were problems before it was even released.

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But had no problem making their next game an always-online project. Sure.

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The reduced budgets don’t surprise me tbh, because the bulk of the work of the game was done in H1 (like they acknowledge in the article).

So it’s not like ioi built a new game from scratch, H2 and H3 are essentially DLC expansions.

H2 also scrapped the elaborate, CGI cutscenes from H1. And H3 went with in-game cutscenes. All cost saving decisions.

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The only location the reduced budget is truly felt is, I think, Chongqing.

The rest of the game is smaller in scale to H2, and even some of H2016. But it’s in an assumed way, reminiscent of the New York Bank. Less sprawling, still fully realised.

Chongqing always felt like the throttled version of what’s intended.


Though, it might be because it’s the one city map of H3, and my expectation of it.
It has the same amount of set pieces, dramas, cinematic, acts, and story attention of the rest of the level. Perception is not helped by the major scene of the core/alarm being optional.

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It did show a bit on the NPC Models at least in which H3 reused some Models from H2 and just recolored them such as the Male House Staff from Dartmoor being based on the Waiters from Miami, the Block Guards and Core Engineers being based on the Haven Island Tech Staff or pretty much all Professions from Mendoza being based on previous models, the only exception being I think the Gauchos.

In the Context of this, Dubai and in particular Berlin are probably the locations that feature the most models that aren’t visibility based on previous work.

(Btw. That’s not meant as a front or anything. Just a fact I wanted to point out.)

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It had the lower budget in comparison to Hitman 2, but in my opinion, Hitman III is the best game out of the WOA Trilogy :grin:

I think I remember IOI saying its their best selling Hitman game of all time as well

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Gameplay-wise, I think so too, although story-wise I think H1 was the best; it set up a really good story that H2 kinda tripped over, but I chalk that up to IOI having to go solo as the reason for why that shifted so suddenly between games.

I do agree with @LandirtHome that Chongqing is where it really feels like what could have been the crown jewel of H3 was somehow dulled down. It’s also where several reasons to be disappointed with WoA in both story and gameplay were at their most prominent, between losing the ICA and having the largest city in China be so sparsely populated, when I was expecting something more akin to Mumbai or the Marrakesh marketplace.

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I know I’m in the minority but the sparse population of Chongqing is one of things that makes it a favorite of mine. If it had been as dense as Mumbai or Marrakesh, I would have hated it, personally.

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I can see that point, but we do already have sparsely populated maps, like Whittleton Creek and Dartmoor. For what is supposed to be the largest city in what was, at the time of release, the most heavily populated country in the world, I expected a much denser crowd, despite it being late at night and raining.

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I wouldn’t say so.
The main thing that was in focus is the rain mechanics on this location.
I guess the majority of funds and efforts were thrown on that.
But even despite it, the location is pretty much HITMANish.
Maybe it should’ve been more thorough level layout design, but in general I would say Chonqing is quite a decent location

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I actually agree with you on that @schatenjager.
The Author is one of my favourite variant of Sapienza for a reason.

But, I still think Chongqing streets are underwhelming. It wouldn’t have been my dream Hitman map (the fabled “one city block”), but still.

It just shows enough of “normal life” to open the appetite, but not to satiate. And that’s my favourite part of city maps.
It would also have been perfect for this “47 gained empathy and desire for his own life” mission, having him going through sleeping living spaces. So close, so far. So calm in contrast to the ICA part of the map.
Maybe with added environmental storytelling of parallels to him, like what was done a bit with the “have you seen a girl around?” woman.


And right thing @Count.Rushmore. Thanks for reminding me, so caught up in level architecture that I mistakenly skipped on that. Wouldn’t be surprised if even engine wise it was more areas/NPCs or the rain and neons.
In which case, fair, and good decision. Chongqing is memorable and unique for it.

(I still wish for a bonus mission that revamps the Block into five apartments and a penthouse.)


Footnote:

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Chongqing feels small (lolz) because it’s a vertical level. If you laid out all the individual areas side by side it would be bigger (lolz x2). :joy: