You’ve probably heard of this one before. A fun game hits the market. It requires some internet connection. Everyone streams on the first day to play, only to hit a series of frustrating roadblocks. Online connections are shaky, if at all functional. There are issues with data storage and character progression. Some players are looking for luxury versions – for example an “Ultimate” edition – and are struggling to access the stuff they paid for. The developer shoots off a series of apologetic tweets, says he acknowledges the situation and ‘looks at it’, and publishes a frequently asked question that addresses the most common issues with a series of answers that are thin at best, at best and is vague.
The launch of the game, in other words, is a mess.
The disaster of the day is not a Destiny of a Diablo of a Section. It is Hitman 3, the latest in IO Interactive’s recent series of interactive Instagram posts, available this week for a whole host of platforms.
Oh, son. What happened this time?
Hitman 3‘s problems allegedly started before the launch. IOs Hitman games have always had an online element, relying on a persistent internet connection to track your progress. Kotaku‘s Riley MacLeod told me when he was game review, connectivity will fade in and out. As far as he could tell, it had no major impact on how he played. (When reviewing the game for PC MagGot Mike Williams a similarly bad connection.) You can play technically Hitman 3 offline, but you will miss some unlockings.
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It does not sound so bad.
In a vacuum, no, that would be no problem. It is common for online games to have server problems before it starts. Hitman 3The servers were running (on paper) during the review period, but still got some bumps. And keep in mind that such issues existed, despite the fact that only a small crop of reviewers – rather than the wider game audience – had access to the game.
Server issues sustained when the game was officially launched on January 20th. Bonus points if you saw that one coming.
That’s not all. Hitman 3 technically allows players to transfer their progress – both in terms of character progression and unlocked levels – from the previous World of Assassination trilogy games, Hitman and Hitman 2. Also, this process did not perform as smoothly as in the advertised stage.
Hitman games are defined as much by their locations as anything else. Earlier matches sent Agent 47 to busy destinations such as Marrakesh, Morocco; Hokkaido, Japan; Miami, Florida; and Sapienza, Italy, which is not a real place but comes, could just as well be a carbon copy of Positano, Sorrento, Praiano or any other holiday hotspot to the idyllic Amalfi Coast. If you owned Hitman 2, you can enter any unlocked levels in Hitman 3 by downloading expansion cards Called Access Packs at no extra cost. (Those who owned Hitman or Hitman 2 on disk had to go through another lake complicated download process. That’s a whole thing.)
If you try to find these Access Packs in the separate store window of each console, it can be indicated by price. Instead, players had to navigate Hitman 3‘s Store tab via the game’s main menu. But even that does not guarantee success. Some Xbox players could not access the first game access pack at all, even if they followed the guidelines for a tea. IO say a ‘resolution’ is in the works.
PC players meanwhile got involved some mixed messages on whether to buy back computer players Hitman 2 at the Epic Games Store, where Hitman 3 is a time exclusive. Currently there Hitman 2 is not available in the Epic Games Store, but you can Hitman 2 Gold Edition Access Package—Which includes the base game and its additions – at 80 percent through Feb. 3. In other words, if you own Hitman 2 on Steam and want to play the game’s levels Hitman 3, you will have to pay again. IO say a solution is in the works. It is unclear why the Hitman 2 Gold Edition Access Pack is not completely unmarked. (Kotaku directed the IO representatives for comment.)
And then there is the actual data transfer. If you played Hitman 2, can transfer your player profile – your XP rank, your Master levels, your unlocked packs, things like that – Hitman 3. IO Interactive has even set up a dedicated website that enables players to complete the process seamlessly. The site almost immediately came under fire, and some players received error messages. At 14:57 ET IO Interactive acknowledges the issue and writes it in a tweet, that someone who sees a failure notice ‘has been placed in a queue on [their] terminate and process. You can do no more. ”
“We have taken steps to stabilize the transfer progress,” IO wrote in a Questions Thursday morning. ‘We are cautiously optimistic that we will avoid further issues, and we are on deck to keep business[s] smooth when we reach peak times. ”
And then there is the problem with cross-general improvements. It’s no secret that upgrading a game from its PlayStation 4 version to its PlayStation 5 is one already a confusing process. Hitman 3 put an extra key in it. In some cases, PlayStation players have it report issues using a PS4 disc of the game to upgrade to the PS5 version, despite promises of pre-launch of IO set that the next generation of upgrades would be free. Today’s Questions commands players to first download the PS4 version on their PS5, and then go to the PlayStation Store (console only) and the Hitman 3 Disk Upgrade Edition.
On top of that, some small pieces of downloadable content do not even seem to transfer. Per IO is the Requiem Pack—What, fun fact, contains a white rubber duck – is currently ‘AWOL’.
Wow, okay, I’m taking this back. It is very. Why does it always happen?
It always happens, does not it?
Talk to Kotaku in 2019, developers fall off a list of common problems that could potentially hamper an online game, including crashes, system errors, a code issue, an unexpected influx of players, or even errors on an individual player’s machine. Developer Rami Ismail of Vlambeer compares such launches to Mini Metro, the tremendous minimalist management symbol on building accessible transportation in large metropolitan areas.
It is also important to remember that issues like these are not universal. (See: All the people who reply to articles about Cyberpunk 2077 with some diatribe about how the game swims on their gazillion-dollar rig, and that it’s the game of the year, and why it’s so much bad mouth anyway, what’s the problem?) For some Hitman 3 players, everything is peaches and gravy. For others, the whole ordeal was an exercise in frustration.
And it’s a story as old as time anyway. Mass Effect: Andromeda launched like a buggy mess, before BioWare turned the ship around and turn the game into, if not the best Mass effect, a solid series entry. Similar things can be said about Halo: The Master Chief Collection–which is a terrible explosion these days-Or Diablo III. And everyone knows the No Man’s Sky ark of salvation now al. Is Hitman 3 the next chapter in a long saga of amazing games that splashed out during the launch? Only time will tell whether IDE can complete this work.