Sicily, ANATHEMA (Mission #1) - Discussion Thread

I’ve seen that we have these for Blood Money and Contracts, but not Silent Assassin, so let’s get on it! I’ll be posting these periodically to allow for discussion on them. This could include general thoughts on the mission, as well as how you approach them. I will be skipping the tutorial, but we can talk about that when discussion Redemption at Gontranno.

Anyway, on to Anathema!

Briefing:
"47 — This is Diana from Agency. We’re all happy you’re back doing business for us.

This mutual arrangement we made to rescue your friend and mentor Father Vittorio means you will have to take care of a number of mafia members residing at the Villa Borghese, where he is kept hostage in the basement.

Prime target is Giuseppe Guillani. Security is not exactly lax — plenty of guards roaming the mansion compound. However, don’t expect to free Vittorio just like that.

The Don is running a tight ship, and if alarmed he will probably kill the hostage and escape. They are used to people coming to pay respect, ransoms or bribes - but they are alerted by unusual activities, check out the map we have of the grounds.

Buena Fortuna, 47!

Diana Burnwood"

Objectives:
1. Kill Giuseppe Guillani.
2. Take key to the basement cell from Guillani.
3. Rescue Vittorio in the basement.
4. Escape

2 Likes

OK, so let’s start out with my own thoughts.

On the plus side, it’s a great way to establish the game’s approach to assassination right off the bat. We have a mansion with multiple entry points to both the ground and building, some cool disguises, and even a bunch of secrets - like a car key hidden in a tree!

However, it’s a rough entry point - especially for modern gamers - due to how punishing the enemy AI is. If you want to get that coveted silent assassin rating, you’ve got a job on. The guards here border on broken with how suspicious they get at everything, and the disguises only really get you so far. It’s likely that this will end up messy for anyone playing the first time.

How I do it? Well, I used to grab a guard disguise and wander on up carefully, but I realised that if you shoot him with the sniper in the garage very early into the mission he will almost always fall off. With the key now on the mansion grounds, there’s no reason to tiptoe around inside.

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Anathema is like the first showing of what a good Hitman level should really be like.

The “punishing AI” problem is a funny one, as it’s my belief that part of the reason is punishing is actually an intention from the devs to tutorialise.

Try testing this: if you grab a bodyguard disguise and go through the nearest entry point, then as you approach the mansion running, the game will give a tutorial message:

Hint: If you run the guards will be more aware and may see through your disguise.

It conveniently shows this message when you approach the building - and also, the guards just outside the building also behave differently to most other NPCs and guards. They will instantly aggro if they see you running, even from far, even for a second - but here’s the kicker - this will only happen if you have the camera pointed in their direction. If you point the camera away from them, you can run past, no issues.

My read on this is: the devs wanted to teach that running is suspicious and would be punished, so decided to basically guarantee that happens early in this mission to teach players (and even ensure they are looking toward the guards so they’re seeing the result of their actions).

However, I do think this kind of lying to the player is a terrible mistake. It causes most players to become too cautious from then on, because they have this example of even a little running causing instant aggro… which is the reputation this game now has.

As someone who has really experimented with pushing how much you can run vs. how much you have to act casual, I can definitely say that most of the game actually lets you get away with far more running. You do have to balance the suspicion from running with the slowness of walking by alternating between running and walking as needed, but you definitely have a lot more leeway then people seem to think.

Anyway, that’s just something I realised while practicing fast, consistent runs on this mission. I think this piece of tutorialisation actually does a fair bit of harm on the mentality of players going forward. I do wonder how many people can cite this exact thing as being where they started feeling like you can never run if you want SA.

(btw there is at least one other case of this “instant spotting but only when the camera is pointed towards the NPC” thing in the game too, in front of Hayamoto’s house - ah, old games and their shenanigans)

5 Likes

For sure, I understand their attention but feel it does more harm than good. Especially as it results in a broken difficulty curve since I would argue the game becomes far more forgiving until Tracking Hayamoto, and then becomes easier again until Nuristan.

It is definitely a decent level but I would certainly have tweaked a few elements.

I never played C47 so Silent Assassin was my first taste of Hitman. I had no idea what the hell the game was about. Must’ve spent an hour to two on this mission.

First time I’m pretty sure I chose the postman disguise and still approached the gate with my all my weapons and wondered why I was getting shot.

2 Likes

My favourite H2 level :hugs:


Well designed and puts you right into the action and game story :+1:

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I used to use the postman disguise too! I cottoned onto the guns but would have issues getting upstairs!

Perfect starting position to see the target and entry opportunities!

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I don’t mind the difficulty curve not following a traditional video game path of each level is slightly harder than the last. It certainly made sense the 20 guys at the mafia house all knew each other by name but the multiple dozens of Russian soldiers did not. The game found other ways to make later levels challenging even if the guards gave you a little more breathing room than level one.

Embarrassingly though, I never noticed the ledge when I first played so I never got SA on this level until years and years later. That’s what makes Hitman so good though and one of the reasons I love the franchise. You can always find something you didn’t see before. I am rambling now but part of why I hated the challenges in WOA was that they told you what to go find which took away a lot of the actual exploration. It was hunting not discovering. They threw a few extra things not in the challenges in like giving the blow to Florida Man, but not many.

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Yeah, I understand that. I get why they did it as it’s far more friendly to newcomers, but I think it should have been limited to two or three guided stories and then others you find out!

1 Like

Here is my approach. I like to try to complete the missions in a way that lets you experience and see the most of what it has to offer. For me personally, I DEEPLY believe this THIS is the canonical and definitive path. It always bothered me that this one mission makes it impossible to get all the weapons without doing a replay!

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Yes! I am always seeing people talk about how unfair the AI is and joking about how running is an act of war or whatever but I think many of these people were mislead by that opening info message. The difficulty is way overblown I think. A lot of missions allow sprinting in disguises pretty much completely openly, it’s all just context dependent.

This game is actually extremely realistic for the time which is what they were going for with the more simulator vibes and the slow pace, the way lights actually are all real light sources and are destructible, the revolutionary use of physics, etc… The reason I mention it is I have found a good rule of thumb for determining what you can or can’t do with the AI in a given mission is to just do what you would think you’d have to do real life in a given situation. How likely would running be to arouse suspicion and how likely is this guard to recognize that I am not actually one of his if I get too close.

I haven’t looked into the code or anything (if it’s even available publicly) but this game seems to have a pretty consistent system for suspicion, like the newer games have the indicator that slowly shrinks, the only difference is that, like the mission stories/opportunities, they aren’t shown to you and you have to find them organically. I think suspicion is similar for most missions. It seems to be based on proximity up to the point where you get close enough to be noticed, then you can either break line of site or remain and then you have a few seconds before the next phase which is when they are actively suspicious and may start following you, then that’s your last chance to casually evade them or they get hostile.

The AI is very interesting in this game. I personally love it but it requires a ton of patience compared to blood money. It is consistent though and almost always if your cover is blown it’s because of something you did when you could have done something different to achieve the same goal

2 Likes