If you haven’t seen it, you really need to watch some of Hitman 3’s wild speedruns.
Zack wrote earlier this morning how speedrunners are absolutely cracking the game apart, quite literally within seconds. And while speedrunners always find a way within any game, it’s super wild to me that IO Interactive still design these levels in such a way that prominent targets are so exposed early on.
It’s not a knock against the game or anything. It’s just intriguing: people have been speedrunning Hitman for ages, so the devs must surely know that someone’s going to perfect a 200m silenced pistol shot from their passenger window as soon as you give them the chance.
Because it’s not just Hitman‘s Dubai that’s getting cleaned up in a heartbeat or three. The same “spot and immediately shoot” approach can finish the game’s tutorial in seven seconds. And Hitman 3‘s Berlin level? Half a minute, and maybe less depending on how fast you are on the draw.
Hitman 3’s servers had a bit of a rough launch last week, and that was after a fortnight of confusion around carrying over your progression from previous games. The weirdness around that seems to have been sorted out, although I imagine this won’t be the first time we see a game with Epic exclusivity have issues trying to link up with users’ Steam data.
But Hitman‘s servers continue to be the biggest problem for many, especially since that online progression is essential to the Hitman experience. Users are complaining about incomplete transfers, being locked out of their profiles, and then losing all of their progression entirely, which definitely isn’t fun.
And if that wasn’t annoying enough, there’s also a persistent issue around the HDR implementation on all platforms. I played on PC, without HDR, so that wasn’t an issue on my end. But on consoles where HDR is a standard for the vast majority of TVs and games now, it’s pretty disappointing.
So, not the best launch so far. And it’s a shame, because Hitman 3 is a ton of fun when it all comes together. It’s a great showcase for what IO’s upcoming James Bond game could do.
For those of you who have dived into Hitman 3, what’s your experience been like so far?
Leave a Reply