A video from Geeky, Id @ him but i forget what his handle here is
To be quite fair, the WOA trilogy story is quite decant. It’s not bad, neither is it great. The same applies to any game in the series, the only story in the series I would qualify as good is Silent Assassin’s story arch.
Where WOA trilogy shines in form of narrative is set inside the levels themselves, the underlying story of the NPC that help breath life into the world. This is here where the story is elevated, the backdrop story that you uncover by playing, listening, tinkering with the world around you.
In terms of narrative the series have always been in a disadvantage, if IO focus to much on 47 as a character and tries to push some actually character development into him, case Absolution. There is a backlash, on the other side of the coin is too little story and we have another problem, it not being interesting. Then there is problem of spy thrillers, they been done to dead and it’s far and in-between the good. They often follow a similar format, shadowy originations and uncovering a plot. All in all H2:SA, BM and WOA is basically the narrative with the same outcome.
Personally I would like to see a game, where the narrative again is removed from 47. Instead the cutscenes is seen from the perspective of a some kind of law enforcement (F.B.I, Detective, Interpol and so on). Follow his quest for tracking down 47. Throw in Cosmo, he might have retired and now not restricted by borders or maybe he comes in as secondary character, helping the character pressuring 47. A homage to Detective thrillers.
It would remove the focus from 47, not forcing him into another character development, that might not be needed. It would also remove the focus from Diana and 47 being played as fools, a trope we seen in almost every game, there would be no need for big illuminati plots. It would be more simple and would tie the hits into more unconnected Contracts.
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Couldn’t agree more.
Honestly, each location has its own story, and they are really interesting for the most part. Think of Mumbai for example, I loved being immersed in the criminal underworld there: The Maelstrom as an urban myth, and two of your targets plotting to kill each other. What makes it way better is the more you explore and understand the story of the location, the more opportunities you can create, such as setting up the various meetings in Mumbai.
I also love the sometimes incredibly subtle references and links that tie locations together. I remember the Interpol opportunity in Colorado, where Penelope Graves mentions how “The Vanisher” helped the Colorado targets sneak into the USA. It was an awesome surprise to see him in Colombia, explaining to a guard exactly how he got Sean Rose and the others across the border. It shows the writers have a strong understanding of the world they have built.
Again, when I first heard about Janus in the final test, I didn’t think much of it, but I was excited as hell when I first loaded up Whittleton Creek because I remembered what I had heard about him.
The world building in the WOA trilogy is phenomenal, and I would love to see IO double down on this in the future. A less intense story that takes a back seat to the world and the stories within would be the perfect formula for Hitman in my opinion.
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interesting video. i don’t agree with all of it, but i still enjoyed watching it
for me, the problem started with hitman 2. 47 killing diana’s parents was always going to be weak, because diana is a top level ICA information agent. so she must have either already known about 47 killing her parents, which makes the drama underwhelming (because she could have already attempted revenge a long time ago), or she did not know, in which case she is incompetent.
i agreed about lucas’s death though. i did not even like him as a character, but i still thought his death was a joke.
i’m also not a fan of the amount of retcons they have done in this trilogy.
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Eh some of this i agree with, seems like a good vid and geeky knows his stuff, but some of it is sort of complaining that speedrun tricks got took out and other complaints from the chat are dumb fanboy nitpicks like instinct should only be in casual when you can turn it off. For the most part the Hitman fanbase is in the right to complain but sometimes they just bitch about good decisions. Like I dislike that they nerfed breaching charges but I hated fetch trick and fire extinguishers, people complained about how cheap they were and how tedious contracts were made because of them but as soon as they get removed the consensus turns around and says hey that shitty thing I complained about was actually good this whole time. Good video tho, I agree that the online mode is so dumb when they sell always online content to you. Isnt that in a legal gray area where you cant really do that for a nonsubscription based game
Edit: im going to send this video in my next ticket
Edit2: sent it
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I would suggest that these might actually be different groups of people.
- Overpowered, cheap item/mechanic exists.
- People complain about it because it’s unbalanced and/or doesn’t feel rewarding to use.
- People who enjoy using it stay quiet because they see no issue.
- Item/mechanic gets removed.
- People who enjoyed using it complain because their OP thing is now gone.
- People who didn’t like it stay quiet because they have now been satisfied.
- An apparent “consensus shift” has occured, but nobody actually changed their mind.
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Yeah could be, that makes sense. But at the same time I watch CJ and no offense to him but he used to complain about FEs in his videos but now complains that they removed them on his streams Blood Money Roulette - Death On The Mississippi - YouTube
Its fine for him to change his opinion or hold the opinion thats its both cheap and also not worth nerfing and I love the guy. I just think the nerf was justified and its sort of weird to act like it came out of nowhere, but he never said it came out of nowhere specifically he just said that it made no sense if they introduced the phone. Which they also removed so it’s a dead horse. You can still use propane flasks to do the same thing
Sorry if i come off as an asshole i just want to explain that i disagree with bringing up 2016 as this flawless experience when it did the same thing as Hitman 2 when it came to cheap kills and it also had its problems people complained about at the time but now it’s treated like the peak of the series when its immediate sequel was better. Still doesnt excuse the second sequel from being inferior to the first in a lot of ways
Edit: i always try to be diplomatic its not my style lol. I prefer arguments
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Remember Hitman 2 wasn’t episodic and IOI have even gone as far to say Hitman 3 had performed “300% better commercially than Hitman 2.
I do get your points though, however, I personally believe Hitman 3 performed better than Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 because it was an overall better game, including the story.
Still love my Hitman 2 though 
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To be honest, I feel disappointed by Hitman 3. I love Dubai, Dartmoor, and Mendoza but the rest of the game felt so rushed.
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The dirty little secret of game design is every game, even Hitman 1,2&3, is rushed. I think the negativity on Hitman 3 from a year ago is blown over by looking at this thread compared to now because people have realized IOI arent literally evil. No game company makes a free new map and two free new game modes because they just wanted to rush out a game to get your money. They still want money but they have some level of integrity. It’s a lot harder to complain about IO making only five levels when Ambrose exists, it’s harder to accuse the level design of 3 being more linear when Freelancer exists, it’s hard to say IOI arent supporting the game when the past few months theyve patched a ton of bugs, added contracts mode on new maps and have added free new unlocks just for the sake of it
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Berlin does NOT feel rushed in the slightest. Hell, even Chongqing doesn’t feel rushed, merely a tad…strange. “Rushed” can mean many things, but the common qualities I see from “rushed” level design applies a lot more to Haven and Ambrose than any base-game level in H3.
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The only level that feels rushed to me is Bangkok. So many beautiful concept ideas that were not carried through. It feels like much was scrapped instead of optimized. Short target routes, cramped map, many stationary NPCs, unbalanced lay-out. It doesn’t feel like Swiss Cheese at all. It’s one big crust of cheese with barely any holes in it, but once you do get through you realize there’s almost nothing.
I don’t have that feeling with Chongqing at all. That vent system alone must have taken a lot of figuring out. Neither do I have any rushed feeling with any of the other maps mentioned here. How is Haven rushed? So much stuff is going on there!
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Every map feels rushed but Berlin definitely took a lot of concepting. Chonqging feels like they decided against making it bigger moreso for budget reasons, then sort of closed a lot of the potential paths for creative reasons. So its a combination of it not being as big as it seems but also being made artificially difficult that gives it a “lol rushed” feel, even tho it really isnt
…so not rushed, just made smaller for time saving purposes. That’s not what rushed means. I agree with the observation, but not your meaning of the word.
Nah, Bangkok just feels poorly designed, not rushed. I feel like the meaning of “rushed” seems to be used as another way of calling a level bad, when that’s the secondary part of the meaning. The primary part of the meaning is that it feels Gimped or unfinished in some way, and, as much as I hate Bangkok, it does not feel unfinished or gimped.
It’d be like calling Colorado Rushed; no, it isn’t, it just had A LOT of flaws that have since been fixed.
And why have they since been fixed?
The luxury of time!
However, Bangkok was rushed to a greater degree, making it somewhat unfixable. The design was poor because not all ideas could be taken on board/fleshed put. Instead of introducing new ideas they had to resort to copy pasting hotel rooms, in order to not spend too much time calibrating NPC routes they made them short, in order not to complicate matters they put in an inaccessible jungle instead of an area providing extra entry points, NPC’s, etc.
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While not neccesarily wrong with your points, Bangkok is still a good map for contracts. It’s mostly the main mission that suffers
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Hindsight, not time. IOI told Sumo Digital to make a military style compound, and they did just that; however, they didn’t anticipate how hated the traversal would be, assuming people would be fine going from cover to cover (which, given the other maps, is not exactly an unreasonable thing to think).
IOI changed it for H2 onwards so the map traversal early-game is far easier to do, to the point where I think Colorado’s die hard haters are just disliking it because of the 2016 iteration, and are just ignoring the later changes. In my experience, the H2 version of Colorado plays quite differently now, and the better for it. They weren’t short on time, they were just blindsided, it happens in level design, especially in a game where there are countless methods and playstyles; you cannot account for all of them.
I actually agree with this; Bangkok is fine in contracts mode, but the main mission is where the flaws of the level show the most.
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Yeah I was saying Chongqing wasnt rushed, people were just saying it was rushed because they disagreed with the map’s direction versus what they wanted it to be
I would say the whole of 2016 was split up because it was rushed as a game. However, the basic blockouts of each level with the exception of Colorado was already done by the time episodic was decided, so that kind of fits my general philosophy that rushing or no doesn’t matter for the most part because Sapienza was already a great map in the alpha builds and Bangkok was always going to be shit.
I would say Colorado scrapping its original concept and then needing Sumo Digital to make a way flatter, less interesting map with only one target with a detailed bit of scripting was probably a genuine example of development deadlines or “rushing” killing a level.
Like I dont think Chongqing wouldve been a better level with more time, certainly with more budget but I also think its flaws of the two main areas being not interesting would always be there because clearly IOI wanted those areas to be what they are from the start. I think more time and budget wouldve just added more mission stories or more surrounding areas, it wouldnt fix the groundwork in the Block and Facility
However, i do think that Colorado wouldve been better if it went more the factory route instead of the dumb farm concept. But can that really be called rushing? Because it technically got more dev time than any other map, it was just wasted dev time
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I don’t find Colorado to be any more or less interesting that what we didn’t get because we know so little about the original version, so to speak. You’re basing a lot of what you’re saying on your own speculation about a level that never reached out of alpha, which is far from uncommon in game development.
I get your entitled to your own opinion, which is fine, but can I ask why you feel as though Berlin is rushed?
As for the game itself, I think Hitman 3 is the best from the WOA trilogy.
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