Well, that’s promising news indeed. Really didn’t enjoy Absolution that much.
That’s all well and good but whose idea was it to put all the stuff that didn’t belong into Hitman Absolution? I did enjoy the game much more than I expected to, and you could tell that some Hitman was wanting to shine through but I hope they don’t expect people to have confidence in them to make a good Hitman game now. This does make me kind of optimistic though. Some stuff that I think should be changed that I will probably tweet to them at some point:
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Overhaul the entire disguise system. HMA’s system doesn’t work very well and just encourages playing the game like MGS or Splinter Cell rather than Hitman. I think that not being 100% disguised at all times is a good idea but it wasn’t very well implemented. You shouldn’t have to hide from people you are dressed up with even if in some circumstances it would make sense that they would know that you aren’t one of them. It isn’t good for gameplay.
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Either entirely get rid of the instinct stuff (like seeing through walls and point shooting) or make the game first and then implement them. Yeah, you could turn those things off in HMA but it was very obvious that the game was made with them in mind and then the option to turn them off was added later so that if you aren’t using them you’re gimped. Especially the “blend in” part of it. Taking them away shouldn’t gimp you but adding them should give you an advantage, and the only way to do this is to add them in rather than make the game around them. Kind of along with this, bring back the map.
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As mentioned in the letter there, no linear levels and no checkpoints. These kind of go hand in hand. The few sandbox levels that there were in HMA were awful with checkpoints. They just don’t work with the level design. It seems like the linear level design was made so that they could tell story within levels, which also doesn’t work with Hitman. Levels should be single map sandboxes with storytelling (whether through cutscenes or other means) should be saved for between levels. You can have the occasional character talking and picking up bits of the story in levels that way but you shouldn’t be funneled through levels for the sake of story.
Those are really the three main areas that HMA suffered because of. If they address them this game should be solid. You could tell from HMA that they can make a good Hitman game but that they just didn’t, for various reasons. The engine itself seems very solid as well and capable of supporting some very cool things, so I hope to see more of that. I would like it as well if they didn’t give such a filtered look to the game but that isn’t all that important to me. HMA looked very good regardless.
sounds good.
Absolution wasn’t a bad game but it didn’t really feel like a Hitman game, so I hope that they make a proper one this time and from the letter it seems like they do, let’s just hope they don’t screw it up.
And get Jesper Kyd back to do the score. That’s an order, IO!
And get Michael Ironside back, damnit!
oh wait wrong struggling franchise
This makes me hopeful. I want to believe!
Hitman was David Bates.
The famous landscape artist.
Oh, I got it. I was pissed about Eric Johnson taking over the role too.
Why are all of my favorite franchises screwing over their iconic voice actors? SC, Hitman, and even Metal Gear giving David Hayter the shaft. This sucks. 
Don’t forget Thief 4 and Stephen Russell :’(
contracts just finally came out on steam :-0
Heh, that’s pretty cool. I know that it was never on Steam because of a music track playing in the background of one of the levels. Can anyone confirm that it’s gone or still there?
Wow that’s retarded.
Edit: Apparently it’s already been fixed and it was a bug?