To get somewhat back on track with the topic: since IO has said that The Drop will be running until October 14th, assuming they plan to finish a complete repeat of the Y3 ET roster - we can reasonably expect a long line of back-to-back ETs for the rest of the year once The Drop comes to an end.
18th October 2024: The Iconoclast Y4
25th October 2024: The Politician Y4
1st November 2024: The Chameleon Y4
8th November 2024: The Ascensionist Y4
15th November 2024: The Surgeons Y4
22th November 2024: The Entertainer Y4
29th November 2024: The Badboy Y4
6th December 2024: The Food Critic Y4
And then we’ll be in the Holiday Roadmap I assume.
Well I think the Autumn roadmap is going to cover from mid September to possibly late November, so if that’s the case, your above prediction seems on point. I’m guessing the Winter roadmap will cover all of December and run until the middle of February again.
By the end of this year as well, I guess we’ll finally know if we get Year 5 content
I feel like Year 5 support is a given at this point. Since only 1 more patch is planned for this year, they would be making a big deal about it being the last patch for the game if it was ending with Year 4. And why bother making several posts about how they want to improve communication with the community if there’s only a few months left in the game’s lifespan?
Add in the fact that The Disruptor was massively successful for the game and Project 007 still seems a ways off yet meaning Hitman WoA’s still their largest source of revenue, and it all points to the game continuing to get supported for the foreseeable future.
There were points in this game’s life cycle where I doubted Year 2, Year 3, and Year 4 would happen before they were announced. Year 5 is the first future year I’m confident will be happening
To be honest, now you put it like that, I totally see where you’re coming from. Hitman WOA keeps bringing massive success for IOI and bearing in mind, Hitman III made record profits for IOI and outsold expectations, which is the reason IOI gave us Freelancer as a pure ‘thank you’ gift for fans. Since then, they just keep getting more successful content, such as the Undying Return and The Disrupter, like you’ve pointed out.
Like you’ve also mentioned, there’s one more patch left to come for the year and I don’t think the one patch would be enough to add all new requested content and fix the bug requests that everyone wants. I think that will come across the forthcoming year where we’ll see multiple patches spread across 2025.
I’ve always wanted to see Year 5 come to fruition anyway and if that is indeed the last year we get content for Hitman WOA, it’s a pretty cool milestone to close off on. There’s not many gaming companies out there that support a game for a potential 5 years.
I’m pretty sure Year 5 will happen - even if solely because it will be Year 10 of content since H1 released in 2016. Surely they won’t get so close to that milestone and then decide “Nah…”.
Only reason I could see it not happening is if they are working towards releasing a new title towards the end of next year (and so would be where all their attention needs to go).
Now you’ve put it like that as well, it definitely needs to happen!! 5 year anniversary of Hitman III and the 10 year of content for Hitman WOA as a whole.
Like I’ve just pointed above, across the next year, there can be multiple patches spread across the year, where multiple content and bug requests can be addressed and we can see the few pieces missing from the game finally polished up, ie missing coin from Freelancer, soundless Dubai helicopter, etc.
Looking forward to news about this over the next few months
Created a topic for the FC batch.
And two concurrent ETs coming in tomorrow. Tentatively unannounced, for now.
Thanks @Lewisnic1, definitively would have missed them.
I get having the Drop standing by itself first in the roadmap to have an immediate gateway from announcement, to hype, to playable. But it still doesn’t feel right.
I’ve felt that what H2 and H3 locations have really been missing is a good landslide style bonus mission. I think people would buy a season pass of those even if it didnt result in a new map
But if they were to put new maps in they could… but theyd have to reuse a lot of assets and not take place post-Story mode and i feel that people not taking to Ambrose so much is probably a reason why bonus maps havent been a thing since then
Couldn’t agree more. Despite not being the last Bonus Mission of Hitman 2016, Landslide felt like a fantastic “farewell” mission to Hitman 2016. Great Music, Gorgeous Skybox and even Returning NPC Models from Paris and Bangkok, aswell as (atleast) Crowd NPCs from Marrakesh aswell.
While H2 technically didn’t have that, Haven Island still gave me some kind of Farewell vibes and despite the infamous vision cones I still really like the Map.
I reckon that was IO’s Plan with Ambrose aswell and there are some aspects from Ambrose that do give me this feeling even if it’s just the little things like a few of the Male Locals using unique Hair Pieces such as the Dartmoor Photographers Hair which is really refreshing as despite looking way better then H2016 Hair, H2 (and H3) still don’t come close to the amount of crazy Haircuts 2016 had.
Unfortunatly the Targets are really bland. Akka in particular feels like a stripped down cross-breed of Vanya Shah and Maelstrom that can’t even fight back, despite being the leader of gang of pirates and seing that the Berlin Agents and Noel Crest worked with absolutly no problem, I doubt it’s impossible to give her a Gun aswell. Maybe have be knocked out with one instead of two punches like the Rage and you would most likely avoid most AI issues she’d cause and Crest could literally be just a generic Militia Soldier and nothing would change.
Speaking of the Miltia Soldiers, there really disapointing for (most likely) one of the two last variants of guards we’ll ever get out of WOA. I mean there Uniform looks fine, even good so they just use generic NPC Heads and two of 9 Versions are even duplicates of one another, while the Pirates on the other hand use a supringly high amount of custom assets for Ambrose including there own Face Textures.
That was alot. Long story short, I would also love to see Bonus Missions alla Landslide and happily pay for them aswell, so the closest we probably ever gonna get to this in H3 is Dartmoor Garden Show, which is amazing, but sadly something we’re not gonna get again.
Personally, I think the big difference between the 2016 locations and the 2/3 locations is that 2016’s maps feel like they were realized to their full potential. Even in levels whose main mission doesn’t use an area much, they got bonus missions which do utilize them more, plus gave the maps alternate looks and skyboxes. Add in how each map got multiple escalations and ETs (even some on the bonus missions too), plus the Sarajevo Six campaign tying things in more, and they feel like they got utilized to their fullest extent.
Compare that to Hitman 2, where Miami, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai, and Isle of Sgail are massive and have tons of areas which could be used more. Some of the areas got an ET/Special Assignment to take advantage of them, but several didn’t. The hotel in Miami, a lot of the Delgado Mansion, the Mumbai train yard, the lower rooms of the castle in Isle of Sgail, etc.
And in Hitman 3, the only maps I’d say got fully realized are Dartmoor and the Carpathian Mountains. Maybe Berlin too, but I feel there’s still quite a bit that could be done on Berlin. Even Freelancer, for as good as it is, feels like there’s a lot of untapped potential for expanding on it (implementing something like the Freelancer Variations mod, adding more uses for Merces, adding more objectives, adding additional weapons, adding an option to choose a briefcase, adding more challenges to finally fill the empty shelf spaces, etc)
That option for 47 to choose a briefcase has been talked about for quite some time on here. I’m hoping this is one of the things we see added as an eventual update to Freelancer, so all we can do in the mean time is keep our fingers crossed it happens
5 year anniversary of Hitman III and the 10 year of content for Hitman WOA as a whole.
