Yes, but how? The Sarajevo Six happens at the exact same time as the Main Missions, same with the ETs (with few exceptions). The other Bonus Missions/Special Assignments don’t. So they exist, but create a paradox?
The best thing is probably to not worry about it too much. The details usually don’t fit very well, and you’ll probably wind up in arguments with people who have different ways of ignoring some details to make others fit how they want.
Or, to quote Diana, “That was a parallel universe”.
The idea is that you are supposed to ignore the existence of the main mission targets, just as you do in Freelancer. I’ve broken down before where in the timeline the special missions fit. I can go over it if you want.
I wouldn’t put much thought into it. I haven’t been interested in the story’s chronology for quite some time. It’s become increasingly convoluted and retconned, particularly after Absolution.
Let’s say it IS somehow canon, but don’t worry too much about the date and timelines, it can get very confusing
https://www.reddit.com/r/HiTMAN/comments/one5ep/the_complete_chronological_order_of_all_hitman/
Where do they please
So, all the Special Assignments, and I’m counting the Holiday Hoarders and Hokkaido Snow Festival among them, and any Elusive Targets that may be canon, they happen before the main game. I’m estimating anywhere from 1-3 years before the Show Stopper. The same is true of the three Bonus Missions, although they’re more explicit.
Now, the Sarajevo Six are a bit tricky, because of how the Marrakesh and Colorado missions are presented. Now, you’re more or less supposed to ignore the presence of the main campaign targets, just as you do in Freelancer and Elusive Targets. The way I see it, the Sarajevo Six missions take place either earlier in the year from the start of the main campaign, or the year before.
The Paris mission has the Sanguine show because Novikov and Margolis host it every year, perhaps even more than once a year, which explains why one is going on in this mission and in Holiday Hoarders.
The Sapienza mission is how 47 familiarizes himself with the Caruso property and how ICA know about the Ether lab under the villa.
Marrakesh is tricky, because it has the protest on outside the embassy and the target is specifically mentioned to be involved in that. I see it this way; this is not the protest that takes place during A Gilded Cage. In that mission, Strandberg had been broken out of police custody, and not everything was going according to Providence’s plans because Strandberg stole the money, which wasn’t part of the plan, that was just him getting his kicks. So, this particular event is happening when Strandberg’s theft is revealed to the public for the first time, and the Extractor has been hired by Zaydan to get Strandberg out of the Embassy in one piece, but since 47 kills him, Strandberg is caught trying to escape, is placed into police custody, and he is broken out by Zaydan in the later mission of the main campaign which starts another protest.
The Bangkok mission is pretty easy and since you’re supposed to ignore main campaign targets, there’s no real conflict here.
Colorado is also tricky because the main campaign mission set there indicates that ICA has been looking for Sean Rose for a while, since Diana mentions he’s an already registered target for an unrelated contract to what is going on in the main campaign. However, the opening briefing merely states that the Mercenary had met with Rose before; it does not specify that it was actually at the farm in Colorado. At this point in the timeline, ICA don’t know or care about the significance of the militia presence at the farm, and it may not even be Grey’s militia by this point, but Rose’s forces specifically, if the S6 takes place the year before the main campaign.
And then Hokkaido, again, ignore the main targets, it’s 47 visiting GAMA a second time since he’s already done the Hokkaido Snow Festival mission by this point, he’s getting in under a different identity and not getting the full treatment that he gets in the main campaign.
And as for 47 revisiting these places over and over in the course of just a few years’ time, as I’ve explained elsewhere on the forum a few times, since these places were hotbeds of criminal activity and major centers of power for Providence operatives and associates, it has necessitated 47 having business there repeatedly.
The official line for the Elusive Targets and The Sarajevo Six, as per the videos they were releasing on YouTube prior to the launch of H1, is that they’re in an alternate timeline where 47 wasn’t there to eliminate the main mission targets. The ET targets still exist within the campaign timeline though, as there are references to the ET targets throughout.
But then they backtracked on that with the cutscene in Chongqing with the Data Core. So who the fuck knows really.
Schrödinger’s targets I guess.
We had this topic years ago. Back then, my point was: It’s not always the same location. See the maps as blueprints of a hotel, of a bank etc. For obvious reasons, not every side mission or ET changes out all the characters, street names, posters etc. But in my mind, 47 visits different locations, and some of them happen to be one hotel or another, sometimes he is on some island and sometimes he acts during a big sports event. But Miami from ET is not Miami from the main game is not Miami from Special Assignment. Even if Diana calls them the same place because, well, all signs and stuff remains the same.
It’s like seeing the same character twice in any other game: Yes, it is the same model. But no, it is not meant to represent the same character. Games studios just have limits, a bit of imagination is required.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. Can you link this to me? Also, that sounds a bit contradictory as stances goes.
The Extractor (which has Strandberg, Vito Duric, and Walter Menard all connected to each other story-wise) and the Mercenary (working for Sean Rose and the Militia) have explicit campaign ties, ditto for the Warlord, Bookkeeper, Pharmacist, and The Ex-Dictator. Heck, even The Forger is acknowledged during the bare-knuckle boxer opportunity. So that doesn’t exactly gel with their initial reasoning of being in an alternate timeline.
I don’t really see that as backtracking to be honest, it’s been questioned several times (including now), and IO finally gave a firm answer, in-universe, and continued to do so in Mendoza. Though that does leave two oddities:
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Etta Davis is strongly implied to kill the Headmaster in her mission, despite him still being alive to write the Jack/ Nick Sparta novels later in H2/3.
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The Brothers are referenced, though this might be more an oversight, especially considering they did remove The Wildcard from the data list, so I see this as IO replacing one troublesome contract with another, one they thought had ran.
The ultimate answer is yes*, but only for most of 2016’s elusive targets.
Jury’s still out on H2’s and H3’s, though it’s pretty safe to assume the majority of those are also canonical (Faba is also referenced in Mendoza by the way, while the Non-sgail targets are not really connected to their main missions). The only outliers here are any of the Sgail targets, as those are impossible to reconcile with the main campaign in varying ways. Even the Disruptor, which is explicitly set after the campaign, gets fundamental details wrong (Tim Quinn is no longer the CEO and has somehow not heard of the ICA, despite being present in Mendoza).
Still holding out for an Ambrose Island ET =/
I did a better analysis of the data care’s content on TVTropes:
I also don’t agree with this either @anomie, as IO has actually gone through the effort to make the world very consistent when it comes to callbacks, and the details to other levels fit quite well with each other; heck, I gave a few examples above. The writers took their time to make sure their events made sense, when they didn’t need to. Kind of comes off as dismissing the writers’ efforts in a weird sort of way.
Of course, that attitude has been less present recently (Aforementioned Disruptor), but I wouldn’t say it’s gone (said callbacks are restored more faithfully in the Splitter for example) or worth not thinking about.
The game is not 100% consistent, but it’s at least 90% there n my eyes.
^^^ THIS ^^^
OP, this is the post that sums it up perfectly. Short, sweet and straight to the point.
Basically Elusive Targets are fully canon, however, sometimes their location and surroundings are questionable as some missions you have to ignore the presence of the main campaign targets. Sometimes the main campaign targets are included in Elusive Target briefings, such as the Pharmacist, see below……
She is personally invited to Paris by Dalia Margolis, but how many times have Elusive Targets visited this location and the same Paris fashion show is operating? @Heisenberg has pointed out some good points on this, but sometimes you have to forgot about the surroundings and locations depending on the target. Same with Freelancer, it’s set post Hitman III epilogue, however, you just ignore the presence of the campaign targets when hunting for the Syndicates.
^^^^ THIS AS WELL ^^^^
In my mind, there’s a sort of descending scale of canon-ness to different aspects of the missions. The lower you go on that list, the less likely that thing is to have happened. So something along the lines of
- This ET is a person who exists in the world…
- And has the backstory described in the briefing/bio
- And they were assassinated…
- By Agent 47…
- While they were involved in the general activities depicted…
- In the general place depicted…
- In the exact place shown…
- While doing the exact things shown…
- And they were killed in the exact manner they were when you personally played
And then basically anything that contradicts the more “solid” canon is thrown out in favor of the solid stuff.
Take for example, The Collector. This explicitly happens on the same day that Alexa comes back from the dead - multiple characters mention it and there’s a relatively major scene (for an ET, anyway) where Kody reacts to this discovery once he reaches the second floor. Obviously, this couldn’t have happened like this, since Alexa shows up in the morning, and is killed again by the afternoon. There’s no real time for 47 to have a side mission during that time. So, with my theory, he stops at “While doing the exact thing shown”. Was he stealing art at the time? Most probably! From Dartmoor Manor? Maybe! On the exact day Alexa came back? Definitely not.
The Paparazzo mentions and (sort of) interacts with Sato, so it must take place during the exact fashion show where the main targets are killed (since several sources, including the reporter by the fountain, mention that it’s a surprise that the two are working together given their wildly different philosophies)
There’s also several ETs that pretty explicitly take place after the main missions - in The Liability, Terry confronts the staff member who called him in, a phone call we hear take place during the main mission. One of the patients at the bar in Situs Inversus mentions that she’s being seen by Dr. Pavel Frydel (Who obviously must be alive at this point if he’s seeing patients)
There’s also a bit of continuity between ETs - The Dictator takes place after the other two Bangkok ETs, since in the restaurant they’ll mention “When Wen Ts’ai was here” and Richard Ekwensi is explicitly there to follow up on Nne Obara’s death. In Hokkaido, one of Akenawa’s phone calls mentions a “North Korean”, which we can infer is Ji-Hu, placing The Fugitive after The Surgeons.
The bonus missions also have some timeline, or at the very least Sapienza does. The Icon happens first, since Bosco’s death is mentioned at the café in Landslide, and Landslide takes place exactly one year before World of Tomorrow - two women by the gate exit are talking about Isabella Caruso (not explicitly named, but very clearly her) not being reachable, and that the staff said she was in bed. The conversation very much implies that Silvio killed her that morning, and WoT takes place on the one year anniversary of her death.
I don’t have a super strong opinion on what this implies, but two of the soldiers in Marrakesh mention Sapienza as a very luxurious tourist destination. I find it pretty funny that it still has a great reputation despite three celebrities (if not more!) dying there
You’re forgetting the Zaydan family is rich. Rich, rich. Go to Cannes or Sapienza or places like that and check out those giant yachts. Chances are, one of them belongs to Zaydan’s dad. Believe me, the General sees his fair share of red carpet events. And he’s got a silver tongue to match.
People die, Minnow. Happens all the time, even to famous people. If it seems like a conspiracy, it probably isn’t.
Just don’t stress over it. It’s whatever you want it to be sorta like Absolution. Did ICA really take over a town and no one ever found out? If you want it that way then sure they did. If not it’s 47 memory which is inaccurate or whatever you want. They are fun. Leave it at that.
I get what you mean! The story has definitely gotten a bit tangled over time, especially with all the retcons and shifting timelines. After Absolution, it seems like they’ve made some choices that don’t always fit into the original narrative.
Only if you consider outside media. It’s tough to reconcile, but it can be done - I did - if you ignore the two novelizations (one of which was made non-canon by the events of H1, the other was never canon despite what IOI tried to market it as), and most of the promotional background material in the lead up to the release of Absolution, such as Diana’s background info, most of which was made non-canon by the release of H1. All other discrepancies from within the games themselves can be explained.
It can de done, if we acknowledge the context. We’re dealing with ever-changing, often contradictory and contrived lore that has been reimagined by dozens of writers over 25+ years for an IP that was originally inspired by Hong Kong action movies.
They should’ve kept it simple (like Contracts) after H2:SA tied up the loose ends of the Ortmeyer story.
It’s a limited time mission.