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[Afro Republican]

Hitman was one of the fastest growing franchises out there. it focused a lot on open-world stealth and disguise mechanics, had an interesting plotline, and was a lot more atmospheric compared to the more action based stealth games like SC or MGS, granted you could play some levels of the older hitman games like the latter, but often that would cause issues. Well until Absolution.

Hitman Agent 47, a game that I swear the developers are trying to pretend doesn't exist, and don't want to remake/fix, started it all and set the template for what was to come. Though not very good it was innovative and gained lots of attention.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin brought Hitman to the frontlines, it was a big success becoming the best selling Hitman game ever (until absolution temporarily) fixing all the problems of the first game offering better controls, more varied and detailed cities, better weapon and stealth mechanics, and better disguise implementation. Highly acclaimed, rewards everywhere, even the PS2 version was a million+ seller. Hitman was going places.

Hitman would continue with Contracts, while plot wise was mostly a recap of previous events, improved the mechanics of Hitman 2 immensely, selling large numbers and once again receiving positive receptions.

Hitman Blood Money would introduce some new mechanics and continue with Hitmans current trajectory, selling well with positive reviews, however Hitman BM would stay close to Contracts LTD with legs not being as expected. Being a cross-platform game, the next game in the franchise would be built-up for the next generation.

Hitman Absolution would be that game. it was made for the next generation of gaming technology, it features a deeper plot, stream-lined mechanics that would target the current Hitman audience, as well as attract more casual gamers, and this approach worked initially. It became for a time, the best selling Hitman game. However the reception among Hitman hardcore and softcore fans, along with Absolution not "keeping" the new casual audience hurt the Hitman franchise immensely, not only that, but the costs to make the game led SE to deem the game a failure despite it's sales compared to the rest of the franchise at that point.

But the crazy thing is, since that ONE game, Absolution, Hitman has never been able to recover, Game sales were down not just for other retail hitman games, but on PC services like Steam as well.

Hitman had a reboot in 2016 just titled "Hitman" which would be an episodic title. This new generation Hitman went back to the old open-ended style of gameplay and hardcore stealth mechanics the fans loved. However, it was deemed not a success and a slow burner.

A sequel would be made, however, when the confusing titled, "Hitman 2" was announced, so was SE's lack of interest in Hitman studio IO interactive, and the studio was separated from SE. Hitman 2, which makes searching for the real Hitman 2 frustrating with it's title, sold very poorly.

It's clear that Hitman Absolution was the start of the fall but that still leaves questions. What went wrong? Why was Hitman killed do to one game despite a history of great games before? Where did the Hardcore Hitman fans go after absolution? Why did the more causal players not stay? Why is it hard for the franchise to regain its relevance with two reboots going back to its roots?

 

[SirKicksalot]

The problems are marketing and scale.

Absolution went for a grindhouse aesthetic that was easy to sell. The following games don't have such an obvious hook. Square mounted a gigantic marketing campaign, which was easy because they had something distinctive to sell. What are the new games about? Man of Hits travels the world and hits men in completely disconnected levels? Great news for fans and people who like this kind of make-your-own-fun games. Everyone else is bored.

Also, the casual audience doesn't want to replay the same missions over and over again. Absolution kept feeding them new content for what, 10-12 hours? You have to make your own fun in the newer games, but the scale of the levels doesn't fit modern trends. It's an awkward middle ground between linear carrot-on-a-stick campaigns and giant open worlds filled with surprises which encourage exploration. How long does it take to finish the new games once, 4-6 hours? That's what a casual would do and it wouldn't be satisfying because the story and aesthetic hooks are barely there.

The franchise needs both Absolution's bite-sized varied levels and the bigger sandboxes of the new games. The solution is probably to present a coherent aesthetic and story across a campaign that's set in a single spectacular location. Like the Olympic games or the Rio Carnival or something. Make the levels interconnected city blocks and keep it up for 8-10 hours.

Absolution is not the problem - the newer games expand on its gameplay, after all. A game just like Absolution but with a different, similarly memorable aesthetic would sell just as well. A solid 4 million copies IIRC.

 

[Calibos]

What happened to it is simple...It became an amazing game that nobody bought. Hitman 2016 and 2018 are fucking great, but people aren't buying them. Maybe the world has just moved on.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

its a niche game that should be made once every 4 years or so. its a fine game. the problem is that its not a game that will sell well if you oversaturate the market with it.

stealth game are inherintely niche

 

[MMaRsu]

Hitman was never a franchise for the massive mainstream audience. Both Hitman 2016 and Hitman 2018 are amazing games, and I really love the oldschool Hitman games. Sure there are features missing from the new games, but I respect them for going back to that type of gameplay after Absolution. Even though it sold a lot of copies, Hitman fans were not happy. Since the game was a totally different type of game, demanding more cover and Splinter Stealth esque stealth. That was never what Hitman was all about, and it never should be. Hitman is all about being in plain sight, preferably with a disguise. Yes it's not realistic but it IS more fun. There are and were a thousand boring cover based shooters on last gen, we never needed to turn every franchise into the same kind of game. Even Tomb Raider went for a cover shooter mechanic. All based off of Uncharted and Gears of War.

 

[Futaleufu]

Mainstream gamers dont care about stealth games. It's the reason Deus Ex underperformed and Ubisoft hasnt made a new Splinter Cell.

 

[Alexios]

Seems to be doing well enough now? Lower budget without outrageous expectations seems to be doing the trick. Another successful run could even get them to original Hitman 2/Contracts status eventually.

Not everything should be made to sell as much as COD or ASSCREED and thankfully not everything is, allowing people with a diverse range of tastes to play games they like too. That's a perk, not a failure.

Wish the Thief revival had been in that same spirit rather than the Absolution spirit as Thi4f (ugh) was. Funny how Square was involved with both these titles. Oh well, there's been NEON STRUCT since at least.

Thief's devs didn't get to branch off and do their own real Thief thing though. Probably because there's no such thing as Thief devs that like the classics as the original studio's gone, it was brought back by force.

 

[Mr_ScissorsXIX]

Hitman 2, which makes searching for the real Hitman 2 frustrating with it's title, sold very poorly.

Do you have a source on this? I mean, doesn't matter how much it sold. IOI are the only ones who can say if it's a success or a failure. And AFAIK, they said nothing.

 

[Afro Republican]

Do you have a source on this? I mean, doesn't matter how much it sold. IOI are the only ones who can say if it's a success or a failure. And AFAIK, they said nothing.

It charted low on charts, fell off the charts, and was 90% less than Absolution starting sales.

I mean IO can change things to make it a profitable franchise for them in terms of not losing money, but it did worse than the first reboot game, and the first reboot game was one of the reasons Square let IO go.

Personally it's likely best that IO separated, Squares mismanaged.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Its a Niche series. 2016/2018 are some of the best in the franchise.

 

[Roni]

Hitman is the best it's ever been. Fans love it, the core open-ended sandbox levels are the biggest and most complex they have ever been.

The problem is Hitman is a thinking man's game. Not many thinking gamers out there. They need to keep doing what they're doing, except they need a core team of around 10 to labor on an innovative and accessible gun-fu gameplay that allows the most casual to simply shoot their way through the level John Wick style.

Hitman is very unique, but they need to start selling the John Wick experience along with their core gameplay if they want steady AAA game sales.

Hitman needs to be fun to play stealthily and guns blazing.

 

[Terra_Ex]

Several factors I can identify:

- Square Enix do not have a clue how to manage their western studios and IPs: see Hitman, Deus Ex for prime examples. I'd also argue they devalue western IP; see Steam sales - even poor Final Fantasy entries maintain a -50% max discount years after release to maintain the prestige of the IP in years gone by, yet the likes of Deus Ex see up to 80% off sales with alarming alacrity. It's quite easy to see Square's meddling with the unfortunate direction of Absolution & Mankind Divided getting a portion of the game sawed off and thus lacking an ending.
- Absolution sucked (partially attributed to the above point) and while corrective measures were absolutely taken (I was in the closed alpha for Hitman 2016 and was very pleasantly surprised with Paris - it was clear to me then that they were going back to what worked by scaling it up with much larger level designs) when a fanbase is slighted by IPs "going in new directions" or becoming "more accessible" that has a lasting falloff effect. After Absolution a lot of people simply didn't believe that 2016 would be a return to form.
- Hitman 2016 delivered, however there were vocal people here on GAF for example throwing tantrums about not supporting episodic games, not buying till the full thing was released as physical, etc. This contributes to negative publicity for the game.
- Needless always online connectivity required to unlock equipment etc, seemingly borne out of a naive hope to prevent leaderboard cheating. I love Hitman but I'm not going to defend this one.
- Elusive Target structure and content delivery demands that a very large game remain installed on a perpetual basis so that you don't "miss" these targets. Hitman 2 & the Legacy pack sit at around 100GB on my hard drive. Not everyone is going to want to keep something that size installed for several months, waiting for an Elusive target to release and hoping that the timeframe is convenient for them. Allowing every buyer one chance at these events that they can attempt at a time convenient to them would be better. As we move away from the release date, the game looks less and less attractive due to absent "one-time" content. Players do not like feeling that they are "locked out" of content.
- Overpriced Silver/Gold edition pre-orders are off putting, again I'm a fan, but I'm not a charity, Silver & Gold editions were overpriced at release for what you'd be getting, again we're returned to the feeling of "incomplete game" territory that we were in with 2016.
- Launch window for it wasn't great, it was pretty close to Red Dead 2 as I recall and I know what I'd place my money on casuals buying

Each of the above are factors, both big and small that I feel have negatively contributed to perception of the IP since Absolution.

And last of all, it is a niche game, what many bigger companies seem to forget is that when you make a game and it's targeting a particular genre & audience, once it releases, it may indeed have found that audience and in most cases can only grow past that by undermining the factors that defined the IP in the first place.

It is good that they separated from Square in one sense but they've gone straight to another big pub who has paved out the road ahead with pricey Silver and Gold editions. It's sad because Hitman is the ideal franchise to have extra levels added after the fact as dlc, but it's all in the presentation and I don't think the big pubs do a very good job at presenting these offerings as value for money.

 

[Alexios]

Seems to be doing well enough now? Lower budget without outrageous expectations seems to be doing the trick. Another successful run could even get them to original Hitman 2/Contracts status eventually.

Not everything should be made to sell as much as COD or ASSCREED and thankfully not everything is, allowing people with a diverse range of tastes to play games they like too. That's a perk, not a failure.

Wish the Thief revival had been in that same spirit rather than the Absolution spirit as Thi4f (ugh) was. Funny how Square was involved with both these titles. Oh well, there's been NEON STRUCT since at least.

Thief's devs didn't get to branch off and do their own real Thief thing though. Probably because there's no such thing as Thief devs that like the classics as the original studio's gone, it was brought back by force.

Do you have a source on this? I mean, doesn't matter how much it sold. IOI are the only ones who can say if it's a success or a failure. And AFAIK, they said nothing.

Hitman fell so hard as OP stated, IO opened a new studio in an attempt to stay afloat
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20...pers-io-interactive-open-new-studio-in-malmo/

 

[AV]

The Hitman reboots are the best Hitman has ever been. The problems are that:

A. Most regular consumer types who play popular games don't give a shit about stealth games (they would consider AC a "stealth" series)
B. The weird episodic nature of Hitman 2016 put a lot of people off (certainly put me off, I only picked it up two years later)
C. Many people were burned by Absolution being underwhelming