Sapienza was a beautiful mission with so many things going on, but it feels very much like IO ripped out the best way to play it while leaving all the hints there.
For example, Paris is all about spectacle & distraction, and so after replaying it over and over, I loved discovering what felt like the “right” way to play the mission. Get a sniper, set off the fireworks, snipe both targets in broad daylight while every guard is looking up at the sky, and escape in the speedboat or helicopter. It can be easily done as SASO and thematically completes the mission.
Mumbai has a theme too. I won’t spoil it but obviously there is ONE way to do the mission where the game will literally prompt you to kill the last target at the perfect time, not just with dialogue but a literal blinking button. The way to get there is the ending to a theme I think of as “hiding in plain sight” and “pulling the strings”
Sapienza has a theme too - guilt, and every single damn hint points towards one perfect way to play it, but for some reason its just not possible.
This is the direction EVERY hint, challenge and dialogue points to for how the mission should go:
- Silvio commits suicide or has a suicide staged by 47.
- Francesca goes to mourn him in the church and dies by the church bell.
So many things point to this:
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Shortly after you hand Francesca the DNA sample, she says “thank you for relieving me of the guilt of having you killed” in the room with the packed furniture. She then gets on the phone and says she will kill him after getting the prototype. She mentions staging a suicide… She mentions that she will forge a suicide note.
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The prototype EXISTS on the map, hidden in the ship. But there’s just no way to hand it to her or place it somewhere she’ll see it. Presumably, once she has the prototype, she has no need for Silvio.
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The entire mission has 4 different ways to make Silvio guilty and presumably commit suicide. You can make him go his mothers grave, you can play the tapes, you can impersonate the Dr. and make him admit it, and you can make him go to his mothers room.
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Bells are a constant theme throughout the mission. Church bells, dinner bells, bedroom bells.
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There is an explicit challenge on the mission to assassinate a target using a bell that just can’t be completed via the campaign? There’s like a whole well developed church and morgue and NPC dialogue around the area that points to nothing?
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I mean most suspicious of all, Silvio faints in his mothers room. Seems like the intention may have been to get him to commit suicide, but it was changed to fainting at the last minute. Perhaps to appease some censors if it was decided suicide was too dark for the game.
Even after trying to hand her the virus prototype, dragging Silvio’s body halfway across the map undetected to the ONE place she will see it when she’s alone - in her bedroom bathroom, nothing happens.
Francesca even mentions anti-anxiety meds and pills, you can literally leave a bottle of poison pills next to Silvios body in his mothers room but nothing changes. I tried leaving it on his mothers bed before he enters the room too, so maybe he would take them, but nope…
Like tell me you all see this… just someone please did IO rip this out at the last minute?
At least challenges should have some indication if they can only be completed via contract… i don’t read stuff about the game online because i dont like spoilers, so i had no idea there’s just no way to do the challenge in campaign mode before seeing some posts here.
