Hello everyone. Today we are going to talk about the Silverballer’s origins.
I am going to illustrate very deeply from where it all started, from what it was inspired and how it evolved thru every single Hitman game till this day.
For the new players who got hooked to this beloved game starting from HITMAN 2016, I am badeaguard the expert of the Silverballer and it is up to me to keep the memory and story of it alive and well documented.
Thank you for your time stopping by and I wish you a pleasant read.
THE SILVERBALLER what is it? How did this gun take life?
Well, we have to go 24 years back with the release of the first Hitman game “Hitman Codename 47”
When this game came out IOI put it very clearly that 47’s weapon of choice is the AMT Hardballer.
You are introduced to it in the first training mission and while you proceed you get all these nice wallpapers with our Agent 47 always holding one or two of them.
What is a HARDBALLER?
A Hardballer is a variation of a Colt 1911 and I believe the first time it was used in cinema was in the 1984 Terminator movie who made it famous. A well known fact is that when the developers created Codename 47 they were heavily inspired by 80’s\90’s movies so it seems they took the idea from there.
The Hardballer comes in two models. A normal sized pistol like every 1911 and a long slide version of it.
IO interactive decided to go with their own standard version.
It’s the same identical pistol with all the trademarks the Hardballer comes with and accessories but removing the rail on top of the gun that connects the front sight with the rear sight. Probably because of the designs limitation of that era.
They keep however the rear sight identical but modified the front one as you can see in the pictures bellow:
Other things they kept from the Hardballer is the two tone color. That being the frame grey (bottom part) while the slide (top part) polished on the sides. A thing you will notice ingame and in all of the wallpapers if you look closely.
Last, besides the top rail, every accessory is the same identical following the design from the real Hardballer.
These accessories are: the extended slide release, extended thumb safety, skeleton trigger, hammer, grip safety, housing, rear and front sight.
I took some time to illustrate what these parts are and how they differ from a standard Colt 1911.
And here we have the father of the Silverballer but it’s not yet called that. It will still remain the Hardballer for another game.
THE BALLERS
Proceeding with a new Hitman game 2 years later, in Hitman 2 Silent Assassin the Hardballer now is known just as the Baller or Ballers because from now on IOI is giving you the full set and makes it even more louder and clear that this is 47’s personal gun\guns.
You have them stored in a nice briefcase hidden underground with a big logo on top of it and when 47 picks them up you can see how emotional he is about them and how much they represent his past and the true killer nature.
But are they still the same as it was in Codename 47?
Almost yes but with yet other modifications.
In this version of the Silverballer they wanted to personalize them more to match 47’s apparel but be careful because the appearance differs from the ingame pistol and the wallpapers.
Sometimes even the wallpapers are different from each other and I am going to explain what their intention were at the time.
The first thing that catches your eyes are the grips. They are beautiful!
They choose a wrap around grips with the Hitman insignia. An idea they most certainly got inspired by the real grips on some Colts.
You are going to find this design permanent ingame but in only one wallpaper they will use it.
After that, you will find only the first version of the Codename 47 Hardballer’s grips in the rest of the wallpapers/ingame loading screen. This could be because these wallpapers were planned first as promotional art and later on while building the game they decided to go with the new look.
But this is just my speculation. Nothing official.
Moving on next, the Ballers still keeps the 2 tone colors but only in game while in the wallpapers the pistols are completely polished resulting in an unique color.
But that’s not all inside the game’s version. The frame remains original Hardballer grey color.
The slide instead is now not only brushed on the sides but fully it seems together with some accessories, the extended slide release and thumb safety, hammer and trigger.
The trademarks also changes from the ingame with the wallpapers.
Ingame the developers wanted to customize them with their company logo of that time.
Not the Hitman logo you will soon learn about in the Silverballer but with the actual IO Interactive logo.
I’m sure not many of you catch this.
Promotional art and wallpapers will keep the original Hardballer trademarks leading me again to believe they were done before the decision of the final design.
Attention! The design ingame (IOI logo on the slide) was only added later in time when they released again a Hitman Pack PC collection disc. The same remaster that will follow on the Playstation 3.
In the begging the original ingame design markings were the same you found on the wallpapers. Instead of the IOI logo the Ballers had the original AMT logo. Why did they change this?
Customization? Artistic decision? Trademark copyright? Or could be that we reached already the era were games were no longer allowed to have real life weapons name?
In any case here is a screenshot I took from a Playstation 2 playthrough on YouTube. You can’t update that over the internet so there is no hiding it.
Now here is another interesting thing… You might have noticed that in some wallpapers the Ballers seems to be inverted.
Why so? Because one of their idea was, since 47 has 2 identical pistols, to have them tailored for each hand.
That being! A normal Baller for the right hand and one for the left hand with the magazine catch, thumb safety, slide release and ejection port on the opposite side so he can maneuver the reloading easily as it if was the right hand.
The idea of the ejection port on the other side is so that when the bullet fires, the empty shell will not hit on the other hand (right) in that case not distracting him from the target I guess.
Basically a pistol for the left handed. A very good idea but this was only implemented in the wallpapers because it looked good.
In the game you have your 2 set of identical pistols.
They used the same idea in the first wallpaper of Codename 47 too. So it seems the idea was persistent even back then.
Last curious fact about the Baller and then we move on the next version is that in only one promotional artwork the rail on top that I talk earlier in the Hardballer is added.
But it’s not the same identical rail as in the real life Hardballer, this one is slimmer and taller connecting the sights even more elegantly.
They only used it in one wallpaper but it will take life in the next game. This suggesting they had a very clear vision of how the Silverballer should look.
THE SILVERBALLERS
And finally we’re here. It’s 2004 and IO Interactive releases Hitman Contracts.
Hitman Contracts is a mix of a new story continuing the saga combined with a reboot of some of the missions from Hitman Codename 47.
But we are not here to discuss the story. No… I am here to tell you what this pistol has new, how it evolved and my theories from where the developers took the inspiration.
The name Silverballer will be now known worldwide as the iconic pistol of Agent 47
The Silverballer still remains the same following all the aspects of the Hardballer, this time replacing every ATM trademark with the Hitman logo and the Hardballer sigla is rebranded “Custom Slide”.
They took the inspiration for the Custom Slide precisely from the Long Slide version of the Hardballer rearranging the order on how these writings are placed.
Probably to avoid trademark infringement.
But the engravings are just one of the things that are different. We obviously have the whole pistol in one color instead of the two tone iconic Hardballer.
The gun is now fully polished and shinny resembling a silver color. No, I do not think the whole gun is made out of silver. They must have nicknamed it this way cause of the appearance and it sticked.
Another obvious part are the grips. They chose a set of grips called American Legend Pachmayr Grips. At first glance they look identical to the real life version but in reality they are sightly modified.
For example, the black rubber part covers the lower part of the frame where you put your fingers from near the magazine to the trigger. In the Silverballer this part has been shorten a bit.
Staying on the grips, remember the Hitman insignia on the grips from the Ballers? They are still here but minimized following the Pachmayr’s design reinvented to accomodate Agent 47’s style. But they will only appear in the ingame version as they decided to leave a blank medallion on the promotional arts/wallpapers. Probably, again, a decision made later on deep in the production.
Moving next. We saw that they changed the color, they added a new set of grips with custom insignia, they rebranded the markings but what about the accessories? Are they same?
Yes they are but now there are some upgrades.
Starting from the bottom, the Silverballer’s clip now has a magazine base pad. Present both in the wallpapers and in game.
Shifting to the middle, exactly in the barrel area, the Silverballer now mounts a Full Length Recoil Spring Guide Rod.
What is this thing? When you shoot a pistol the slide will go back forcing the fired shell out making room for the new bullet down in the magazine.
While the slide goes back it reveals the pistol’s barrel. Underneath the barrel there is a thing called spring plug. This plug is nothing but a long cap holding inside a spring that serves the purpose to bring back the slide when the pistol has been fired.
This plug is present on the Hardballer both real life and Hitman fantasy but with the Silverballer they choose to install a more “open” one. I have no idea what the advantage of this upgrade is but they tough it looks nice and decided to add it in the renewed iconic pistol.
This guide plug is found in the wallpapers as well as inside the game.
Ending with the top, they reinvented that rail the Hardballer has connecting the front sight with the rear one. It is called rib sight.
IOI manage to do something really beautiful and innovative.
In the real world there is only one version of a Colt 1911 that uses such a design and that pistol is called Colt LLama.
Nobody has ever heard of it and I personally found it by mistake and the resemblance was so uncanny.
Maybe they had this idea from that version of Colt or perhaps just a pure coincidence. We will never know but in any case, for me personally, it looks so good and so right.
The same rail was used for the first and only time in one wallpaper from Hitman 2 Silent Assassin I mention when talking about the Ballers leaving us to believe they had the designs for the Silverballer stored years ago.
Ingame instead this bar changes. Maybe they were limited by the technology of that time but inside the game you have this rib sight flat. Actually you have the same design a real life Hardballer has only slimmer, a line wide just as the front sight instead of covering the whole top slide.
Staying on top, here is another big change.
While the front sight has the same reinvented design since the Hardballer from the Codename 47, the Silverballer has 2 different versions of rear sight.
That being one ingame and another one in the wallpapers/promotional art/covers.
Let’s start with the one ingame because with the second version I have a lot to tell.
The ingame rear sight is the same from the real Hardballer. Is the same from Codename 47 Hardballer and the same from Silent Assassin Ballers.
And this case is closed!
The wallpapers on the other hand have a very very interesting blueprint.
It’s a totally different sight but what amazes me is the rarity of it and how so few people knows about this product.
This sight is very common only among true professionals. It is used in the Olympic shooting sports and by other such athletes who seeks the absolute precision.
The Silverballer equips the same sight, redesign a bit but overall it stays very close to the original and it is called LPA sight
Curios enough this sight was used once in a movie, a very famous one but nobody noticed.
I talked in Codename 47 how is a well known fact that IOI is heavily inspired by 80’s/90’s movies when it comes to the Hitman lore and I think we all agree how the last mission in Hitman Contracts feels so much like the stand off from the movie Léon The Professional.
Well I believe I actually found where they got the idea to use that sight.
And I am convinced it all came from these scene.
Why? I knew about this sight for a long time and as a fan of the Colt 1911 when I see it movies I always check what combination of accessories they use. Just to judge if I like it or not.
Well the only and first time I noticed this sight in a movie was in this one, Léon. And by then I was already a huge Hitman fan and just started to learn about how a pistol is composed.
You can see the LPA sight in exactly this scene when Matilda opens her little case to assemble her training pistol.
Did they truly got encouraged to use this sight because they seen it in Léon? We will never know but the fact that Hitman Contracts is so similar to this movie suggest this might be a probability or just one huge coincidence.
And this my dear friends are all the detailed differences from the past pistols.
The skeleton trigger, extended slide release, extended thumb safety, hammer, grip safety and housing stays exactly the same.
A last thing to add about the artists design decisions, the Hitman Contracts Silverballer was yet again destine to have a custom version for each hand.
If you forgot about this we talked about it with the Ballers. But once more the appearance changes from the ingame and the wallpapers.
In the wallpapers you have what it was intended in Hitman 2 Silent Assassin. A pistol with the accessories inverted to accomodate the use of the left hand.
In the game instead you have the same standard Silverballer for each hand but! The markings are inverted…
I can’t really make much of a sense from this but I am only left to assume that since maybe it was a waste of time to focus on an inverted model the developers prioritize other important things to finish and left this particular out.
So I guess since there wasn’t time or energy to focus on this they went with the idea that inverting the engravings 47 can distinguish which one is meant for which hand.
Probably the left hand Silverballer has the weight reduced advantaging precision or things like that and this is nothing official or confirmed. Just my fanboy theory.
However there was a rendering of the ingame left handed Silverballer. For unknown reasons or limitations it never made it in the gameplay.
Interestingly, they had 3 variation of the Silverballer before finalizing in what it is today.
First version is the Baller from Hitman 2 Silent Assassin you see in some cutscenes ingame
A second version instead never before seen is the same pistol above but with the Pachmayr grips you find on the Silverballer.
Another version is the og Silverballer but with the medallions on the grips gold. You will find this version only in the initial cutscene of the first mission Asylum Aftermath.
Same version was pulled from somewhere but for unknown reason it seems the developers said “naaaah, silver is better”. Too bad, gold gives it a nice mafia vibe.
Good! I talked about all there was to say about the Silverballer.
I gave you every little detail that you probably had no idea it existed so what more is there to say about the Blood Money version since it’s the same?
Honestly not much but it doesn’t deserve to be left behind.
First of all the BLOOD MONEY SILVERBALLER offers one of the best wallpapers of the pistol.
Staying absolutely the same in design with all of it’s accessories and engravings, Blood Money shows you what Contracts couldn’t and that is the best life details of each piece where you can learn so much about them.
For example the extended slide release and thumb safety while remaining the same as from a real Hardballer, the extensions are noticeable slimmed.
The rear sight is portrayed from more different angles giving you the best view of their reimagining LPA sight.
The rib sight was also enriched with details making it so beautiful.
The Blood Money Silverballer looks elegantly aggressive in the rendering pictures…
The ingame version however at first sight it looks the same just like in the wallpapers but investigating closely it turns out they are using the identical rib sight from the real life Hardballer in full details while keeping the LPA sight pretty close to the wallpapers.
Another difference and this was never discussed because they never got around to render it. The main spring housing is textured while usually in most pictures of a Hardballer that I saw is serrated. But this is just a matter of taste and preferences.
Last difference and at the same time disappointing is how the engravings are portrayed ingame. They just do not fit, mostly missing especially nonexistent on the frame and doubled on both sides of the slide. Not to mention they are way over sized.
But there is one more welcomed upgrade. One not used in the arts or anything promotional and this is the option to make your Silverballer long slide just like the long slide Hardballer from Terminator.
Utterly identical to the real thing besides the front and rear sight.
The Long Slide Silverballer truly stands out as an alternative concept and it is such a shame we won’t get to see more of it in future games taking advantage of all the graphical advancement.
And this ends our journey with the Blood Money Silverballer.
HITMAN ABSOLUTION SILVERBALLER
There is a lot to say about Hitman Absolution. This game did a lot of bad things regarding the gameplay but man, did they stay loyal to the core and what Agent 47 stands for.
The developers at IO Interactive in 2012 really gave us the ultime Silverballer model. They didn’t redesign it whatsoever but they perfected it.
Staying almost quite the same like in the wallpapers from Blood Money, the Absolution version is the same looking both on wallpapers, renderings as it is in the game with just the insignificant difference that the engravings in gameplay are sightly bigger.
There are only 6 small differences from Blood Money:
- The rear sight and front sight are now polished matching the pistol’s color while in Blood Money they were painted black.
- One engrave on the left side of the slide is moved a little more to the right instead of being positioned in center.
- The magazine base pads are also silvered instead of being black.
- Full Length Recoil Spring Guide Rod is removed ingame but somehow appears in the cutscenes.
- The main spring housing is serrated.
- The shell ejection port is larger on the lower left side.
(in real life an ejection port like this does not exists as far as I know)
With this we conclude the Silverballer’s lifespan and I want with immense pleasure to share with you fans never before seen closeups of the Absolution Silverballer model in incredible details.
ICA SILVERBALLER…
We are now in a new era of gamers and games. IOI is moving forward with the world and adapts but still keeping the Hitman formula and lore.
The new HITMAN saga is “softly” rebooted as they claim in one podcast, leaving room for innovations and new approaches of the cost of removing 47’s iconic weapons…
As I was saying, this is a new era and a reinvented Hitman. A new generation.
I assume there are not many left from the old IOI crew and the new developers and artists have free hand to re model everything as they pleased or feel right.
The Silverballer is no longer 47’s first weapon of choice. They will keep it for the old time sake because it made a name for itself but it’s remodeled in the most generic way possible.
And I am pissed!
Can you imagine my frustration after reading all these minute details I so passionately wrote about the Silverballer and then coming down to something so downgraded?
Well let’s see what is all about.
First of all the new iconic weapon was meant to be the BLACKBALLER better known now as BLACK TRINITY.
The name Blackballer was not official but a name we gave because the Silverballer now is fully black. And it was a well welcomed change especially by me.
Now this gun appeared everywhere in the promotional artworks in HITMAN 2016, even in trailers.
It was there in the beta where you could had access only by preordering and a lot of other ingame pictures they constantly promoted.
Big surprise when they released the full game it was gone, vanished. Never to be talked about?
Why? After 9 years we still have no answer and believe me I asked, I bitched, I send emails, I wrote devs in here, I ASKED YOUTUBERS TO ASK THEM DIRECTLY FACE TO FACE IN CONVECTIONS!!! And they never had an answer for it.
They never told me they hated it, or ever made a statement whatsoever even after I made other fans noticing. They just ignored.
Instead it’s place was taken by the ICA19. WTF?!
I hate this gun. Can you tell? But exactly why?
Because this pistol is nothing else but a mass produced airsoft Tokyo Marui M1911 pistol.
I know because it was not the first time I catch them using airsoft weapons. In a matter of fact all the weapons in Hitman are modeled by airsoft weapons.
First time I noticed was in the HITMAN Legacy Opening Cinematic trailer when 47 fires the WA2000 sniper rifle. Observed anything strange? I did.
That round thing under the silencer is actually the magazine entry where you put inside the bbs. I know because I own the same replica at home therefrom leading me to see many more similarities from the airsoft world inside Hitman.
The ICA19 is 100% PURE identical with a Tokyo Marui M1911.
While with the Silverballer they put in it so much tough and improvement thru each game making it better and ambitious every new release, with the ICA19 they literally copy the whole thing from the most generic pistol possible and instead of a trademark such as the Hitman logo they tough it would be overcome by a barcode…
The sigla EL MONTE CA present on both the frame and slide of the Silverballer will be found for some strange reason on the frame but in a very weird position at the begging of the gun near the grip.
And this is not their only mistake. This gun will be overused for all their pistol arsenal variations.
They will basically use the same model changing the color, grips and rear sight, add something new like a muzzle and will be called by a different name… This pistol is precisely re-skinned more than 15 times!!! Including DLCs.
Even the same hexagon screws on the grips will we used on all the 1911.
Count it by yourself but exclude the 3 Trinity pistols because they are truly different and I will get to that shortly.
Please note the slide is also different in a point where is unnoticeable. The end of the slide on the ICA is straight while on the Tokyo Marui it’s curved as every other real Colt out there.
We will get back at this design later.
The pistol El Matador for example ingame has the power of a 50 Action Express cartridges or 44 Magnum and their intent (developers) seems to be that of a Desert Eagle, instead you get one of the too many variations of the ICA19 with an indeed nice skin for a change.
ICA Silverballer is absolutely no exception a part from the iconic grips which are not even the same from the previous games and the sigla STAINLESS - MADE IN U.S.A. is positioned in the same spot as the Silverballer’s but at the bottom.
Nagging about this 2 whole years at IO Interactive, they heard me loud and clear and so our beloved team gave us the BLACK LILY which should had been the Blackballer but instead is a fucking pure identical ICA19 with the Hitman logo instead of the barcode and the ICA Silverballer’s grips…
2 years later somewhere in August, they announced The Trinity Pack and with a big smile on his face during a podcast, Travis, will say “the black gun is back and those who knows, knows” referring to me.
Days later when asked about this he replies with:
26:32
That day I was happy and all the grudge I had with IOI disappeared.
To be continued…
