That would’ve worked better than what they chose. Honestly, my interest in the story of each Hitman IP has steadily declined since saving Father Vittorio.
Must say, Grey was somewhat intriguing until he was discarded.
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At least he went out on a high note I guess. Grey might have been a good character, but I think 47 always works better alone.
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because during the cutscene, 47 wanted to save lucas from the ICA mercenaries but he didn’t want to risk 47’s life, so he signalled to 47 to stay away from him, but 47 still insisted so in an effort to save him, he committed suicide (my take)
but if you’re talking why it happened, it was because the plot needed to progress
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Based on what is said in the director’s commentary, one of the main arcs they wanted in H3 was for 47 to start making his own choices, instead of just being the “weapon” that others aimed and fired. To do that they had to force 47 to be on his own. No Diana, no Grey.
Could they have had Grey be captured like Diana instead of killed? I suppose. But that would bring up different questions: Why couldn’t Grey do anything on his own to escape? Or why didn’t 47 do anything to try to rescue Grey? Or, if we got a different storyline, why did 47 go to rescue Grey before Diana? And then why did/didn’t Grey take back the leadership role? As it is we see 47 did try to rescue Grey, but without time to prepare it would have been a shootout which he probably would have lost and Grey sacrificed himself to let 47 get away (and to force 47 to get away).
Or could Grey have not been captured, but still taken himself out of the picture by saying “the Partners are dead, I don’t care that Providence itself still exists, bye”? Maybe, but that too would seem to be hard to justify. Why would Grey be satisfied with only taking out the Partners but leaving Providence in existence? Possibly the weird end to Haven was supposed to be setting up that conflict between Grey and 47/Diana before they realized that it wouldn’t make much sense that way.
A flat-out betrayal by Grey (as seemingly set up at the end of Haven) could also have worked, both to get Grey out of the picture and to better justify Diana being captured. But that would probably have pissed people off even more than his death did, why would he suddenly betray 47? And then we’d have had to have Grey as a target in the end, which would probably again have pissed people off more than the kind-of-lame agents in Berlin, and the train level itself being the real “final boss” with the Constant himself being just the “reach to win” at the end.
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(sigh)
And this here, is the route of the entire problem with how the trilogy ended.
A) Doing this takes away from what made 47 such a unique character to begin with: his blank slate nature that allowed the player to put whatever thoughts, feelings, opinions and views they wanted upon him based on their own, or none at all if they preferred to keep it simple. This journey of becoming his own person has not only been done to death in fiction, but it just makes 47 one more generic anti-hero out murdering bad guys.
B) It defies the entire logic of what being a hitman is. The entire purpose of that job is to be a weapon that others aim and fire.
C) This has already been done before in every prior game, save Contracts. At the end of C47, it was his decision to go after Ort-Meyer after realizing where he was, and then his decision to leave ICA and go into hiding. In H2:SA, it was his choice to try to rescue Vittorio, and then at the end to leave the sanctuary and return to work as a hired killer, even giving a speech to us, the audience, about how he’ll make his own choices now. In Blood Money he’s already displaying a conscious decision to do what people ask of him because he’s interested in the challenge and if they pay up to show that they’re not wasting his time. Then he decides not to contact ICA at the end, for reasons unknown. Absolution, the entire arc is obvious on how he’s choosing his own actions.
D) As the end cutscene and Freelancer prove, it was all meaningless, because he ended right back where he was, killing people because someone else wants them dead, and Diana telling him who to go after. Fundamentally, nothing changed from the outcome of events in H3 as far as who 47 is, what he does, and why, so the decision to take things where they took them in order to get there, including Grey’s method of exit and excising ICA from the story, was all pointless.
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I agree so much with this and this makes it so much harder for me to accept 
both of it (loosing Grey and the ICA)
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I suppose the only difference now is, both 47 and Diana are working in partnership together and they have no ties to a big organisation like the ICA. I suppose during that year break between the ending of H3 Campaign and Freelancer, it gave 47 time to reflect who he truly was and when Diana made that call, he knew where his passion and commitments lied I guess.
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Hopefully it does, but I think technically they already are the new ICA. Think about it; they are operating their own contract agency, and they are international. The old version is gone so it’s not like they’re gonna retaliate for taking their title. And some of the better rankings like Traceless ICA Assassin seems to be an artifact title, unless you consider that it’s referring to Diana’s little ICA that she’s got going. Could even be why the ICA insignia was originally present in the mode but was removed due to confusing people; there’s no dialogue clarifying what Diana calls their operation to attract business.
Not saying this is what it is, just that it could be. Either way, it’s still not a fundamental difference to how things were before: big ICA or little ICA, it’s still Diana telling 47 who to kill and then sending him money Jen he does it. Nothing’s changed that matters. Which is another reason why keeping Grey and Olivia on the team could have helped spice Freelancer up a bit more.
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Yeah I see what you’re saying. I suppose it’s currently operating like the Silent Assassin & Contracts days where the main focus is solely on Diana and 47 and not ICA/Providence board members, if that makes sense?
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ICA was always the 3rd character of the series in my view, if you know what I mean, like how MI6 was sort of its own character for the Bond franchise, or the Continental was its own character for John Wick. Even when its inner workings weren’t involved, the fact that every job 47 was doing was because they sent him made their presence always felt. Here, we know there’s nobody behind 47 and Diana, it’s just them, so in a way, they are ICA now.
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ICA 
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description: “assassination agency, employer of agent 47. has the signature mark ii look”
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