Twitch streamer RTGame (meatspace name: Daniel) had a dream: to kill every NPC in a single Hitman level. But while you can find dozens of videos on YouTube of people doing the same thing, Daniel’s plan was a bit more explosive, chiefly because he intended to take out everyone at the same time. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned.
“The plan for this is to quite literally ‘Thanos snap’ an entire map in just one shot,” Daniel explained to his viewers over the weekend. “We’re going to delete a population.”
Daniel decided he would take out all the NPCs of Hitman 1’s Sapienza level using the explosive rubber duck. Like most Hitman maps, Sapienza is a large sandbox in which to mete out destruction. The central location is a mansion sitting above an underground viral weapons lab, but there are also city streets, maze-like catacombs, a sprawling beach, and a small Catholic cathedral to explore, all of which are occupied by NPCs going about their virtual lives.
“I’m going to knock everyone on the map unconscious and gather them onto one single spot,” Daniel said, going over his plan as Sapienza loaded. “And then we will detonate.”
Knocking out one or two people is a normal part of completing a Hitman mission, but things get a little hairier when it comes to the over 200 residents of Sapienza. Anyone that Agent 47 knocks unconscious will remain that way unless another NPC spots them and wakes them up, so another big part of Daniel’s job was to make sure that didn’t happen during his spree of serial coldcocking.
Almost seven hours later, Daniel had achieved his goal, all while wearing a clown suit. Every resident of Sapienza was comatose and packed in the local butcher’s freezer. The streets of the fictional Italian village were eerily silent save for the chirping of the birds. Hitman’s framerate sputtered as Daniel entered the room’s packed confines, due to the sheer number of bodies it held. Stream viewers begged him to save his game in case it crashed.
And then, the moment of truth. Daniel tossed the explosive duck into the pile of unconscious Sapienzans, eventually adding a propane tank for good measure. He pushed the button…and only about 20 people died. The sickly squelch that accompanied the explosion belied just how little payoff Daniel and his viewers received for such hard work. The propane didn’t even ignite.
After several more unsuccessful attempts to blow everyone up with different explosive weapons, the best Daniel could surmise is that the massive number of bodies worked as a “meat shield,” protecting the majority of the people in the freezer.
“I’m absolutely gutted that didn’t work,” Daniel said as his broadcast came to a close, obviously frustrated but promising to try again in the future. “It turns out, to complete that challenge, you need significantly more explosives.”
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