Hitman 3‘s Season of Pride has shown me something that I think would make the game even better. All it would take is some small additions each month, maybe some content tweaks, and the player base would keep on coming back for years. I’m talking about challenges, which are the behind the scenes goal for every player. There are main missions to complete in every mission for Hitman 3, but outside of those, you have a mastery level for finding everything and completing every challenge. Some locations have over 100 challenges, and completing them all isn’t easy. If Io Interactive extended this, people would be playing Hitman 3 for years.
Challenges can take multiple playthroughs to complete. The Pride Profusion, a new Escalation in Hitman 3, has a few to complete. They’re based around certain actions, and require you to restart the whole thing if you want to grab them all. It’s the first time I’ve been bothered enough to go back and pick them up, and that’s because the Escalation is so much fun to play. It got me thinking about the challenges in the rest of the game. They seem so daunting that it’s hard to get into, but after just playing for a few hours you’ll pick most of them up.
I think that Io Interactive should be adding a few new challenges to Hitman 3 every season. I understand that this will require new content to be added, such as items and NPCs, but I think it’s worth it for the draw it’ll have to veteran players. Anyone who has finished every challenge has nothing more to come back for. Contracts mode is fun, but when you’ve completed everything, there’s no point in playing for anything else. New challenges add in something better to return for. You can complete all the new content easily, but finding the new challenges and understanding how to complete them is way more enticing.
This is a change I think that will need to be made by the end of the Seasons of Sin Collection. Small new additions to keep players on their toes will vastly improve the replayability of Hitman 3.
