You could say we’ve been working on it for 15 years,” says the game’s director Christian Elverdam. “The process for this new title began with a desire to try to distil the essence of the previous games, and the 15 years of evolution, to create the best possible game. We’ve taken the best bits of those past five games to build this new one.” From Blood Money comes large, sandbox levels filled with opportunity. From Absolution comes the increased fidelity and more complex AI behaviour. From Codename 47 comes… well, to be honest there probably isn’t much being carried across from Codename 47.
Rather than create a mish-mash of disparate styles, IO has condensed its games down to a single, base idea, from which the new title’s elements can emerge. “The core quickly became a simple premise,” says Elverdam. “There is a hitman, and there is a target, it’s up to you how you kill them – that is where everything starts.” It seems obvious, but the studio lost sight of that idea with Hitman: Absolution – a thrilling action game, but a poor follow-up to the stunningly intricate Blood Money. For Hitman, it’s again going back to basics, creating sandboxes of systems and behaviour, and giving the player free rein to subvert them.
One challenge for IO was creating ways to let the bulk of the story emerge naturally from the levels – something Absolution, with its chase scenes and story-led fail states, never quite managed. “Part of defining the DNA of Hitman was to state clearly that the game is always about freedom of approach. It’s a hit-driven game with a strong story, not the other way around,” says Christian. In this latest entry, IO plans to put this freedom above all else, including the narrative. Each level will contain different events and pieces of information, but they won’t be presented through cutscenes. “Any of these might never be witnessed by players, as they could have chosen to kill any of the people involved at any point,” says Elverdam, “or they might be in another area in the level when part of the story plays out.”
It means you can potentially miss out on some juicy info, but, for IO, that’s the price of giving people the freedom and tools to do their own thing. If you want to uncover the mysteries bubbling under the surface, that’s something you can do. If you’re not interested in the double-dealings of people you’ve been paid to kill, that’s fine too. Missions will still be bookended by an overarching plot told outside of each level – although the developer isn’t yet revealing what that will entail.
The focus on emergent, AI-driven design makes every stage a complex web of strands. “We have tonnes of checklists,” says Elverdam. “Trespassing zones, disguises, smuggling routes, death-trap accident kills, and so on. We typically start with targets themselves. Who are they? Where would you find them? What sort of things would they do and say?” Target in place, IO next needs to work out how you can off them in ever more creative ways. “We have lots of meetings about memorable kills, accidents targets and so on,” Elverdam continues. “And inspiration for ideas can come from anywhere, so when you are new here, you catch yourself saying ‘I just came up with a great way to kill so and so…’ and then think, what kind of a job have I gotten myself into?”
Killing me oftly
An appreciation for dark humour helps the studio craft interesting ends for 47’s targets, but within that there’s still a lot of work required to ensure any particular assassination will work. “We iterate and iterate,” Elverdam says. “For me a good indicator is applause when the assassination is shown the first time in our weekly team meeting. If it’s big, if people are laughing or reacting positively, we know we’re on to something.”
The other big consideration is where a level should be set. According to Elverdam, this Hitman will feature a globetrotting theme. It’s not just that missions will take place across different corners of the world; each arena needs to feel like an exotic, almost hyper-real place. Expect some beautifully stylish and varied settings – giving IO’s art team the opportunity to contrast 47’s macabre actions with their lavish, pristine backdrops.
“One part of the game that’s harder to convey is the depth of the sandbox,” says Elverdam. “The things you can do and how the AI will react.” This character-led playground has, from the beginning, been at the heart of the series’ appeal. In Hitman, the AI is more responsive than ever – providing both a tougher challenge and more logical responses. Walk in front of a news camera, and the reporter will cut the take and give you a telling off. More useful, for 47, is how guards can react to his actions.
Put a bomb in a place where it might be discovered, and a civilian will run to get a guard. The guard will disable it, take it past a number of security checkpoints, and place it in the armoury. Later, 47 can retrieve it. These aren’t specific hand-made interactions for each NPC – rather, AI is organised into a variety of classes, and any specific NPC’s behaviour is defined by their type and current location. “The scope and size of the mission locations is really substantial this time around, and from playtesting we can tell that people happily spend many hours inside each location, exploring all the various ways of killing the targets, poking at the systems, and planning out the perfect hit ,” says Elverdam.
Murder by degrees
Not all of Hitman will be available when it’s released in March next year. At launch, players will get what Elverdam calls “a chunk of content” – although IO aren’t yet saying exactly how much. Over time, new missions, locations and one-time ‘live events’ will be added, for free, into the game. For release, it’ll be available only as a digital download, but at some point in 2016, a boxed edition will collect up all of the content – representing the game’s final release. All a little vague for our tastes.
“There were several reasons why we chose to deliver the game like this,” says Elverdam. “In some ways this is how the life of an assassin would be played out, waiting for new missions, travelling to a new location as you work out how to take out your next target. But also we really want to deliver an experience that we can learn from, adapt and build upon after initial release.” He also hopes that the release schedule will bring the community together – allowing IO and Hitman’s players to experience parts of the game in tandem with one another.
It’s an unusual proposition to be sure, and it’s important that the studio is upfront with gamers about what the game will contain on release, and when new missions should be expected. Lingering questions aside, though, we couldn’t be more ready for a fresh new take on the series – and if it can successfully distil 15 years of stylish assassination into one slick title, then the art of the hit may be about to be redefined.