Ambrose Island, the brand new Hitman 3 map, is out now and takes Agent 47 to a location somewhat completely different from what he’s used to. Gone are the mansions of Sapienza and the clear, environment friendly laboratories of Chongqing. Of their place is a rugged, lawless surroundings the place smugglers and pirates conflict and 47 learns a bit extra about his erstwhile companion, Lucas Gray.
PCGamesN spoke with Kevin Goyon, IO Interactive’s stay sport director for Hitman 3, about how the group introduced Ambrose Island to life and what alternatives creating such a distant setting opened up for design and storytelling.
Goyon says the method of deciding the place to find a brand new Hitman map is often a prolonged, multistep one, the place the group considers concepts they haven’t pursued earlier than, nonetheless radical, and what could be essentially the most thrilling for gamers. The primary new map in Hitman 3 got here collectively somewhat extra easily than anticipated, although.
“Within the case of Ambrose Island, we quickly settled on a pirate fantasy and the chance to characteristic followers’ favorite Lucas Gray within the story, main us to the Andaman Sea,” he says. “One path we wished to discover was to make a location that felt harmful – however the place 47 would belong.”
As with all good Hitman map, Ambrose Island and its factions focus on the important thing targets 47 should dispatch. This time, Goyon and his group leaned closely on Hitman’s story and got here up with Akka the pirate queen and Noel, a prison mastermind talked about way back to the Paris stage within the trilogy’s first instalment. These two have been additionally born from IOI’s want to discover Gray’s background and what occurred to the pirate syndicate from Mumbai.
“The targets that emerged have been associated to our want to discover what occurred to the Militia after Lucas Gray left it, through the occasions of the earlier video games within the trilogy,” Goyon says. “So we began in search of hooks in his story and located it fascinating to discover who might have taken over the management of the militia, but in addition trace on the previous relationship with the Maelstrom’s (a central character within the Mumbai location) pirate syndicate at giant.”
Deciding who they need to be is simply a part of the problem. The subsequent step is determining how they need to be. “Evil” is a given, Goyon says, for the reason that level of clearing a stage in Hitman is feeling good about taking out dreadful individuals who hurt others. Deciding what form that evil takes is extra sophisticated, although, and entails experimenting with completely different routes – ones that must take them close to loss of life factors in a pure method – and completely different interactions and conversations that assist emphasize why 47 is there to complete them off.
Goyon says setting the brand new story on an island was a straightforward selection, and its pure boundaries made it simpler for the group to ascertain the map’s space with out developing with synthetic borders. The extra vital problem got here from determining tips on how to flip the island’s overgrown jungles and pure biomes into a correct Hitman stage.
Different outside maps in Hitman, reminiscent of Santa Fortuna and even Mumbai, nonetheless revolve somewhat closely round built-up areas – strongholds, marketplaces, and the like. Ambrose Island includes a coastal settlement, however a lot of the map is totally untamed, which makes studying its paths and interactive areas harder than within the trilogy’s extra developed settings.
Goyon and the group performed to the setting’s pure strengths to assist overcome the problem, making a rocky topology that permit them divide the map into distinct zones and experiment with verticality greater than they often might.
Whereas the setting might need confirmed difficult at occasions, Goyon says it additionally let the group indulge one among their favourite mechanics: creating rival factions and setting Agent 47 free of their midst.
“Very often, the group is interested in the thought of getting rival factions in a location, however that’s not one thing our sport was designed to help,” Goyon says. “We determined to discover by way of the concept that our two factions on the island, the militia and the pirates, are getting ready to a battle. It truly allowed us to create a wealthy lore and fascinating conditions – resulting in one among our favorite kills-by-proxy, the place (spoiler alert!) you may get one goal to push the opposite to their loss of life.”
As for what’s subsequent in Hitman 3 and its two-year roadmap, Goyon says the group is targeted on ending Freelancer Mode, the roguelike mode that items collectively maps and challenges at random, and the devs hope that it offers loads of causes to revisit maps previous and new.
