The Deluxe Escalations and Season of Sin haven’t exactly gotten off to a great start. I think it mostly comes down to the value proposition of Escalations, though, as most people treat them as ~20-30 minutes of content plus a couple of unlocks.
But… What if there was a “Freeplay” mode for Escalations you get for beating them? To describe the idea:
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All Escalation conditions, besides the targets, are now considered Optional Objectives. You can still fail them and will be notified, but it won’t be a failstate.
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You can save, customise your loadout even if the escalation prohibits it (that’d count as an optional objective failure), ecetera. You essentially treat the Escalation like you would a normal level, just with different Targets.
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Depending on the Escalation, you might either start on the max Level (for Escalations that involve repeated objectives with extra conditions or extras) or at the first Level with every single objective across the Levels chained together (for Escalations that use new objectives for each stage) . For example, for the Satu Mare Delirium, you play on a slightly altered version of the Escalation to chain together all of the level’s parts into one cohesive escape. (there can be exceptions: eg. the Bartholomew Hornswoggle could just be Phase 3 despite it having a unique Phase 1)
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On a case by case basis, IO could make changes to be made for the Freeplay version of the Escalation. For example for Greed, it might be better to have all Targets active simultaneously instead of the one by one system, and merging the Frog’s rewards from all 3 levels would be required.
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Once again, on a case by case basis, IO could choose to implement Challenges related to Freeplay Escalations.
Forgive me if this is the wrong subforum, as I’m not really sure if this fits as a Wishlist thread, or a main Hitman 3 discussion thread. I’m just interested to hear how people would recieve this kind of change. Would it make Escalations a better value proposition for you in paid DLC? Are there any Escalations you’d be eager to see a Freeplay version of?