During my eight month internship at IO-Interactive I worked on Hitman 2, its live content along with the two expansion packs. On the live content I designed Challenge Packs, an Elusive Target and my own bonus mission. I also worked on the two expansion packs for the game.
Elusive Targets
These are smaller time-limited missions where players have one chance to finish the mission.
I remastered and balanced a number of the Elusive Targets from Season 1, and one of those were “The Deceivers”, which originally were two seperate Elusive Targets in Hitman 1. We wanted to try something new with the old targets, so that it wasn’t just the same thing again. Combining two targets into one mission felt like a good option!
I had to find two targets that would fit well together and discussed with the writer how to connect them in the narrative. Later I modified their loops and rebalanced their patrols and body guards. One worry was that it would be too hard to complete for players, because it basically doubled the playtime, but the end result worked out nicely.
The level didn’t feel too cramped with two targets, and their areas felt natural to have in the same level without them feeling forced into a situation that didn’t fit them. I remastered many other Elusive Targets from Hitman 1, where I fixed paths and AI-behavior. I read through feedback from players and improved the missions whenever possible. One example is with The Fugitive-target, which many players felt was too hard. To improve their experience I added an additional way to complete the mission.
Bonus Mission
For the first expansion pack I got full reigns on making my own mission for the Santa Fortuna-map. I wanted to utilize the jungle area of the map both because it would fit the character and also because there wasn’t too much going on there on the main mission on that map.
I wanted to convey the feeling that the jungle was distrubed by the poacher, even going so far as having the shaman drinking his sorrows away in the pub. I designed a holy site for the jungle and a camp for the poacher. I also added coconut-traps the player could eliminate NPCs with.
Invading the jungle was supposed to be hard and you had to use pure stealth instead of just finding a disguise to blend in. Instead the player’s best friend was the high grass that they could hide in. I worked closely with the writer to come up with motivations behind the characters and we got in a lot of fun dialog for the player to evesdrop on.
I created three clear opportunities to eliminate the target with. One was to disguise themselves as the shaman and get the Target alone while blessing his hunt, another was to poison his lunch and the third was to rig explosives in his own traps he used to try to catch the serpent.
Challenge Packs
Along with the challenges for the sniper mission, I also designed post-launch challenges for the main mission. The biggest challenge there was coming up with new ones, as the original missions already had a lot of them. I played the missions over and over, exploring and experimenting with new ideas.
One of the packs I worked on was the Spring Breaker-pack, which unlocked the blue flamingo suit. Since a lot of the other challenges were based on eliminating the targets in specific ways, I created challenges based on exploration. One of them was “Making Sweet’ish Fish”, a pun on the candy Swedish Fish, where the player had to find sugar bags to dump in the aquarium.
The Serial Killer
I got the opportunity to make my very own Elusive Target for Hitman 2. These are missions that are only available for a limited time and the player has one chance to complete the mission.
I chose from a list of concepts for targets, and I decided on the serial killer-concept. Together with a little brainstorming team, we came up with his motives and his M.O.
I wanted the elusive target to stand out with a twist, and not be just a simple straight forward elusive target. I wanted the killer to have an unknown identity, which the player has to figure out before settling on the best way to eliminate him. I figured the most likely place for him to blend in would be a crowded place. The mission takes place on the Whittleton Creek-map. An idyllic suburb straight from the American dream. In that map there’s a couple that has a neighborhood barbeque. This was the perfect place for the target to be, stalking for his next victim.
The idea with a hidden target was totally new to Hitman 2, with the Mumbai mission being the only one to use something similar, where the player first has to find out the target’s identity. To figure out his identity the player has to eavesdrop on the conversations between the guests. I also placed two FBI-agents in the empty house next to the barbeque, who has a suspect in mind. The player can get a photo from them if they feel lost.
The mission worked well, but I would’ve liked to make a red herring in the form of a burglar that stakes the place out, but sadly it didn’t work out. There was just too much going on, and players felt overwhelmed.
I had very fun making this new kind of Elusive Target, that has a fun twist on the normal formula.
Sniper Mission Challenges
I worked on the conception and implementation of the challenges to the first sniper map of the expansion pack - Hantu Port.
The goal was for them to stand out and be fun to do. I made sure they didn’t feel like frustrating busy work for someone wanthing to achieve a 100%. I fun with the environment and utilized it to it’s fullest potential. There’s a couple of fun easter eggs tied to the challenges, for example there are two mice having a date, which is my personal favorite.
It was very fun and interesting to work on a sniper map, because it is very different to the main missions of Hitman. During these missions the player isn’t discouraged to eliminate bodyguards, in fact it is required. As long as the one you shoot isn’t discovered it’s all fine, so there is a lot of room to experiment with fun ways to eliminte the NPCs on the map.
Closing Thoughts
I had a wonderful time working with the team at IO-Interactive, and I value the people I got to know and what they taught me. My skills with stealth design improved greatly and it was very rewarding coming up with creative solutions for the mission. I worked backwards a lot, in the sense that I first came up with a way to eliminate a target and then figured out how a player could accomplish it.