Sometimes? Why do you think we clash so often? Our minds work practically identically, they just differ in priorities.
I suppose that’s a good thing, right? 
I’ll be gutted once content stops for Hitman III, I love it, especially Freelancer! 
Will be very interesting if we get a Year 5!
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By the way, what would be everyone expectation for the Drop #2 DLC suit?
I don’t know why, but I wouldn’t be surprised and they leaned into the recent Olympic Turkiye Shooting Competitor meme.
Simple white T-shirt with a Hitman relevant text (Romania, small ICA logo above), blue trouser.
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I predict The Greek Fire Suit with Gloves, something simple to distinguish it from the original suit like The Ephemeral Suit with Eye Patch.
There might also be a separate unlock for playing The Drop 2 that isn’t The Greek Fire Suit again. Maybe the turtleneck Alexios’ bodyguard wears since that’s already implemented as an outfit?
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Me like this.
Maybe they’ll make a suit that is based on whatever the most popular kill method was for The Drop last year, same as how The Undying/The Ephemeral Suit got the eye patch.
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Greek Fire suit with Fedora.
And boxing gloves.
Come on IOI don’t let me down.
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They should add in that Dwayne Johnson looking suit that the bodyguard wears as a reward for playing the ET or something
And also just in general I’m always hoping that one of my challenge ideas I’ve posted in the challenge thread gets added, but I’m not holding out hope for it
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theres a ton of amazing challenge ideas with great unlocks (including mine hint hint) so the fact they chose the Pinoit Noir is extra stupid. the challenge is great! i wish it unlocked at the very least the Malbec so i could use it on the Iconoclast
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I know the comment got deleted but it gives me an opportunity to counter some arguments I’ve heard and to clear up some confusion.
Am I crazy for thinking that we’re not in a content drought or anything like that? I mean, obviously there’s less stuff being added…
Yes, yes you are. And the content drought people talk about on here is a lack of content spread over several months, not a lack of content overall. The roadmap was basically reused content, a new CelebrET that…did not go down well to put it mildly, and challenges that had weird unlocks (and the Durian), but these were released in small batches every week or so. It’s just an unsatisfying release schedule.
this is the 4th straight year, or technically 8th straight year, of updates. Everybody knows that IOI is focusing on their Bond game and Project Fantasy, and the Hitman team has been downsized but we’re still getting new challenges, featured contracts and a whole new elusive target.
I really dislike this rhetoric as it absolves the company of any wrongdoing. It doesn’t matter about their track record here. Yes, WOA has had 8 combined years of updates, but that’s not really in question here; the fact is that this update sucked in the present, here and now. IO know better and their repeated lack of information on what was upcoming (or you know, the current run of ET’s and FC’s that were shadow-dropped) exacerbated the problem.
And I don’t see why you should wave off the VR game just because it isn’t developed by IOI
That was not what I did in the video. In fact, I’m fairly certain I was neutral when it came to XR Games, and said that any praise for the VR version should go to them and not IO. I was not waving off or dismissing the VR port, I was actually frustrated by the company’s one-track mindset when it came to giving players information. The VR port is all they talked about publicly over the past week and a bit, which is baffling as the developers unexpectedly released content that should’ve been told to people. That was what I annoyed about.
isn’t that also new content?
Not…really? New stuff coming out of IO technically, but the current userbase is, at an guesstimate here, largely interested in content and updates for the main game, not the VR port.
Or why you should be annoyed just because they didn’t announce reruns of ETs and a featured contract batch. I mean, obviously I’d love more things but I’m not surprised or annoyed that there isn’t any, I never even expected there to be a Year 3 of content, let alone the Year 4 we’re in now, but maybe I’m just pessimistic like that.
I’ve seen this sentiment on here a bit, and I get the sense it’s used to…cover up…IO’s flaws. A long-running Live service that steadily decreases content output isn’t immediately made better by exclaiming how long they’re running for and how one is surprised by a new year of content.
But I think the thing that annoys me most about posts like this is the insistence that Hitman is a live-service game. I mean, technically it is, but it’s not like these updates have ever, since 2016, been the main draw of the game, except for maybe Ambrose Island or Freelancer.
The definition of live service is usually a game that gets updates frequently to consistently attract players, new and old. The game is always online, has roadmaps that patch in content every so often, and even has DLC with celebrities; not unlike Fortnite or Fall Guys or even TF2 when they do crossovers with Alien, Marvel and music artists. Feels similar, doesn’t it?
In my mind, Hitman is a regular game which gets free updates as fun bonuses, not as the reason I play it. If Freelancer was the last update we ever got I would still be playing Hitman the same amount as I do now.
This attitude is just downplaying and minimising the issues at hand. The game gets updates and the developers expect people to notice; these aren’t “fun bonuses”, this is stuff they’re showing off to the world so people buy into the game. I understand what you’re getting at, but It’s a mindset that just wants to ignore issues rather than help be the voice that solves them.
I make videos on IO and Hitman not to be mean to them or for easy rage bait, but because they need to be talked about when they do something wrong, or if what they release isn’t up to snuff. Complacency breeds ignorance, ignorance bred out of not wanting to admit issues with the game. If nobody tells IO what’s wrong, then they are free to treat customers however they wish.
And I’ve been in that relationship far too many times to count; I don’t want IO to fall into that trap.
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Also, the obvious main reason to be annoyed by unannounced ET reruns is that people will miss them, since they’re no longer visible on the main tab. Not everyone switches over to the “live” tab to see if there’s something time-limited that wasn’t announced, when in the past ET reruns had been announced ahead of time.
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Yeah you’re probably right
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You’re making out as if they have committed treason or something? What exactly have they done massively wrong? Unfortunately, we live in a world where not everyone is going to be satisfied with everything. Speaking of Hitman III alone, we should be thankful we’re even getting Year 4 content. Like someone pointed out the other day, everyone thought Freelancer was the swan-song for the game’s life cycle, so I’m grateful to still see the game being supported. One of the main issues, which I know has been acknowledged IOI in the blog post, is the communication difficulties, so hopefully things will look more positively on that front moving forward. Also, IOI are now constantly scrolling through the forum looking at our fan requests for the game, so hopefully we’ll see more heavy fan service for the game over the coming months. I guess there’s not many gaming companies out there that still support a game 4 years on (Hitman III), but also continue to seek out fan requests/wishes on how to improve the game!
Just my opinion on the matter.
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Is combatglue the one deciding what items become unlocks? I always thought he just did PR stuff and the devs decided that
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He can take our requests and forward them to the devs who do decide that stuff, but it’s not guaranteed that everything will make it into the game.
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No? How on earth did you come to that conclusion?!?
It’s fine being thankful for content, hell be positive about it! But that phrase of “we should be thankful for Year X content” is usually trying to justify content that the OP knows is sub-par when it really shouldn’t be, and therefore finding a way to enjoy it without too much guilt.
Person 1: “The unicorn horn released and it’s just another reskin”
Person 2: " We should be thankful for getting any content released in Year 4".
Can you see the issue here? Person 2 is not really commenting on the problem, nor really adding to the discussion in a constructive way; they’re deliberately trying to ignore it.
And it was fairly clear IO were still supporting the game post-freelancer, not least because the logistics of such a mode would require updates to maintain it or add balance patches; therefore we’d get more roadmaps and other content also. I’m not sure if anyone thought Freelancer was the “swan song” back when that released, especially considering it was heavily delayed to begin with.
As am I. I just want that on record more than anything.
“communication difficulties” is kinda downplaying the real situation; their unwillingness to talk about things like shadow-dropped ET’s and Featured Contracts…and still haven’t mentioned anywhere! It’s not difficult to communicate, it’s more that they don’t want to, for reasons only they know.
I even said in the video I posted above that communication has gotten better, they told us in advance what was coming (though again, it wasn’t terribly hard to predict it). There was a genuine effort made to inform us, and that cannot be overstated.
I guess there’s not many gaming companies out there that still support a game 4 years on (Hitman III), but also continue to seek out fan requests/wishes on how to improve the game!
I can name a fair few just off the top of my head:
- Apex Legends
- Counter Strike 2 (and before that CS:GO)
- Team Fortress 2 (Props to the outside help; screw you Valve for talking so long to purge the bots!)
- Terraria
- Stardew Valley
- No Mans Sky
- PUBG
- Fall Guys
- Fortnite
- Paladins
- SMITE (Soon to be SMITE 2)
- Rainbow Six Siege
And likely many more. Go look at the top ten games on Steam; hell look at the top 50, and you’ll see it’s filled with games that are popular and have been around for several years, which are getting meaningful content drops and updates, frequently suggested by the community. Hitman 3 is not that special in this regard.
As a personal aside, I’ve been playing Fall Guys more recently, and the past few updates have been specifically geared towards community suggestions. Unvaulting past levels, changes to the creative level selection process to be less frustrating in queue, changing where the taunt button is, adding costumes you can buy with Kudos; these were all suggested by the community and Mediatonic listened (And they also told people about their updates!)
Also, IOI are now constantly scrolling through the forum looking at our fan requests for the game, so hopefully we’ll see more heavy fan service for the game over the coming months.
While they are no doubt doing this, in fact I was informed of a DM conversation where several mods for the game were essentially sent to him as suggestions; This is good! Excellent even! But this is a silent and long process, by design, so It’s hard to gauge this and hard to talk about it.
I want nothing more that for IOI to improve, but they have a nasty habit of remaining silent when they shouldn’t. And this has been true long before Year 4. This is why I want people to speak up more about what’s going on. That isn’t treason, that’s just being a more savvy fan of a game that, I hope, people want to be improved.
Thank you for reading yet another Bitter Pill diatribe on Hitman’s internal problems. Seeya next week!
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I’m not feeling guilt of anything. Like I say, going into Year 4, I’m still surprised we’ve been getting content, regardless of what it is, considering IOI have said in multiple interviews that Hitman WOA is heavily winding down on content as they slowly turn their full attention onto the ongoing IOI projects (Bond etc). They’ve given us full newly designed Freelancer Safehouse items & cosmetics, new ET (The Drop, The Disrupter), Sean Bean return etc and yet more new content is coming across the rest of the year. Like I put in my post above, not everyone will be pleased with everything we get, but after a company says content is winding down and they still keep dropping content, I think that’s pretty cool in my opinion.
I think some people thought that was the last big update considering Freelancer had so much work done to it and the mode was essentially created as a thank you to fans for Hitman III exceeding expectations. Don’t get me wrong, our course Freelancer would have received patches, updates etc, but like I said, I don’t think people expected us to be going into Year 4 once Freelancer released.
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Have they? By all means link me to these interviews, I’m willing to be proven wrong on this, but last I checked, they haven’t said anything of the sort. Yes, they’re working on multiple projects, and they’ve definitely talked about their business goals and their plans for the future. But the closest to this sentiment I can remember is that Hitman will be “taking a break” (which is more to do with IO wanting to focus on P007, Project Fantasy etc). I don’t think that immediately translates as “heavily scaling back content”, that says to me they want to focus on more than one thing (which correlates well with their goal of being a European AA developer/ publisher), especially considering we got a CelebrET which, issues with Conor aside, did have fairly good production values. Ditto for the items we got as a part of that DLC.
So if they are indeed winding down, they’re spending a lot of money on Celebrities, dealing with Sony’s red tape for TS6, and other content in the process, which I’d argue is the precise opposite direction to that goal.
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Here you go 
“There’ll be more chapters written in the Hitman story, that’s for sure,” Elverdam says. But for now, 47 is preparing to put down his weapons for a little while. Support for Hitman has started “ramping down”, we’re told, and is now the smallest team in the company.
Don’t get me wrong, things may have changed since January this year, but this is the last time IOI acknowledged that support/content for Hitman has started slowing down.
Like you pointed out, IOI have brought in additional Celebrity ET’s, so plans may have changed and like I’ve posted in other threads, I’m really hoping IOI give the green light for a Year 5 for Hitman!
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Thank you for the link, this was a good read!
However, I do have issues with the presented interpretation, especially considering you missed what was immediately said afterward:
“There’ll be more chapters written in the Hitman story, that’s for sure,” Elverdam says. But for now, 47 is preparing to put down his weapons for a little while. Support for Hitman has started “ramping down”, we’re told, and is now the smallest team in the company. “After the launch of Hitman 2, we decided the strategy is to not be a one-trick pony,” Buhl says – hence the two games IO now has cooking. The biggest production in the works, and the most advanced in terms of its schedule, is Project 007.
…which is pretty much what I said. IO have bigger projects and don’t want to focus on one thing. And “ramping down” support for Hitman is still quite vague wording, gonna be honest. Yes, that does imply content slowing down, but not to an extreme degree that you otherwise-said in your original comment. It’s a bit of leap in tone and logic to go from “support is ramping down” to “[Hitman WOA] content is heavily winding down”.
I am not surprised Hitman is the smallest studio in IO, but also, we don’t have much internal perspective of how big their teams are when compared to other projects, so it’s hard for us, the outsiders, to quantify a lot of what they’re saying. We quite literally need to get some perspective, please.
If I were a betting man, I’d say that IO got the idea to do The Disruptor after how well The Undying did as both a DLC and roadmap, and thus got more resources and money to make that happen.
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