Not at all, because their behavior is entirely that of bodyguards and not at all evocative of assassins, paid or otherwise. Shoot anyone who attacks your boss is not the job description of someone whose vocation is targeted killing. At best they could be considered ill-equipped mercenaries hired to engage an offender with extreme prejudice once they reveal themselves, while patrolling in defense of a client until that time, but otherwise, aside from being able to kill you in fewer shots, are these guys really any different than the guards that follow every other target in the game around? I definitely would consider the ICA agents, or the Rival from the Envy escalation, all of whom are in pursuit of specific targets, as more befitting the label of âassassins.â
The assassins need to talk like civilians instead of guards. They should still pick up weapons but keep (and use) them to deny players an opening.
I think you hit on the reason behind the problem. Envy introduced the mechanic of ârival assassinâ to the World of Assassination but instead of doing it correctly they made the nothing more than bodyguards.
What they should have done was to introduce actual rival assassins who would attempt to kill your target either by systematically killing off each suspect or actually going after the real target. That would have made them actual âassassinsâ.
Or ones that were actively seeking you out as you sought your target, meaning they can follow you around the map depending on where youâve been and what actions youâve taken, and you the player then see them and think, âhuh, thatâs the second time Iâve walked past that bearded guy in the Grateful Dead t-shirt and the Fuck You hat, and this is not anything like that last area I saw him in⌠I wonder if heâs following me, maybe heâs also an assa- PISTOL!â
Assassins that are competing with you or actively hunting you, donât really care which, but dudes following their boss around ready to pull out a gun if someone looks threatening, Iâm sorry, thatâs not a fucking assassin, thatâs a glorified bodyguard, no two ways about it.
Having not read every reply could it simply be a matter of the âassassinsâ being able to 1 or 2 shot 47? If they were labeled âbodyguardsâ then youâd think you could get into a regular gunfight and sponge several of their bullets. So since youâre much more likely to die (or get âAGENT DOWNâ) the more accurate name better fits their capabilities.
So what if theyâre called whatever. At the very least the player should know theyâre a much more serious threat than regular bodyguards/enforcers. So there shouldnât be any confusion there regarding the situation. Hell, you can call them âlucky shotsâ if you want - the outcome will still be the same.
Except it has nothing to do with their capabilities. Their ability to kill you so fast has to do with their weapons being overpowered, and nothing to do with any skill they have excepting aiming well enough to hit you. The prerogative of an assassin is targeted killing; these NPCs are not engaging in that, they are just following their boss around and then attacking an intruder once a threat is perceived. Thatâs the behavior of a bodyguard; an assassin actively seeks as specific target, or lies in wait for a specific target. These guys donât even know youâre a threat until you expose yourself.
Clever idea 
Or they could at least make those bodyguard âassassinsâ hunt for 47 or attacking him in a harder way than usual guardsâŚ
For the game to have an NPC actively âhuntâ 47, itâd have to either implement the âfollow mechanicâ of a particular NPC in a certain Colorado escalation (from H1), or have an AI that independently and actively looks for you - no helping/cheating from the game. I donât believe such a thing is possible currently⌠Although there is a Mod that makes guards âactively searchâ for 47, even if heâs hiding in a crate/closet.
Capabilities⌠Weapons used by⌠I see these as the same thing since they both apply to the same NPC type. A regular guard isnât going to pick up and use an âassassinâsâ gun and 1-shot 47. Theyâre always going to pull whatever weapon theyâre assigned to use out of their ass (or thin air) when it comes to gunfights, be it a Bartoli, shotgun, or an AK-47. 
Now Iâm wondering about different gun types and the range theyâre used at.
47 w/ Shotgun, close range = death.
Guard w/ Shotgun, close range = 47 gets injured.
I canât say Iâve had an instant death being shot by a shotgun.
So one could work out that regular bodyguards do not give lethal hits when they shoot regardless of the weaponâs power. Assassins do.
Perhaps it comes down to a tweaking of perks/abilities assigned to an NPC. Assassins have a higher perk than regular guards.
I donât see the point in the naming issue. Itâs just a different name to differentiate them. Sure, theyâre still bodyguards. Just with extra/better perks.
The ones labelled as assassins do. But functionally, theyâre just overpowered guards. Had they not been labelled as assassins, nobody would think of them as such. At least, nobody without a proper understanding of what an assassin is within the context of the world of Hitman.
Exactly that. Ppl would be confused if regular bodyguards 1 or 2 shot killed 47. So labeling them something that is kinda like an Insta kill, shows how dangerous they are.
When the initially announced Freelancer and made it known that there would be âassassinsâ I think we all thought âEnvyâ and âRival Assassinsâ. When they turned out to be little more than bodyguards, I know I was disappointed and I assume a lot of other players were.
Iâm glad that they didnât âEnvy-ifyâ the assassins. Since the rival in Envy is really just a timer in NPC form that is just very static by doing the same thing at the same time and doesnât have to play by any of the ârulesâ that the player does.
Iâd rather the assassins we got than that in Freelancer.
Honestly, if you disregard 47, the ICA kinda sucked.
ALL the agents we see in Berlin were absolute fubars and everyone else sucked as well.
Right, but how dangerous they are has nothing to do with what they were labeled. They donât act like assassins, they donât function like assassins, it doesnât matter how deadly they are. Thatâs just more deadly bodyguards, like how those soldiers on the train in Carpathian Mountains were more dangerous soldiers. They might be deadlier, but that doesnât change their behavior patterns. These guys are not hunting us, nor are they lying in wait for us specifically, able to see through any disguise, at least not on non-alerted showdowns. To be an assassin, or hitman, or hired killer, whatever you want to call it, you are actively pursuing specific prey, not just walking around with your boss waiting for something that might or might not happen. Thatâs a bodyguard.
Thatâs just because they were up against 47. ICA, as far as we can tell, had been around at least as long as Providence, and they were doing fine before they hired 47. Once they did, and knowledge of his genetic superiority got out, it started causing trouble for ICA. Between the Franchise taking out so many of their people, Travis wasting so many resources by throwing them at 47 and getting them killed, and then the latest incident in Berlin, weâre talking a whole generation or two of professional hitters being knocked off, half of them by 47. Most others that werenât employed by ICA were targeted by 47 as well throughout the series. So by the time we get to Freelancer, thereâs nobody left in the world anywhere close to 47âs caliber. Itâll be years before those vacancies are filled by new people trained in intelligence agencies and elite military squads around the world looking for work.
The glaring omission in all of this is Knight and Stone. Where dey at!?
Given that they were on the ICAâs watchlist (as of the Sniper Assassin missions) and eventually ended up joining the ICA (as seen in Hitman Sniper: The Shadows), either on the run or captured and in prison after 47 blew the whistle on the ICA in Chongqing.
Well then you should probably consider it a case of
âfor lack of a better term - there are these guys that follow syndicate members around and can kill you in 1 or 2 shots.â
But, you know, K.I.S.S. usually works better. So, âAssassinsâ.
But please feel free to make up your own proper term/label for them and stick with that. Bodyguards that are marksmen. Like âMarksguardsmenâ or whatever. The rest of us will continue to be on our best behavior around assassins⢠or the extra deadly thingamabobbers.
Kinda sounds like a new game idea.
Correct, on a technicality, but again if a player dies from 2 shots, what will they likely complain about, that they died from an assassin or a bodyguard?
The label was just to give them that understanding of how dangerous they really are. Not labelling them or just calling them bodyguards doesnât show the seriousness of them. IOI just wanted people to know the real danger of them if they just walk in and just shoot suspects. Players canât just run around so easily.
So at the end if the day, yes it may not make sense to label them assassins when they donât act like them, but the seriousness and danger of them are just as identical.
Itâs impossible to compare the two going by lore only. The Freelancer assassins are completely non-existent in terms of lore (and lore regarding Freelancer is already pretty thin to begin with). Youâre even dabbling into game mechanics yourself by comparing them to bodyguards.
Besides, just by listening to their transmissions itâs pretty clear the ICA agents are not only completely outmatched, but also handling the situation very recklessly (their retreat in particular is not âthem being smart enough to call it a day before they all dieâ, itâs a panic move - if they were smart they wouldnât all rush to the same place and risk being annihilated, theyâd disperse to minimize the risks of casualties).
That would probably have been very hard to do considering the random nature of Freelancer targets. The rival assassin in Envy is heavily scripted and relying on a lot of timers.
This on the other hand would have been an interesting way to add actual assassins. Itâs already been done in a somewhat similar fashion in Mallory Misfortune⌠but I think a lot of people hate this escalation so itâs no wonder IOI didnât bring that mechanic back :x