Have you ever shown mercy in Freelancer? For Christmas (it wasn’t Christmas when I did this), I spared the lives of these poor little assassins, to see what would happen out of the pure empathy in my heart. As it turns out, they all seem to break out the cigarettes, at least in the locations I’ve tested. I’d like to imagine they become bodyguards for good people afterwards.
So, be careful next time. You might just be able to put these lost little souls on a good path - they’re very friendly creatures until threatened, in that case you might want to back up. I do recommend giving this a go yourself, I found a surprising amount of fun watching them go for a little walk. If they bug out and stand on the spot where the client suspect died, shooting near them tends to fix it.
I never show mercy for targets, other than quick deaths when necessary. I always show mercy for non-targets (guards who must be eliminated as part of optional objectives are, in this context, additional targets).
Some time ago I had an assassin walk for a smoke break despite the suspect they were protecting still being alive. I remember doing some distraction and bumps in that area, but didn’t kill or knock out anyone. Maybe the trigger is assassin losing track of the client, whether through them dying, escaping, getting knocked out and dragged into some corner, or just plainly walking out of assassin’s sight.
Next time I hop on Freelancer I’ll try to remember to do some tests during showdowns to see how easily can assassins be driven to giving up. Could be useful.
It’s not a terribly useful thing, to be sure, as it indiscriminately throws explosive ducks at everything in the Operating Room (and is thus likely to result in non-target kills), but it’s fun.
If you place a pack of sigarettes in Yuki’s suite dressed as a director, obviously in front of two sitting guards, one of them will say few words about sucking up to boss.
I don’t remember I heard this line before, though I must have placed sigarettes there as a director couple of times ages back
. ta-da
