Would the community ever accept a rank higher (or functionally equivalent to) Silent Assassin / Silent Assassin Suit Only?

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With the release of the World of Assassination trilogy (and technically started with absolution), came major critical changes to the way Silent Assassin is calculated, as well as 47’s character reputation becoming more noticeably known for being accident focused hidden Assassinations instead of traditional Assassination methods.

Under this new system and ideal methodology for 47, a lot of people have debated whether Silent Assassin is too strict in some ways (not allowing nontarget kills or non-accidental bodies to be found), or whether it’s too lax (allowed to knock out unlimited amount of people with permanent KO’s, fire as many shots, trigger as many alarms, etc.).

Many of these changes were built into the rank to be more accepting to new players, as well as occurring due to simple decreases in game difficulty and structure over time, and is a far cry from the original methods silent assassin endorsed; the rank being originally made to cater to normal killing methods, with accident kills slowly taking the lead over the course of the series (first being introduced as a mechanic in Contracts, before being fully embraced in Blood Money). This all leads me to my main point:

Silent Assassin being the top rank has been a series tradition for almost as long as the brand itself, being originally introduced in Hitman 2 and being such an iconic addition to how the game worked that it literally acted as the game’s secondary title. The phrase has become as iconic as 47 himself, and has worked its way in as a symbol in the series as recognizable as the W2000 and the dual silverballers (cough cough)

However in order to now cater to these dueling kinds of play styles would a higher or at the very least equivalent rank to silent assassin be ever something that we see? Perhaps Silent Assassin and this hypothetical rank would be complementary:

one of the ranks (perhaps silent assassin) would be a strict traceless rank that requires a playthrough to be devoid of KO’s, shots fired, non accidental kills, or anything that would detract from the perfect narrative of the perfect untraceable accident.

While the other works much more in the vein of traditional assassination, with more leniency in shots fired, traditional nontarget kills, and being more akin to the Silent Assassin of old?

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I think the fact that the current Silent Assassin rank is flexible (to a point) is an advantage to the rank. If you had to be literally perfect with no knock outs, only accidents, never a shot heard, I think you’d end up limiting the variety of the levels. The fact that you can throw a target off a bridge OR blow him to kingdom come (as long as the kill isn’t noticed) and still earn the Silent Assassin rank is brilliant.

I won’t get into suit only save to say disguises have been an integral part of 47’s pattern since game 1 so there is absolutely no way I, at least, would want to force suit-only for anything.

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I think this would be a really bad idea. If you want recognition for a harder challenge you can already get those “the classics” challenges. But this game is open and full of freedom, giving you more restictions would lessen the gameplay. Most people want to get “five stars” or whatever the best result is, so if you would do something like suit only as a new best, many people would see this as the “correct” way to play and therefore have less freedom.

Also, stuff like disguises are a big part of Hitman gameplay, suit only or no KO etc would take major features away from the game. This is like “Dark Souls without armor” or “Mario without Power-Ups”: Works for a special challenge, but is a stupid idea for the main gameplay.

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