The Story Discussion (Spoilers)

Someone has streamed the full story on Twitch after receiving their game early in the mail. So here we go:

So we know that the first two missions revolve around The Partners, so no real need to recap that.

During Dartmoor, Grey sets up a communications hub nearby - which is stormed by ICA operatives as 47 leaves Dartmoor. Grey is wounded and briefly gets away into the woods. While Grey is surrounded, he realises that 47 is among the ICA goons, disguised as one of them. 47 plans to help get Grey out of the situation, but before he can Grey grabs a goon, steals his gun and kills himself as he doesn’t want to be captured. 47 gets away as no one was alerted to his presence.

The ICA then begins to tie up the loose ends by hunting down Olivia. Meanwhile Arthur Edwards approaches Diana, reveals 47 killed her parents and tells Diana to give him a call. With Grey dead and unable to contact Diana, 47 then finds himself in Germany to find Olivia. She gets a call from him saying she is trapped in the club as the ICA have found her. 47 heads to the club and takes down the ICA agents so Olivia can escape.

Ultimately Olivia is injured, but survives and leaves with 47. Diana then contacts Arthur and tells her that she could become the new Constant. She can either fight change, or be the change. Olivia and 47 then come up with a plan to take down the ICA - blowing the whistle on the ICA to the public. So he goes to China to infiltrate the ICA’s communication hub to get all the evidence he needs to take the ICA down.

After taking down the targets, 47 removes references to himself and Diana from the data before releasing it to the world (the data also contains Elusive Targets, so they’re canonized now I guess). 47 is detected by the ICA and has to sneak out of the building undetected while guards search for the intrusion.

After 47 escapes, Diana contacts Arthur again who says there are other candidates for the Constant role, and says she needs him because 47 will not stop until he finds him. She also reveal’s 47 one weakness. Herself.

Olivia then contacts 47 and says she’s found footage of Diana with a Providence Herald at an airport. 47 takes this as a message she needs help and that she’s infiltrated Providence. After arriving at Mendoza, 47 meets Diana in-person to deliver the mission briefing (!). She needs 47 to eliminate her competition for the Constant role who are also at the vineyard, so that she can ensure she becomes the new Constant and can take Providence down.

With Diana’s competition eliminated, 47 approaches Diana but she tells him to meet her away from the crowds to come up with a plan to eliminate Arthur. However, when 47 arrives, he pulls out his gun and aims for Diana, but she activates an Ether neurotoxin she put on his hands earlier which starts to knock 47 out. Diana reveals she’s no longer loyal to 47 as she has learned of why her parents died, and giving up 47 was the price to pay to become Constant. She says goodbye to 47 and leaves as he blacks out.

We then see 47 halluncinating from the neurotoxin, seeing previously eliminated targets from the trilogy, 47 wakes up with Arthur standing above him, who reveals that Diana wanted 47 eliminated but he sees potential in wiping 47’s memory again and using him as he sees 47 as a useful tool. 47 then starts to “see” Grey who tells him this neurotoxin is playing on his fears and he needs to overpower it. “Grey” then tells 47 that this all part of Diana’s plan to destroy Providence and take Arthur down.

47 wakes up and finds himself alone in a lab and seeks out to eliminate Arthur. He opens a door with a crowbar only to discover this lab is on a moving train. He eventually finds Arthur, who offers the memory wipe injection to 47 and to join him, but 47 eliminates him. 47 stops the train, gets off it and walks away.

Later Diana is seen taking her Providence pin and throwing it into a fire confirming she was never drawn in by the power of Providence. Diana and 47 then speak on the phone, solidifying that they’re still working together and will continue to in the future.

END OF TRILOGY

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i personally loved the story in H3, and i think it has the best self-contained story out of the whole trilogy. the acting was a little uncanny sometimes, but overall the story was very good.

i also love that we finally cut ties with the ICA. now 47 and Diana can work together without this big agency looming over their heads.

i think IOI’s writers made the right decision to leave the ICA behind for good

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I really liked the fact that the end of the game reveals the 2015 E3 trailer where Diana is getting 47 “back into the game” is actually set at the very end of the trilogy before Diana and 47’s final call at the end of the game.

That was a bit of a awesome moment when I realised that.

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Eh it is alright. It could have been worse but it could have been better. I loathe how they reused Blood Money’s twist though, I can say that safely.

But I would like to say that while the type of sequence itself is something movies and games love to do but that neurotoxin nightmare gave me Life is Strange vibes.

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Completely agree. I’m liking the idea of bidding a fuck you farewell to the ICA and Providence and starting over from scratch, maybe with Olivia in tow.

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I’m now wondering if the game has two endings.

There is an achievement/trophy where “47 takes another nap” on the final mission - I’m wondering if it is it possible for him to inject himself with the memory loss potion and work with Arthur and join Providence in a presumably non-canon ending? Or it could just end up being a mission failed scenario like killing the Constant in Isle of Sgail (or Diana in Mendoza).

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47 kills Dumbledore!

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I’m happy how this ends. Not too bright but still hopeful. Also, I love Diana even more after this.

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So, this Diana business sounds a bit shifty. Diana turns on 47, and leaves him for dead. 47, hallucinating from a toxin, decides that Diana’s just acting loyal towards Providence, and eventually rejoins her after eliminating the guy who tried to save his life.

Essentially, 47 decides to trust a crazed hallucination. How is that to be trusted?

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Yeah it’s a little bit convoluted but still salvageable in my opinion it’s not too bad. Obviously I havent experienced it yet but from reading it it is a little confusing.

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It’s actually possible to watch the livestream online. I’m very hesitant to share the link: does IOI know or care that some man in Germany (FreshRigi) has already received the game? I’ve taken a glance, and IOI have created something to be proud of.

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I’ve interpreted it as the hallucinations are just 47’s trying to comprehend what’s happened and whether Diana has truly turned on him. Ultimately he decides to trust her as she previously said when she met him in Mendoza she still wants to take Providence down. After all, he’s learned to not take any betrayal from Diana at face value anymore after the ending of Blood Money.

Using “Grey” to tell him the truth is just to make things more interesting to watch as a player, rather than just seeing 47 sitting, thinking and then having a “eureka!” moment.

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I am satisfied with this

The writing in previous games wasn’t good so I was nervous but this is all decent.

Grey’s death is nice, honorable and isn’t drawn out in a “please feel sad” scene.

I believed in 47 becoming his own person who trusts in Diana and they didn’t over-do it by giving him emotions, just a purpose he was finding.

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Also should we have a topic for those who saw the stream and want to discuss it further than the story?

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Wow, that’s actually kind of good. I can’t wait to see this play out. I like the old references but also the new direction they took. 47 revealing the ICA to the world is something that’s never been done and I actually really like it.

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I should mention that I haven’t seen much of the story even from Rigi’s stream of the game but I figure I would judge what I have seen.

Pros

Grey dying but not by 47’s hand. While I would have liked to have seen Grey live him dying but not by 47’s hand is probably the best way to kill him and it is in a way that makes his bad decisions fold in on him.

A bit of exploration into the inner workings of Providence. I don’t know how they handle the ICA (I watched from Mendoza onwards) but it was nice to learn some extra world building details. A little to late for it in my opinion but it is welcome.

There is some exploration of 47 since becoming more human as it were. This one, like the above point, is also a Con since I don’t feel like they do it enough. This one might change when I actually play the game.

The nightmare has some nice imagery and it is nice to see some of the inner workings of 47’s mind. It isn’t totally a con but a lot of that nightmare really reminds me of the nightmare sequence from Life is Strange. Tableaux of events from the game, a female lead that berates you using your personal flaws and it comes from out of nowhere.

Diana doesn’t die and there is the option to let The Constant die either and I thought that was nice. I reminds me but isn’t beat-for-beat of the way you “kill” Kirin Jindosh in Dishonored 2 so I can’t detract it since they have differences.

Cons

I feel the story wrap up a little to perfectly for my taste. I doubt it would take a single year to undo the work of a secret society that has existed since the end of WWII even with Diana being at the top and releasing all of that information there would have to be some form of internal resistance.

I am also not fond of exposing the ICA either especially since it was always an interesting concept and the only time it was fully explore previously was in Absolution which forgot about what the ICA even was. I guess it sets up a good sequel though…

I guess that is all I can think of right now for the moment. All of this is subject to change by the way either because I come around to something or I remember another Pro or Con.

Long time to read, and I don’t want to get spoiled much, but who of the main characters plays dead at the end? Grey? 47? Diana? All of them? Maybe anybody other like Olivia or Constant?

Grey’s dead. 47, Diana and Hall survive. The Constant is either killed or has his memories wiped.

Shame. I liked the voice actor of his

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A bit of everything in the ending. It felt Harry Potterish in a good way, and the medical thing and heavily armed guards had legendary TLOU vibes.
The story is playing on the themes of existentialism and ethical relativity. I think it was very well written.

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