Unpopular opinions about Hitman

[wincenworks]

@TheContractor

So it’s not IO’s fault that people had days to imagine this glorious return to the asylum before actually playing.

I am quietly confident that there was a contingent of people who would have been demanding the asylum level even if the mountains had been unrelated - its inevitable that people will invent their own ideas on how things should have gone. That is, after all, why fan fiction is a thing.

Long before we had the teasers of the Carpathian mountains, there were people proposing the asylum in the “ideas for levels” threads.

At least one streamer I follow cheered and declared “I love this game!” when she was discovered she was on a train, and I’ve seen people expressing similar awe on the forum, so it’s fair to say that it had the intended surprise effect on a fair sized demographic. That’s a good outcome, the best you can do is please some of the people some of the time.

I personally knew about the train in advance because as the chief moderator and administrator of this place, i can’t exactly avoid spoilers - however I appreciated the artistry of setup - how you start in the narrow, sterile confines that seem claustrophic - like one might imagine Ortmeyer had built under his asylum. How the first voices you here are Ether scientists continuing Ortmeyer’s work.

Then boom: I’m on a motherfucking train. Genius.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

Yes, people will remember it as “train mission that is linear like Absolution and stole our hopes about Asylum”

The thing with the “hopes of an asylum” is, aside from the fact there had already been three asylum levels in Hitman thusfar (The Setup & Meet Your Brother in C47, Asylum Escape in Contracts) and frankly none of them were on anyone’s top list of anything.

Very little in the asylum concept would work well with the Hitman trilogy because it’d basically limit you to sneaking around in a mostly empty building trying to find your way to the climax - so basically the train but slower and less dramatic. Whoo! This is probably why IO Interactive opted not to do it.

Imaginary levels are always “perfect” because they never have to live up to reality - they never have to address real design issues and they never have to hold up to playtesting. Just like every other imaginary major game shift.

At a casual examination, your major challenges:

1. Why the fuck would the Constant be in the ruined remains of the asylum that’d been looted many times over by many, including Ether?
2. How do you make it interesting with no patients, no doctors, no leftovers of 47’s time there?
3. What aesthetic are you supposed to give it since it’s an asylum from the 60s, but it got trashed by 47 and nobody builds them like that anymore? Realistically it’d just be an Ether lab and we already had one of those in The World of Tomorrow.
4. How do you fill the map with all the stories, opportunities, etc when the whole point of the level is just to get to the Constant and there’s very little story left to tell?

Also like… Absolution literally introduced the system of letting you know that there were opportunities and multiple ways of doing levels though mini achievements so… maybe less hyperbole and more actual review of the information.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

For those who doubt my claim, go to mission ranking topic. Many people put Carpathian as shit tier.

There’s only like 40 posts in that thread and only about twenty feature tiers, so that’s basically the opinions of a handful of people, many of whom had directly oppositional opinions on many levels.

If you just want to keep posting that you don’t like the level, I invite you to do so elsewhere - the forum is for civilized conversation, not the same phrase re-posted over and over in the hopes it’ll generate more people insulting a particular level for not being something you imagined.

[Urben]

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

I don’t remember we’ve had “ruined building” concept before in Hitman.

Isle of Sgail and Berlin are repurposed ruined structures.

[TheContractor]

Yeah, there’s quite a variety of repurposed ruins/abandoned buildings across other maps

• Sapienza Ruins
• Abandoned School in Marrakesh
• Abandoned Farm in Colorado
• Ancient Ruins (aka Hippo Pen) in Santa Fortuna
• Church Ruins in Dartmoor

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

WoA Asylum

Except that doesn’t exist? If The Constant was there it wouldn’t be a completely derelict building. It probably would’ve been slightly fixed up, much like Sgail

[Urben]

Maybe because they are repurposed. They are altered so they can be used for something. If you would just place a level in a ruined building, without any changes, then why would we or the Constant go there? Hell even a tent is better to do stuff than a building that is not even protecting you from rain.

Sure you can use it to cover a secret elevator ro a secret facility, but, you know, that is 1:1 Chongqing. And the building above it is equally useless as a accessible broken building would be.

[Hotel_Pollisya]

This discussion would make much more sense to me if I knew why Asylum should be ruined in the first place

[TheContractor]

It’s where 47 and Grey grew up, but it’s explicitly not the asylum. There’s a fire and it’s abandoned before the events of C47

[Freezer]

I get that the asylum is iconic but if we had to get a Romania nostalgia bait set in a type of place we’d been before then it better be Meat King part 2.

[Freezer]

If I want to explore the asylum I’ll go back to C47 or Contracts.

If I want a train I’ll play HITMAN 3. That is until Hitman 9 invalidates this and it has like 4 train levels.

[Franz]

I would have loved a return to the Asylum, and I think htere would have been plenty of ways to make it interesting, without sacrificing the nostalgia factor.

• Include the grounds around the Asylum. A Romanian village in the night. A target staying at a small bed and breakfast with a sprawling garden.

• The Asylum is an area in the map, a bit like the Caruso residence in Sapienza. The entrance and building are where the nostalgia factor come in (the gate is weathered but intact). The Asylum can be up and running again, loonies and orderlies included. The upper level is stil not refurbished though, allowing us some Easter Eggs to days gone past.

• Underground facility is revamped and extended. Sure, we’ve seen undergorund facilities before, but we’ve also seen hotels and restaurants and and before and there’s still plenty of ways to put in some variety. Also in that underground facility there can be some forgotten rooms, hidden fake walls, that remind us of days gone past.

Dismissing the Asylum as “been there, done that” feels a bit unfair.

[Rimland]

@wincenworks

So it’d be a surprise to people who were expecting the asylum when 47 pops open that door and it’s a train…?

Which is a cool twist I think. And also why I kinda hate myself for spoiling it for myself by looking at the screenshots prior to release (which never should´ve made it out to the public in the first place). Would´ve been great going into that mission completely blind.

@wincenworks

I appreciated the artistry of setup - how you start in the narrow, sterile confines that seem claustrophic - like one might imagine Ortmeyer had built under his asylum. How the first voices you here are Ether scientists continuing Ortmeyer’s work.

Then boom: I’m on a motherfucking train. Genius.

Precisely because of that.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

TBH the second people saw location name, they’d assume train is going to asylum. IMO they should’ve either make Asylum mission or not make any Romania mission at all.

Not everyone. Many of us theorized (or rather hoped for) a different location than the asylum, mainly because we already had missions in the “proper” asylum and the WoA one just wasn´t all that appealing, being a derelict building. I myself was actually quite upset and worried when the Romania was revealed to be the final location, precisely because I was afraid they´d set it in the asylum. Which is why I´m glad they had the balls to do something like this, even though my hopes for a Hitman train level were and still are different (and I hope we´ll get it one day). And I would´ve appreciated more civilian sections of the train like near the end…

As a narrative-serving epilogue however, it´s great. Especially since it allowed for the perfect solution to the many questions and concerns we had for the finale where 47 would go after the Constant, Grey, or whoever would turn out to be the final target. As @wincenworks elaborates in his post, the asylum simply wouldn´t work for that purpose for a number of reasons. I do however understand people who are upset that as the final of mere six locations in H3, it is not a “proper” sandbox level.

My only genuine “outrage” about the mission comes from the fact it´s yet another non-sandbox snow mission. Considering the mission´s menu background, that was the biggest subversion of them all

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

Many people put Carpathian as shit tier.

Not everyone puts it into “shit tier” because of it´s perceived flaws though (as is often the case of Bangkok or Colorado), but simply because it´s a completely different approach/design from the other missions. Purely objectively, it´s hard to rate it in the same manner as the standard sandbox missions. Even if you enjoy the level immensely for what it is (which I dare say many if not most of us do), it feels “wrong” putting it in the upper tiers alongside the likes of Paris, Sapienza, etc.

[JJoa74]

I really do wish IO made the train level end near the Brasov Asylum/Site A/Institute for Human Betterment. It played a huge role in 47 & 6’s origins and all we got to see it in was one non-animated cutscene.

It woulda been cool if 47 went back one last time and just had some memories of him and 6.

[wincenworks]

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

We should ask that to The Constant for bringing 47 to Asylum in secret ending.

What asylum? That’s one room. For all you know that’s Janus’s old basement with some renovations.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

I don’t remember we’ve had “ruined building” concept before in Hitman. Maybe that’d be interesting

People have already pointed to a plethora of examples but I think the most relevant thing here is not only have we been to ruins before - we’ve been to those ruins before in four missions (if you count the prologue of C47) and they were never in a good state of repair.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

I mean current version of mission doesn’t have a mission story so…

Much like your comments on Absolution, this is hyperbole and nonsense. The current mission has the story of 47 waking up from his ultimate nightmare, making his way through a small army of the enemy and then confronting the Constant in the manner he chooses. At every step there is more story, more lore, more backstory revealed. There are special secrets to discover (like Orson) that tie into the other levels.

If you do not care for these things, those are fine - but actively denying them and announcing they do not exist is discourteous and raises the question of is it you don’t like the level or that you decided in advance you would not like the level and have worked to justify that decision?

@Franz

Include the grounds around the Asylum. A Romanian village in the night. A target staying at a small bed and breakfast with a sprawling garden

So… Dartmoor but without the murder mystery?

@Franz

The Asylum is an area in the map, a bit like the Caruso residence in Sapienza. The entrance and building are where the nostalgia factor come in (the gate is weathered but intact). The Asylum can be up and running again, loonies and orderlies included. The upper level is stil not refurbished though, allowing us some Easter Eggs to days gone past.

So… Dartmoor, but without the murder mystery and a bunch more easter eggs (thus lightening the tone and distracting from the climatic atmosphere)

@Franz

Underground facility is revamped and extended. Sure, we’ve seen undergorund facilities before, but we’ve also seen hotels and restaurants and and before and there’s still plenty of ways to put in some variety. Also in that underground facility there can be some forgotten rooms, hidden fake walls, that remind us of days gone past.

So… Chonging but with science stuff instead of computers, or Sapienza… wait this is just Sapienza but with a coat of Romania painted over the top to try to hide the nonsense.

All of this would also doubtessly elad to thread upon thread of “can’t believe IO Internactive didn’t pay attention to… there’s two rooms missing in this corridor, the balcony is in the wrong place, the elevators are placed wrong. etc.” along with “how can we have asylum and not have mystery man/agent smith/rubber ducky guy/professor…” rage. Because when you want an impossible thing, nothing real can ever satisfy.

Just announcing “I have an idea” doesn’t mean anything because ideas are pretty infinite, and with Hitman levels the execution is vastly more important than the concept. Mendoza is basically “What if we had another go at A Vintage Year” but the implementation and execution makes it shine.

@SA_But_Everyone_Died

I mean if we’re using “been there, done that” argument we should object a lot of things in franchise.

I feel like I addressed this in advance…

@wincenworks

The thing with the “hopes of an asylum” is, aside from the fact there had already been three asylum levels in Hitman thusfar (The Setup & Meet Your Brother in C47, Asylum Escape in Contracts) and frankly none of them were on anyone’s top list of anything.

Oh look, I did.

The asylum levels are like the sawn off shotgun, the minigun, the M60, the shopping menu, the using real gun names and listing off their stats, the clunky inventory of C47, the weird racism of pre-trilogy levels, “You want boom boom with Charlie?”, the WA2000, the graveyard levels from Absolution, the newspapers from Blood Money. All experiments that did not work out or simply do not fit with the modern conception of Hitman, the approach IO Interactive is taking, the vision of its creators.

It served its purpose and its gone the way of the horse and cart. The experiment was performed and the results were in.

Nobody found The Setup that inspiring, they found some of the dialog funny but mostly it was just a lot of faffing about and sneaking around - unless you remember its the final mission in which case it sort of turns into its own version of Untouchable but instead of Providence operatives who were complicit in your suffering, its just a bunch of Romanian cops trying to get a paycheque you’re murdering.

Meet Your Brother was an out of place boss fight/reflex shooter like what the game was supposed to distance itself from, because otherwise there was just nothing to make it interesting.

Escape from the Asylum was a weird reimagining of the area to make it as engaging as possible try trying to make it super extra etc while being a tutorial for the Contracts game… and it was still pretty forgettable to most people because, generic science stuff and the original asylum deign just don’t facilitate interesting gameplay.

So I must kindly ask people not to misrepresent that.

[Freezer]

I feel like the asylum isn’t really anything without Ort-Meyer and the 48s. It’s just a building we all visited twice before without the story significance.

I feel like if we got the asylum again relatively unchanged people would complain it was lazy because they didn’t need to design it.

If we got the same asylum but it’s changed people would hate it for being different.

If we got Another Life type inspired level in a different Romanian asylum it’d be weird and disconnected from the story.

[Franz]

@Freezer

I feel like if we got the asylum again relatively unchanged people would complain it was lazy because they didn’t need to design it.

If we got the same asylum but it’s changed people would hate it for being different.

If we got Another Life type inspired level in a different Romanian asylum it’d be weird and disconnected from the story.

Now we got no asylum, and hey, what do you know, people complain too. Way of the world, baby. "People could complain "should not a reason not to do it, because then you don’t get anything done.

I saw no objective reasons why another Asylum wouldn’t work. People would complain, people would compare, the inventory of H:C47 is bad (what even?), Dartmoor needs a detective story…

An Asylum level could work. Not because of my bright ideas, but because IO could make it work. The only “restriction” an Asylum reference would bring is to include the building and the garden and gate in front of it. IO can do whatever it pleases around it, under it, heck, even within it. It can even be a relatevily unused area of the map, just a place to explore in a bit

I could bring more ideas to the table of how it could work, but wincenworks will probably shoot them down for some arbitrary reasons. In any case, I’m just one guy who plays Hitman a lot. IO would be having brainstorming sessions and bright ideas and this and that and boom, Asylum level! To believe them uncapable of providing another good level in or around the asylum is bordering on insult.

@wincenworks

Mendoza is basically “What if we had another go at A Vintage Year” but the implementation and execution makes it shine.

Basically along the same lines of this idea, but you know, in Romania.

We’ve already seen this and this in previous levels: unavoidable. Before Chongqing we already had seen underground networks in Sapienza, Marrakesh, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai. So what? Because we’ve seen one underground network, we’ve seen them all? Because we’ve seen one mansion, hotel, restaurant, city, town, we shouldn’t do that anymore?

This is just an argument for an Asylum level, mind you. To include the Asylum is presented here as a hurdle to level design that’s impossible/too difficult to overcome. This is, quite simply put, false.

[Screaming_Meat]

“yep. that’s an unpopular opinion alright.”

[wincenworks]

@Franz

I saw no objective reasons why another Asylum wouldn’t work.

The forum does not exist to meet your “objective” criteria, it exists to facilitate interesting and civilized conversation. If you do not wish to engage with the conversation, do not post.

@Franz

An Asylum level could work. Not because of my bright ideas, but because IO could make it work

IO Interactive clearly felt differently, specifically they felt differently that it would work for the finale level of the World of Assasination trilogy’s story.

@Franz

I could bring more ideas to the table of how it could work,

You haven’t brought any to the table about how it’d work, you’ve just made vague proposals with the assumption that making them work would be someone else’s problem. Under this principal, procedurally generated concepts are as valid as carefully considered one - and don’t get me wrong, I’d fucking love to play a Sealion Circus in a Blimp Casino level but I’m not convinced it’d be thematically consistent, fit into the story or be technically viable for IO Interactive to create.

More importantly, this kid of approach is what leads to the weird kind of toxicity that comes from the mix of entitlement and “someone else’s problem” that poisons all good faith discussion of a topic. The most extreme example in recent memory was back when Absolution came out and certain members decided it was IO Interactive’s duty to provide them an entire second game (Blood Money 2.0) in the new engine, with all new levels etc, for free.

That was more extreme, but ultimately it boils down to the same thing: You have an idea, have assessed it as “good” because its your idea and feel that all the details should be actualized by someone else. That’s not nice.

@Franz

Basically along the same lines of this idea, but you know, in Romania.

Well let’s see… the levels featuring the Asylum were:

1. The Setup - Very much the Untouchable (SA style) of Codename 47 and existed entirely to transport you to Meet Your Brother. It was built around a different scoring system and the player wasn’t really meant to linger so much as to try to solve a puzzle and get to the next area.
   Gimmick: No weapons at start, find your way to Ort-Meyer
2. Meet Your Brother - Very much the Untouchable (kill everyone style) of Codename 47 and was extremely linear (the instructions are in the title), with a much less open ended or flexible approach to the ending.
   Gimmick: If it moves you can kill it

So, if we look at Codename 47’s instance then the instance of this is…

The Carpathian Mountains, on a Train instead of in an Asylum

If we look at the last one (obviously the tutorial was replaced by the ICA Training) with the dodge all the patrolling security and just walk to the exit then… Untouchable (SA style).

So basically it seems IO Interactive looked at that and decided the best way to do it was - put it on a train! Toot! Toot!

@Franz

Before Chongqing we already had seen underground networks in Sapienza, Marrakesh, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai. So what?

This is another example of you expecting others to do all the work for you.

Chongqing does not just have “tunnels” as the only asylum type content, and if you spent a few moments considering it you might notice:

• Sterile facility hidden in plain site, inside of a run down area
• Unethical experiments being performance that lead to mental degradation for test subjects, experiments taking place in dingy, disturbing environment
• Heavy history beat with the going over the entire history of Diana and 47 working together, a major part of the beginnings of 47’s origin

So, your proposed asylum would have to incorporate whole new angles of approach for that and meet the requirements of being suitably paced for a climatic showdown level and meet all the “but the lore” requirements for the three of us who remember the original levels.

Drawbacks: Massive amount of work and complications, probably a lot of extra expense and work that will go unnused and unrecognized, increased risk the level will fall flat due to people getting lost, caught up, etc.
Benefits; A handful of people will be like “yeah!”

Toot! Toot!

@Franz

To include the Asylum is presented here as a hurdle to level design that’s impossible/too difficult to overcome. This is, quite simply put, false.

Okay then, well tell you what.

There’s this free 3D modelling suite available to everyone called Blender. These days it’s probably most associated with bootleg video game pornography but you can make buildings with it and cities.

Why not use it to bash up a proof of a concept map that reflects the standard of gameplay you’d expect and demonstrates exactly how it’d work - complete with animated idle crowds and patrolling guards and/or moving crowds.

Is there something about some sort of burden about work, unforeseen issues, building a satisfying level being complicated and requiring the cooperation of multiple, specialist and multi-disciplinary teams?

Probably.

Would it be awkward for you to try to just speak on behalf of all those teams and not even want to address the the complications, primarily as a means to disrespect the decisions of those teams?

Absolutely.

[Franz]

Wait, just so that I get this right: before voicing preferences and wishes, I have to jump through hoops of 3D modelling and proofs of concept before being considered a “civil conversationalist”?

All I wish for is a mission/map that includes the Asylum. I have some ideas around that. Not very fleshed out, but since when do they have to be? I’m not a level designer. Because I’m not a baker, I can not comment on the bread I’m eating or have wishes with regards to future bread I’ll eat?

It’s not even a devisive opinion: not once did I mention the train level. I haven’t even played it yet. I’m merely talking about a “would be nice to have an Asylum level”. I never, you can check, asked for an Asylum level instead of the train level. How is that disrespecting the decisions of IO?

IO could make a great level that incorporates the Asylum. I’m 100% certain of it. That they didn’t doesn’t prove at all that they couldn’t, and your “naysayer” arguments, while sensible, are not as overwhelmingly unsurmountable as you present them to be, at least not according to me.

Anyway, I hope you’ll allow me to bow out of this discussion. I’m not getting into 3D modelling, not even for porn.

[Urben]

@Franz

Because I’m not a baker, I can not comment on the bread I’m eating or have wishes with regards to future bread I’ll eat?

You can of course. But when the baker explains you, based on their profession, or someone else with some insight into the process of making bread, that ice cubes simply can’t be part of bread, then it is a good step forward to pick that knowledge up and include it into your reasoning.

Stressing you want bread with ice cubes is not really helping us.

I too think we saw quite some many underground facilities in the levels. This certainly is no selling point at this stage, so all we want to know is how it can be special aside from featuring a well known structure?

Basically avoid this:

The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch)

[Franz]

Thank you for putting it in terms I can understand, and I see your point, but some knowledge is difficult to pick up at face value, and is perceived as opinion rather than fact.

Stressing you want bread with ice cubes is not really helping us.

So the Asylum is to Hitman levels as ice cubes are to bread, being the reasoning?
It’s a building with a certain lore attached to it. That’s it. There are unfathomably many ways to work with that.

I too think we saw quite some many underground facilities in the levels. This certainly is no selling point at this stage, so all we want to know is how it can be special aside from featuring a well known structure?

How are underground facilities different than above ground structures, in that regard? You can put as much variety in the concept of a building as you can in the concept of an underground facility. It’s simply a collection of rooms and corridors, only there are no windows, and there are plenty of artists who can reimagine it in a plethora of ways so that it feels different enough from other instances we’ve seen of it.

[Urben]

@Franz

So the Asylum is to Hitman levels as ice cubes are to bread, being the reasoning?

It is not that extreme, but I did not came up with comparing food to levels in the first place.

@Franz

How are underground facilities different than above ground structures, in that regard?

Not at all. But I never saw someone whishing we had more levels with above-ground structures.

Here the underground facility is an idea as a response to why a ruined building would be interesting. Now the question is why the underground facility would be interesting. So far the issue has been pushed away rather than solved.

@Franz

There are unfathomably many ways to work with that.

But why are you two refusing to point some out? Or some rough drafts on how the level can have an interesting layout? I really have a hard time to understand what the attempt is here.