Why Hitman is Dying

[GKNarls]

I wouldn't expect any more fun features to come out for this game. They have been systematically removing all the little details and fun quirks. There's no more bullet holes, no more blood splatter, severely limited kill animations, no weapon customization, no notoriety, no fun rating at the end, like "Piano Man" for fiber wiring a bunch of people, that cool thing where you can use instinct to shoot a bunch of people in a room at one time like a super boss assassin is gone, the "mission stories" are a step by step guide to assassinating your targets with no thought involved at all (I usually just don't even do them), and probably worst of all the bodies don't hump each other when you put two in the closets.

In Blood Money, you could slit someones throat with a knife and they'd freak out and blood would go all over the walls, or slam a screwdriver into their temple. In Hitman 2, you stab them lightly in the shoulder with all sharp weapons. If there is blood I don't notice it, and the NPCs certainly don't either.

In Blood Money, you take out all the parts of a sniper rifle, put them together, take out the target, and disassemble it to put it back in the case. In Hitman 2, you pull and put a fully kitted sniper right into the case.

The devil is in the details as they say. This is now a generic stealth game with no real variation except for the slightly better story and the maps. They favored selling more content over having more in depth game play.

I can still play it and have fun with it because I like the premise behind it, but every kill feels the same and I probably won't be getting the next one.

[Juri]

Amen!

[Juri]

Though there's blood and wounds.
But I totally know what you're talking about.
Also the identical routines of NPCs suck, the skill-system with achievement-points instead of money, the overall shiny (not dark) atmosphere and the super-villain targets that make me feel like the good guy. So many details have been better in one Hitman or another. Altogether the game is probably still the best of them all, yet taking a wrong direction.

[Xeno Metora]

what i dislike is that they're turning this franchise into like a movie, heavily story driven with chapters, plot twists and antagonists

i want Hitman to be about random assassination contracts that have no connection between them like the sniper missions and side missions

.. a game that primarily focuses on replayability is not a good fit to be a story driven game...this is not god of war or batman

[Xeno Metora]

and about the attention to details... yeah that's the game's weakest part

it's ironic how the highlights of the game suppose to be the kills yet the kills look so boring and underwhelming..... there's no dismemberment, no gore, no blood no anything , you kill someone with an explosion and his body just jumps in the air like a ragdoll... like are we still in the early 2000's?

even the cutscene kills like when you kill Rico as the tattoo artist you just poke him in the head with the tattoo thing for like 1 second and that's it he's dead lol .no blood no nothing

the kills in this game are incredibly underwhelming which is ironic

[Xeno Metora]

don't even get me started with the gta vice city style blood pools lol

[The Executioner]

Game devs always make the strongest game in the series early in the beginning and then for some odd reason never again. Take The Elder Scrolls Morrowind & Oblivion were both the best game of the year hands down and then Skyrim came out and was god awful. Fallout 3 and NV both great Fallout 4, terrible fallout shelter then the horrid 76. Need For Speed holy cow most wanted, carbon and a few older ones. After 08 with Most wanted the rest were hot garbage. Devs make good ones when their company is trying to impress consumers once they have a solid player base each and every game after is complete ♥♥♥♥. That's not all game devs but 90% will make actual AAA titles and then make 5 terrible straight ass games after. Witcher 1 2 and 3 were all great and that company is still sky rocketing to the top. Mortal Kombat reached it's peak in MK9 rest are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hot garbage with micro transaction walls and bland story telling.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Agent 47:

Game devs always make the strongest game in the series early in the beginning and then for some odd reason never again. Take The Elder Scrolls Morrowind & Oblivion were both the best game of the year hands down and then Skyrim came out and was god awful. Fallout 3 and NV both great Fallout 4, terrible fallout shelter then the horrid 76. Need For Speed holy cow most wanted, carbon and a few older ones. After 08 with Most wanted the rest were hot garbage. Devs make good ones when their company is trying to impress consumers once they have a solid player base each and every game after is complete ♥♥♥♥. That's not all game devs but 90% will make actual AAA titles and then make 5 terrible straight ass games after. Witcher 1 2 and 3 were all great and that company is still sky rocketing to the top. Mortal Kombat reached it's peak in MK9 rest are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hot garbage with micro transaction walls and bland story telling.

Morowind and Oblivion are not even close to "the beginning of the series" they are right smack in the middle being numbers 3 and 4 (out of 5) in the main series.

Fallout 3 is also not "the beginning of the series", it's right in the middle being number 3 out of 4 (in the main series) and your other complaints being spin offs

Need for Speed Carbon and Most Wanted are numbers 9 and 10 out of 24 games

Even mortal kombat, you claimed it peaked at 9? How in the world is that "early on"? It's 9th out of 11, that's pretty late in the series to even call it the middle let alone "early"

You tried to make the claim that "devs always make the strongest game in the series early in the beginning" while every single one of your examples is in the middle of the franchise


---------------------
What's more accurate is the bell curve:

"early in the beginning" the games are often sort of hot garbage with a good idea that hasn't been perfected yet. Somewhere in the next few tries, they get it right and the series peaks. Then they try to either replicate that or shoehorn in things the series didn't need and it begins to decline, this is especially true if the franchise changes developers. The original team might peak and consider it "done" and then the publisher hands it off to new people who have to figure out how to carry it forward. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

Witcher 1 and 2 were routine RPG's that got more praise then they really deserved, 3 is decent but over hyped, but is very likely the peak of what they'll do. The next couple will be in decline as most bell curves are.

[Juri]

I guess with time developers tend to sell the game to wide audience and business.
First it's their baby - then it becomes a cash cow.
The marketing may generate decent sales but the soul gets lost and the native fans who used to suck the hours out of the game become unsatisfied and rather play it for nostalgia. Developers listen to the investors, the guys who love the concept of making money, and not to the players who really love the concept of the game. Now it became a speed-run-puzzle-game for autists, with a super-model killer who rather reminds of a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ James Bond.
Probably they're SJW-infested now and would never ever make a level like meat king's party again, just as Rockstar would never dare another Manhunt.

Indeed they try to make it like a movie, with a very cheap story though and without the mark-and-execute mechanic that was really nice to have for cineastic shots.
They should reactivate the good stuff they had - civilians who grab guns and try to kill you, money, notoriety, a hideout, smuggle stuff via delivery-guys, cool kill-animations, human shields.
They really should make a good editor so we can write our own stories, rearrange the routines and create our own contracts that really matter. How nicely the Villa in Sapienza could be used as a Mafia-Mansion, if they only developed a good editor or opened the game for modders?
And they should add a career-mode beyond the story-mode, so money, notoriety, hideout, small contracts, etc. make sense in the progression.

[Juri]

Kill a homeless man with a fish, while wearing a clown-suit and don't you dare to holster your weapon longer than for seven seconds at a time.

That's what they call: 'World of Assassination'^^

[NuclearSnail]

All the fun stuff in Hitman 2 is simply hidden now. You have to explore around the maps, and on master difficulty there are no story guides. If anything, hitman2 is a game built for long time hitman fans and not new players. The auto kill everybody in the room thing from Absolution is gone, but I'm kind of glad. I felt that it ruined the game because you just kill everybody with one move. Outside of that, I did really like Absolution. Also, Hitman Isn't dying at all. It's actually one of the top rated games of both 2016 and 2018/19. Each release has been becoming bigger, and better than the last.

[petthepetra]

...Piano Man is still a thing, it's just been changed to be a challenge now.

Not gonna argue with any of the other points in this thread, as that's mostly personal opinions (I really don't see the point in making the game have more gore just for the sake of it, after all, blood would definitely give you away irl), but the "no fun rating" thing is objectively false, they've just been moved to the challenges section.

[Bouncer]

So many of this stuff is tiny details or misremembering...

Money/weapon customization did nothing. You put a silencer on your stuff and that's it.
Notority was pointless. Hitman is about replay, and notority didn't work with that.
A hub area I do agree is a bit of a shame, but not a big loss.
Bullet holes and blood are still a thing. Hitman has always had little blood though. If you want stealth with gore, I think Sniper Elite fills that niche?
A rating is cute but doesn't do anything.
There are various animations for sharp weapon kills depending on the type, and I don't recall any that are 'tap them lightly in the shoulder'.
You take out the Sniper Rifles in 1 piece.... Yes.... I... I really don't know how anybody could find this an issue worth complaining about.

And most notable of all, which clearly shows you haven't played Blood Money in a very long time, is your complaint on Mission Stories and lack of content/variety.
In Hitman 1's Paris stage there are roughly 12 ways to kill 1 target that are all eligible for SA.
In BM's Paris stage, there is only 1 way to kill both targets and get SA, and it's in a scripted mission story.

Anybody who seriously claims BM had better variety, more interesting/random NPC paths or less scripted content misremembers out of nostalgia. It is not. BM was scripted as hell.

Originally posted by SHIKAKA:

and about the attention to details... yeah that's the game's weakest part

it's ironic how the highlights of the game suppose to be the kills yet the kills look so boring and underwhelming..... there's no dismemberment, no gore, no blood no anything , you kill someone with an explosion and his body just jumps in the air like a ragdoll... like are we still in the early 2000's?

even the cutscene kills like when you kill Rico as the tattoo artist you just poke him in the head with the tattoo thing for like 1 second and that's it he's dead lol .no blood no nothing

the kills in this game are incredibly underwhelming which is ironic

I do agree many of the animations have a lack of detail or weight to them, and the lack of gore I already mentioned above. But it's not shabby at all in details. The dialogue for targets, guards and civilians is enormous and the environments are very detailed, destructable and interactive.
The kills can often be a bit meh but the buildup to them is more than excellent.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Bouncer:

I do agree many of the animations have a lack of detail or weight to them, and the lack of gore I already mentioned above. But it's not shabby at all in details. The dialogue for targets, guards and civilians is enormous and the environments are very detailed, destructable and interactive.
The kills can often be a bit meh but the buildup to them is more than excellent.

I replayed blood money not long ago and what stood out to me was not the gore (there really isn't any more than we have now), but rather the "Struggle" when you stab someone with certain weapons

There is a wider variety of stab animations for knife kills in blood money, but most are logically actually kind of bad

One in particular you do stab your target in the shoulder, then you struggle with him for a bit before he finally dies. I'm in blood money thinking... this is so out of character for 47, why would he use such an inefficient kill method? What intelligent assassin stabs someone in the shoulder from behind?

So yea, the newer games have less variety in melee kill animations, but they are quick, clean, efficient kills. I think they fit 47 as a character better. The wider variety of animations available in blood money only kind of highlights how many inefficient ways there are to hit someone with a melee weapon as 47 has to stand there (locked into the animation) struggling with his target for a while when he could have (should have) just cut the neck and moved on

There is a tiny bit of variety if you melee someone from the side, but really, a clean kill from 47 from behind should not be some big dramatic event, it should be quick and efficient

[Bouncer]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Originally posted by Bouncer:

I do agree many of the animations have a lack of detail or weight to them, and the lack of gore I already mentioned above. But it's not shabby at all in details. The dialogue for targets, guards and civilians is enormous and the environments are very detailed, destructable and interactive.
The kills can often be a bit meh but the buildup to them is more than excellent.

I replayed blood money not long ago and what stood out to me was not the gore (there really isn't any more than we have now), but rather the "Struggle" when you stab someone with certain weapons

There is a wider variety of stab animations for knife kills in blood money, but most are logically actually kind of bad

One in particular you do stab your target in the shoulder, then you struggle with him for a bit before he finally dies. I'm in blood money thinking... this is so out of character for 47, why would he use such an inefficient kill method? What intelligent assassin stabs someone in the shoulder from behind?

So yea, the newer games have less variety in melee kill animations, but they are quick, clean, efficient kills. I think they fit 47 as a character better. The wider variety of animations available in blood money only kind of highlights how many inefficient ways there are to hit someone with a melee weapon as 47 has to stand there (locked into the animation) struggling with his target for a while when he could have (should have) just cut the neck and moved on

There is a tiny bit of variety if you melee someone from the side, but really, a clean kill from 47 from behind should not be some big dramatic event, it should be quick and efficient

Damn, didn't remember 47 being such an amateurish klutz in BM. Glad that got changed. He should indeed be very professional, quick, efficient and clean.

I feel the animations are kinda lacking still. I can't quite pinpoint the issue. Maybe it is the animation quality, visual effects, sound effects, camera angles, a bit of everyhing or something else entirely. Or maybe I am also simply expecting a bit too much flair, like Shikaka also does.

[Mr_Faorry]

Originally posted by aferraco8:

I wouldn't expect any more fun features to come out for this game. They have been systematically removing all the little details and fun quirks. There's no more bullet holes, no more blood splatter, severely limited kill animations, no weapon customization, no notoriety, no fun rating at the end, like "Piano Man" for fiber wiring a bunch of people, that cool thing where you can use instinct to shoot a bunch of people in a room at one time like a super boss assassin is gone, the "mission stories" are a step by step guide to assassinating your targets with no thought involved at all (I usually just don't even do them), and probably worst of all the bodies don't hump each other when you put two in the closets.

-Bullet holes are still in the game.
-Blood still spurts out when you kill people by bloodly methods. Slicing someones throat will have a blood spurt animation out their throat constantly and any bloody kill will leave a blood pool and a spatter on any nearby walls if that's the direction they were killed in. NPC's just don't react to blood pools which is something that should change.
-Less kill animations is a good thing, 47 is about efficiency and there are only so many ways you can efficiently kill someone.
-Weapon customisation has been in 1 game and it didn't really add anything of value to it.
-Notoriety was more an annoyance than anything as it could hinder replayability which is the whole point of the Hitman series. It also doesn't make much sense for this game since 47 is going all over the world, Blood Money had it and it made sense in it since all hits took place in the same country.
-Newspapers (which I assume are what you're referring to) don't make sense for this game, it made sense for BM since all hits took place in the same country, where as this game takes place all over the world.
-Point Shooting has no place in Hitman, Absolution was a terrible Hitman game and that's why point shooting worked in that game, however in a proper Hitman game like this point shooting doesn't fit.
-Missions stories are there to aid newer people, you can turn them off in the options.
-Absolutely, bring back cupboard humping, game is literally unplayable without it.

Originally posted by SHIKAKA:

i want Hitman to be about random assassination contracts that have no connection between them like the sniper missions and side missions

Sorry to break it to you but that was never Hitman. Every game has had a story that connected all the target together.