WouterVlaminck
3rd Sep 2014, 23:31
I am a huge fan of the Hitman franchise so -needless to say- if Hitman 6 would truly be a Blood Money 2, I would be ecstatic. However, I suspect that this is not going to be the case. I expect that we will get an improved version of Absolution and not an improved version of Blood Money, like most people are asking for. I will explain why I feel this way.
The keyword here is generic. With Absolution, the franchise made a big step towards making everything more generic.
That map thing is a bit silly, unrealistic and difficult for new players? => replace with generic minimap
Oh no, we have broken one of the game's core mechanics. How will they find their targets and special objects now? => insert generic "make character and objects glow in bright color" mechanic.
Players have to play levels over again and again, stalking NPC's and memorizing their routes? =>insert generic "follow the glowing path" mechanic
The controls for fiberwire are different from other weapons to simulate actually tightening a rope? => replace with generic "press button to play animation" mechanic
Death is a fun and original minigame that let's you vent your frustration after having just been discovered calmly trying to consort with the enemy, for which the price is an unlikely revival? => Nah, new players won't understand it, better replace it with a normal generic death. Familiar is good. Original is bad.
The player has to mind how much people he kills in any location or else he won't have containers to hide them in and is then forced to think where to hide his bodies to have the least chance of them getting detected? => Just surround every NPC with 4 containers. Whatever you do, don't make player have to replay a level, do any observing/testing or -god forbid- think.
You have to observe people's mannerism/facial expressions to see who the person getting suspicious is? => Replace with the most generic of all generic mechanics: a big pointer, so that new players can switch straight over from their latest FPS and don't feel lost. And while we're at it, let's also add another gimmicky "ping" sound, we could just let the music get more intense or, you know, just let the player think and look around for himself, but clearly we are creating these games for drooling morons.
Don't think too much. Don't look around too much. Follow the glowing light. Press the button it says on the screen. Number goes up = good. Number goes down = bad. And most of all, don't learn anything new.
I'm not even going to discuss obvious stuff like linearity, focus on graphics and an embarrassingly bad story with equally embarrassing characters. I would only like to point out that putting most of your time and money into cutscenes and graphics is another characteristic of a generic game. I do feel like this should be said explicitly: I couldn't care less about your cutscenes or graphics. Focus on the gameplay. Tell that to your clueless publishers who are undoubtedly forcing you to make all these horrible design decisions.
That being said, what will I expect to happen this time around? I'm not going to present a doomsday scenario. I do believe the devs when they say the new game will feature no checkpoints and play more like a sandbox. What I don't believe however, is that they will "go back to their roots". What they will most likely do is:
Take absolution.
Have less emphasis on the story.
Remove checkpoints.
Make locations bigger.
Make the radius of recognition of NPC's shorter.
Make NPC's not recognize you with a full-face mask on.
Possibly remove the handcovering mechanic and replace it with a new, equally gamebreaking mechanic.
That's probably the extend of what they'll do. Instead of "not fixing a game that isn't broken" and making small improvements on BM, they will just tweak Absolution. And a tweaked Absolution is still not a Hitman game.
You know what would really drive my point home, if in the next game all NPC dialogue is in English, "to make it more accessible". That's the final proof I need that this once brilliant franchise has lost all of it's appeal for me. I really hope I'm wrong about all of this. I really hope I can look back on this post after the release, and feel stupid. My only fear is that I won't.
The keyword here is generic. With Absolution, the franchise made a big step towards making everything more generic.
That map thing is a bit silly, unrealistic and difficult for new players? => replace with generic minimap
Oh no, we have broken one of the game's core mechanics. How will they find their targets and special objects now? => insert generic "make character and objects glow in bright color" mechanic.
Players have to play levels over again and again, stalking NPC's and memorizing their routes? =>insert generic "follow the glowing path" mechanic
The controls for fiberwire are different from other weapons to simulate actually tightening a rope? => replace with generic "press button to play animation" mechanic
Death is a fun and original minigame that let's you vent your frustration after having just been discovered calmly trying to consort with the enemy, for which the price is an unlikely revival? => Nah, new players won't understand it, better replace it with a normal generic death. Familiar is good. Original is bad.
The player has to mind how much people he kills in any location or else he won't have containers to hide them in and is then forced to think where to hide his bodies to have the least chance of them getting detected? => Just surround every NPC with 4 containers. Whatever you do, don't make player have to replay a level, do any observing/testing or -god forbid- think.
You have to observe people's mannerism/facial expressions to see who the person getting suspicious is? => Replace with the most generic of all generic mechanics: a big pointer, so that new players can switch straight over from their latest FPS and don't feel lost. And while we're at it, let's also add another gimmicky "ping" sound, we could just let the music get more intense or, you know, just let the player think and look around for himself, but clearly we are creating these games for drooling morons.
Don't think too much. Don't look around too much. Follow the glowing light. Press the button it says on the screen. Number goes up = good. Number goes down = bad. And most of all, don't learn anything new.
I'm not even going to discuss obvious stuff like linearity, focus on graphics and an embarrassingly bad story with equally embarrassing characters. I would only like to point out that putting most of your time and money into cutscenes and graphics is another characteristic of a generic game. I do feel like this should be said explicitly: I couldn't care less about your cutscenes or graphics. Focus on the gameplay. Tell that to your clueless publishers who are undoubtedly forcing you to make all these horrible design decisions.
That being said, what will I expect to happen this time around? I'm not going to present a doomsday scenario. I do believe the devs when they say the new game will feature no checkpoints and play more like a sandbox. What I don't believe however, is that they will "go back to their roots". What they will most likely do is:
Take absolution.
Have less emphasis on the story.
Remove checkpoints.
Make locations bigger.
Make the radius of recognition of NPC's shorter.
Make NPC's not recognize you with a full-face mask on.
Possibly remove the handcovering mechanic and replace it with a new, equally gamebreaking mechanic.
That's probably the extend of what they'll do. Instead of "not fixing a game that isn't broken" and making small improvements on BM, they will just tweak Absolution. And a tweaked Absolution is still not a Hitman game.
You know what would really drive my point home, if in the next game all NPC dialogue is in English, "to make it more accessible". That's the final proof I need that this once brilliant franchise has lost all of it's appeal for me. I really hope I'm wrong about all of this. I really hope I can look back on this post after the release, and feel stupid. My only fear is that I won't.