HITMAN 2 - the new NON-episodic Hitman game

[Sodafish]

100 fucking gig download lmao.

 

[IDtenT]

100 fucking gig download lmao.

Yeah, the maps are huge. Unreasonably so.

Could do with better compression.

 

[vortex]

I think that textures are unreasonably huge. Doom 2016 updates were also more than 100GB.

Look at Skyrim for example. It has reasonable size for such huge world and still looks amazing.

 

[racofer]

If the whole game is larger than 1gig, it's shit.

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...cial_cues_throughout_Hitmans_level_design.php

Mapping out the subtle social cues throughout Hitman's level design

The hide-in-plain-sight gameplay of the Hitmanseries mean its level designers are faced with a unique challenge whenever creating one of the game’s sprawling sandboxes: How do you design believable everyday life?

It’s a topic IO Interactive’s Mette Podenphant Andersen took some time to explore at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and one that benefits from some concepts and language that got their start in social anthropology.

The two most recent games in the Hitman franchise were a light gameplay reboot for the series and aimed to capture the freeform sandbox gameplay that had powered the 2006 release Hitman: Blood Money. While taking that approach gave players more freedom than 2012’s semi-linear Hitman: Absolution, leaning into that freedom tasked IO Interactive’s level design team with taking different design approaches altogether.

“It starts and ends with level design,” Andersen offers as a motto picked up from a producer.

Because of the nature of the game, Andersen says that Hitman’s level designers are involved with so many other aspects of development. “We touch everything at some point,” she says, and this sees her and other designers working closely on everything from environmental art to final “janitorial” passes through the finished level to make sure everything goes to plan.

“Apart from mocking everything up one of the most important things that we do in a game like Hitman is making life, making drama situations as we call them,” she says. “We borrow a little bit from the world of theater.”

It’s a task that was in near perfect form in the episodic Hitman (2016)’s Sapienza level, so much so that she says the reviews for that highly praised level spent more time talking about the city’s characters, scenery, and small background moments rather than the actual assassination mission itself.

“When I looked at the reviews, everything they seemed to talk about didn’t have anything to do with the mission. They were all describing how it felt to just be there,” she says. “So my question became instead of how do you make an awesome level, jumped into something different like how do you design everyday life and how do you design believable everyday life.”

This is where some light social anthropology comes into play. Andersen points to the teachings of two sociologists in particular: Pierre Bourdieu and Erving Goffman. Bourdieu, she explains, coined the idea of social spaces and a social marketplace where different behaviors serve as the capital being exchanged. In the case of Hitman, protagonist Agent 47 can don the uniforms, costumes, and outfits of incapacitated NPCs to assume their role and access new areas based on the role he’s assumed.

She says Goffman, meanwhile, offers up the idea of a social front stage and backstage, where different behaviors and different social states and performances apply depending on the setting.

Andersen herself was an intern around the time Hitman (2016) launched and used these techniques to make the level design of Hitman’s massive social spaces more readable and ascribe new, helpful language to techniques the team had already established.

On the highest level, Hitman offers up public and private spaces. Public spaces are those players can explore right from the start of a level without assuming a disguise or sneaking about while private spaces are bound by strict rules on behavior and access. Using some of her social anthropology knowhow, she breaks each of those down into three more categories each, all of which level designers use to subtly teach players permissible behaviors and general things about the world.

Basic ‘public' spaces, like Sapienza’s town square have very few social rules, no ‘social enforcers’ that a player would have to be wary of, and offer a good place for players to breathe and get the lay of the land. ‘Public purpose’ spaces like alleyways also have no social enforcers and few behavior rules, but subtly encourage certain behaviors or gameplay actions. They’re spaces with a subtle purpose, but no inherent danger.

‘Public rule’ spaces come with implied social rules, simply by using common social settings players already know from their own lives. Sapienza’s church is an example she offers of this, where the feeling of strong social rules is implied and social enforcers exist to “discourage” behavior those boundaries. But, she points out, these provide a safe environment to communicate trespassing rules and elements of social stealth to players.

The basic ‘private’ spaces are trespassing spaces like private alleyways, but those that encourage stealth and don’t pummel players with dangers. They can act as a “breather space” for players between higher intensity private areas as well. ‘Private professional’ spaces like kitchens are areas that strictly have a purpose, and where blending in as a staff member to adhere to those social rules is clearly communicated through the space itself.

‘Private personal’ spaces are, and should be, rare in Hitman. “We don’t have a lot of these and we shouldn’t, but these are where […] we tell you who the target is through the level,” Andersen explains. “You shouldn’t have too many of these, it should feel special.”

With these in mind, she shares a mapped out overview of Sapienza made to highlight how these spaces are represented throughout the level. She does the same for the other five levels in Hitman (2016), but points out that “someone did all of this without having all these social spaces being formalized,” but without the labels she’s now applied to each zone “it just wasn’t accessible to me as a new designer.”

“It just got us talking,” she says. “We started reflecting on what we actually do, and I think that was really really valuable.”

The language and sort of knowledge created by breaking down these spaces into different categories informed the design of Hitman 2, a game that features even larger levels and diverse social spaces than its predecessor. The map of Hitman 2’s first level, Miami, just below highlight both the size of the level itself, and the large public areas where players are more or less free to explore. “What we learned was that you can keep the player engaged without introducing trespassing,” she explains.

This time around, having the established methods and language encouraged the team to design levels that focused more on encouraging exploration through freedom and the cues subtly offered up by believable social spaces.

 

[Mr. Pink]

THAT is Bad McEvil, head of the McEvil conglomerate. Hes a evil business man who bombed an orphanage, deforested the last old growth forest in Europe and invented Denuvo. Watch out 47, he's got his security detail on high alert tonight.

I'm somewhat annoyed at how everyone I kill has a laundry list of reasons why they deserve to die in the nu games. It's not that I'm against killing evil people, but I don't need to have Diana spell out how they kick puppies for a living. The environments and ambient dialogue should be enough to convey that...

 

[unfairlight]

You have always killed bad people in Hitman, though. I sort of get what you mean but they're just using voiced dialogue more instead of text to convey things since that's how things are done nowadays.

 

[AwesomeButton]

THAT is Bad McEvil, head of the McEvil conglomerate. Hes a evil business man who bombed an orphanage, deforested the last old growth forest in Europe and invented Denuvo. Watch out 47, he's got his security detail on high alert tonight.

I'm somewhat annoyed at how everyone I kill has a laundry list of reasons why they deserve to die in the nu games. It's not that I'm against killing evil people, but I don't need to have Diana spell out how they kick puppies for a living. The environments and ambient dialogue should be enough to convey that...

I've complained of the same in the previous thread, I think. If you take cues from actual assassinations, things are a lot more morally grey. I choose to pretend Hitman is a parody of a 90s TV spy series.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Aaand 50% off! Thank you IO and Warner Bros! It's a deal!

 

[Belegarsson]

No stealth game is whole without a bank level

 

[HoboForEternity]

new full fledged map? damn

 

[AwesomeButton]

Loving the new engine - I subdued scores of bad guys in Colorado, and now loading a savegame crashes the game. 8 GB DDR3. This never happened to me with the 2016 Hitman.

 

[LESS T_T]

This is like retroactively episodic. Now you can buy Miami level (plus a limited chance to kill Sean Bean and some silly things) for $12: https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-2-miami-pack/

With the HITMAN 2 – Miami Pack, you’ll get full access to the following content:

• Hawke’s Bay (New Zealand) location and Nightcall mission (part of the FREE Starter Pack)
• Miami (USA) location and The Finish Line mission
• The Undying Returns Elusive Target, featuring Sean Bean between May 3rd and June 3rd
• Ghost Mode: Miami
• Sniper Assassin Mode: Himmelstein
• Spring Break Challenge Pack (unlocks the Blue Flamingo Outfit)
• Current and future Escalation Contracts, Featured Contracts and Elusive Target contracts in Hawke’s Bay and Miami

 

[unfairlight]

It's certainly a strange scheme, but I think this is just a way for them to gateway drug people into buying the full game later.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I'm almost done with mastering Miami, just 3 locations left to discover, and a few discovery challenges to complete. Overall, I like the Season 2 locations better, although my favorite - Sapienza - is still unsurpassed.

The feeling in Sgail where I snatched the necklace without anyone noticing after doing all the preparation work, it was a genuine feeling of achievement I can only compare with opening the vault in The Bank mission in Thief 2.

There is also a patch out today. Pigeons now stay killed and don't respawn after loading a game. Also, there is a "Silent Assassin-eligible" indicator so if you lose chances for Silent Assasin you can just reload. I imagine it will be very handy.

 

[IDtenT]

The feeling in Sgail where I snatched the necklace without anyone noticing after doing all the preparation work, it was a genuine feeling of achievement I can only compare with opening the vault in The Bank mission in Thief 2.

Spoiler

You can wear the disguise of the dude that owns it (can't remember his name) and just pick it up (after disabling electricity).

 

[Agame]

I'm almost done with mastering Miami, just 3 locations left to discover, and a few discovery challenges to complete. Overall, I like the Season 2 locations better, although my favorite - Sapienza - is still unsurpassed.

Paris is still my favourite, probably because it was a really long time since I played a Hitman game, and I was surprised how good it was so I ended up getting really obsessed with Paris and replayed it a ton.

Sapienza is good but for some reason I just HATE non-assassination objectives so that kind of kills it for me.

Also, there is a "Silent Assassin-eligible" indicator so if you lose chances for Silent Assasin you can just reload. I imagine it will be very handy.

Holy fuck they took a long time to implement this.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I loved the fashion show too, but it felt a bit too symmetrical, and Sapienza was a killer in every way.

 

[LESS T_T]

Flaming partnership: https://www.ioi.dk/copenhagen-flames-partnership/

The esports team have offered "the expertise insight and feedback of their teams into our games, especially the competitive and co-op elements of HITMAN 2", will do the same for the future titles.

Copenhagen Flames Partnership

We’re happy to officially announce that we have entered into a partnership with Danish esports club, Copenhagen Flames.

Established in 2016, Copenhagen Flames is one of the fastest growing Danish esports clubs and is the home to teams competing globally in many competitive scenes, including CS:GO, League of Legends, Fortnite and more.

This partnership will primarily allow both companies to work closely together and Copenhagen Flames have offered the expertise insight and feedback of their teams into our games, especially the competitive and co-op elements of HITMAN 2. We are looking forward to working with Copenhagen Flames in the same way for our future titles.

We believe that a partnership between a game developer and an esports club is unique and we see fantastic opportunities for creating unique content that is relevant to the IOI and Copenhagen Flames communities.

Copenhagen Flames are based at our Copenhagen Studio, where their management team, pro bootcamping facilities and Academy project “Light the Fire” for aspiring esport players will be located. Being in the same building will allow us to work together, eat together and play together as well as easily share resources and knowledge.

“Esports has been through a fantastic development in the last few years and we believe they will play an increasingly bigger role in the games industry and also for traditional sports in the years ahead. Steffen and Copenhagen Flames are extremely passionate about what they do, and we share many of the same values and visions for the future, which makes this partnership feel like a perfect fit.” said Hakan Abrak, IO Interactive CEO

We also asked Steffen Thomsen, CEO, Founder and Co-owner of Copenhagen Flames to share his thoughts on today’s announcement:

“I am so proud and excited about this partnership. IO Interactive mirror our passion, values and vision of greatness and they are gamers at heart, just as we are. I couldn’t think of a partner better suited for us and I can’t wait to start this journey; where we hope to bring our fanbases together, create engaging content, and to express our passion for gaming in general. This partnership is truly about our love of games and providing the best possible experience for our fans.“


To learn more about Copenhagen Flames, check out their handy guide to their teams and players. You can also follow them on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & Facebook.

 

[Agame]

especially the competitive and co-op elements of HITMAN 2

 

[LESS T_T]

The Bank in June 25th: https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-2-the-bank/

HITMAN 2 – The Bank

The Bank is a brand new location coming to HITMAN 2 in June! This exciting new addition is the first post-launch sandbox location that will be released as part of the Expansion Pass – and we know that players want more detail on what to expect!

This blog post will deliver all of that and more. We’ve got our best reporters on the case to make sure that we deliver all the details you’ve been asking about. We’re working on some cool ways to reveal the content and information to you and one of them is this evolving blog post which will be updated over time.

By the end of the month, you’ll find out about the location, some of the key characters you’ll encounter, your objectives, the new items and rewards you can unlock and details of some videos that we’re preparing to get you ready for release day.

Plus, our upcoming IOI Monthly livestream will give you the chance to direct your questions to some members of the team that created the level before it launches.

RELEASE DATE
Owners of the HITMAN 2 Expansion Pass and Expansion Pack 1 will be able to download The Bank on June 25 2019.

The exact release timing will depend on our June Game Update that will be released on the same day. Players will need to update to the latest version of HITMAN 2 to play The Bank.

To find the new download on release day, we recommend players search for HITMAN 2 in their platform store on either PS4, Xbox One or Steam and look for all available DLC. Please note that this location will not be available for individual purchase.

DAY ONE CONTENT
After downloading The Bank on June 25th, HITMAN 2 Expansion Pass owners will have access to an entirely new location in the ‘Destination’ menu that includes The Bank mission (Golden Handshake).

The mission brings new challenges and various unlocks that can be earned through completing challenges and progression through Location Mastery levels as well as new trophies / achievements to earn. In addition to all of that, Contracts Mode will also be fully enabled from day one.

Included with ‘The Bank’:

– New Location
– New Campaign Mission: Golden Handshake
– Contracts Mode for ‘Golden Handshake’
– New Challenges, including an unlock
– Mastery Progression, including new unlocks
– New Trophies / Achievements to earn


MASTERY UNLOCKS
The Bank comes fully loaded with its own Mastery Progression full of rewards and unlocks. Each level of location mastery that you reach will unlock either a new Starting Location, Agency Pickup or tool/weapon for your inventory to change the way you approach the mission. You’ll also be able to take your new unlocks to other missions!

We’ve also got a brand new Starting Suit for Agent 47 that can be unlocked through Location Mastery.

We’ll reveal full details of the Location Mastery and what you can unlock – including that new suit – later in June.

(MORE DETAILS TO COME)


OBJECTIVES ANALYSIS
When Agent 47 arrives at the bank, he’ll have multiple objectives to complete in order to call his mission a success.

Stay tuned for more details about these objectives.

(MORE DETAILS TO COME)


LAUNCH TRAILER
At some point before we launch The Bank, we’re lining up a glorious launch trailer that will show you more of The Bank and introduce you to some of the key characters and opportunities that you’ll encounter.

Make sure to watch the full launch trailer for The Bank later in June.

(MORE DETAILS TO COME)

BRIEFING VIDEO
The excitement of experiencing a new Hitman level for the first time starts with the briefing video. You can expect the reassuring tones of Diana’s voice and a full introduction to the level and its characters.

We’re currently planning to lift the lid on the “Golden Handshake Briefing Video” on our next episode of IOI Monthly on June 24, where you can also expect some developer insights and get your questions answered.

Don’t miss it! Follow us now on Twitch!





WHAT ELSE?
The Bank is only the highlight of a jam-packed month in HITMAN 2. There’s plenty more to look forward to as we move towards the end of the month, including two Special Assingments.

Get the full rundown of everything that’s arriving in June through our dedicated June Roadmap blog post and remember to keep checking back to this post for more reveals.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've been wondering what's the point of retarded rewards like the blueberry muffin or the blue flamingo outfit.

 

[unfairlight]

Escalations. Besides that, there isn't a "point" to many things. Not really about why, but rather why not.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Why not make items that have a point to existing? Instead of having "Lockpick", "Lockpick MkII", "Classic Lockpick"

 

[unfairlight]

Because you eventually run out of ideas and art guys need to be put to work somehow. Practically everything in the game already fills every role.
The mark2 stuff was dumb. The classic lockpick is just a cosmetic you get for a challenge.