Back in January Hitman: World of Assassination added Freelancer mode, a series of high risk, high reward “fuck up and you lose all your shit” campaigns with targets and additional objectives randomised for each mission. Rewards include unlockable outfits and decorative bits and bobs for Agent 47’s beautiful mountain hideaway which, let’s face it, is way out of my price range.
My verdict: Fun! I sank quite a few hours into Freelancer, slowly building up the armoury of weapons and tools is very satisfying, and the reduced emphasis on needing to execute the perfect, stealthy execution means you can go totally ham with explosives and collateral damage. It introduced a way to play Hitman that I never would have considered otherwise, and I found the experience very rewarding.
However! There were some bugs. Quite a few bugs. In a mode where failing can mean losing a considerable amount of progress, it felt particularly punishing when a guard would randomly see you through a wall, a vital puddle of water or oil would fail to become electrified or explode properly, or 47, the worlds greatest assassin, would get stuck behind a door, forcing you to restart and fail the mission.
Thankfully developers IO Interactive seem to be on the ball, with a recent patch addressing several issues players had spoken up about. Bug fixes abound, but perhaps most notable of all the updates is the removal of the ability to force the game to close with Alt+F4 when things weren’t going your way, a crutch many players (myself included) used to game the system and workaround the intended experience.
However, it seems to be one step forward and two steps back, as the patch has introduced a couple of new bugs to the mix. (Man, game development must be exhausting.) For example, a new prestige objective named “Perfect Run” requires you to complete all optional objectives for the following mission- however, some optional objectives seem to register as completed *after* perfect run checks to see if all the objectives are marked as completed, making the prestige objective basically useless and a huge liability to Hardcore mode runs, where a failed prestige objective means failing the entire campaign.
The removal of the Alt-F4 tricks seems a bit pre-emptive given there are still a few campaign-ending bugs in the mix. It definitely seems like another patch or two is needed before Freelancer is totally bug-free (or, at least bug-free enough that you don’t get fucked over and lose hours of progress) but overall I’d still say the experience is worth it. Just don’t get too attached to any of your fancy, legendary guns. There could be a door lurking around every corner…
Boss Rush Mode 