I’ve always noticed that on a lot of places throughout the trilogy, certain poisonable items (glasses, cups, shisha pipes, etc.) don’t have people who appear to ever consume said poison. On Hitmaps, most poison promts has an NPC listed with it to show who consumes the poison, but in a few instances, it just says “NPC: Nobody”.
Anyone know why IOI did this? Do you think it’s because we just haven’t found the lure that triggers a certain person to drink, or is this just IOI fucking with us? It just seems pointless to put an extra asset into the game if it has no purpose and it is never used.
My guess would be that certain objects have the ability to be poisoned, iO placed them in places where they make sense or look good, and either it’s just that or some NPCs changed but having a glass on some table still looked good. Maybe they forgot to remove some “can be poisoned” tags, but then again: 47 sees a bottle and can poison it, even if he does not know wether someone drinks from it. Just like you can, maybe a bit exaggerated example, place banana peels everywhere, including places where no NPCs will ever slip.
The game gives you options, you need to decide and choose.
Because of the vast amount of moving parts, in regards to what actions you take and how they affect certain NPCs, I’ve always felt that those glasses can be drank out of, but you have to trigger an NPCs to do it, through some unknown means.
For example, there is a glass of wine in Reza Zaydan’s office that he never drinks from, but if you trigger Strandberg’s evacuation, and allow him to get all the way to Zaydan’s office, he’ll drink from that glass. Didn’t know this until just last year.
Based on the Sniper Assassin maps that were modded to allow on-foot exploration, maybe it’s just easier to leave prompts on for objects regardless if they’re ever used.
Because a lot of objects for the SA maps still have prompts (like doors) which makes zero sense for maps that weren’t designed to be explored.
So you can’t tell by the prompt which foods/drinks are consumed by someone and which are not. Just like IRL you would be able to pour your poison wherever you want, but to know if you should you need to observe.
Poison the wine in Zaydan’s office, poison Zaydan’s meal in the market place, plant a miniature explosive in the small room near the guy who is supposed to bring him home is sleeping, and get to the embassy. You can just hang out and do nothing to enjoy the atmosphere of the Swedish consulate OR you can immediately trigger an evacuation so Strandburg goes running to Zaydan’s office. Once he drinks the wine and dies set off the miniature explosive to wake up the food delivery guy. Once the alert calms down he’ll bring the poisoned meal to Zaydan who eats it and also dies. Nothing like eliminating not one but two of your targets from across the map by triggering a chain reaction of seemingly unrelated events. The consulate is probably air-conditioned too which is good to imagine given the heatwave.
Why, oh why, would I do something so sloppy as set off an explosion? I poison the win in zaydan’s office, poison his food, go to the embassy, trigger a fire alarm switch when no one is looking, make my way back out of the embassy and to the sleeping server, turn on the radio next to him, and then take a seat in the Shisha cafe until both targets keel over. No need for any explosions.
Matter of personal preference I guess. To me there’s nothing more satisfying than a “silent assassin” who makes everything around him explode while nobody can trace that back to him
And any housewife can put some poison in a bottle then wait at Starbucks while their target vomits blood in the middle of a crowd - but it takes a real ghost to blow up everything without leaving any trace to be found (including bodies).
No housewife is going to know that turning on a radio is going to trigger a series of events that lead to a general eating poisoned food, or that pulling a fire alarm would cause a wanted fugitive to sip spiked wine in an entirely different building. Only a killer fully attuned to the world around them by focusing on their senses could picture and predict such an outcome. No explosions needed.
The miniature explosive has a shorter range so it wouldn’t harm anyone if positioned right so no ruining Silent Assassin. It just sets off an alert but that is all.
Hmm yeah now that you mentioned it maybe the ICA Remote Micro Audio Distraction would’ve been better for the same desired results just without the scorch marks and panicking.
Edit: Ugh! Nevermind the audio distraction does not wake him up even if it’s right next to him as in right on the chair he’s napping on. I feel really stupid now.
