January Patch Notes

Welcome to the first official patch notes for HITMAN – World of Assassination, the new way for us to refer to HITMAN 3 and all of the included content from HITMAN 1 and HITMAN 2. 
 
With the full experience all under one roof, on all platforms, we’re excited to share the patch notes that will lead us into the finale of our Year 2 content; HITMAN Freelancer. 

Our focus leading into this release has been squarely on the new rogue-like mode and as such, a lot of the work and fixes won’t be shared here. However, if you’re curious about what has changed between the Closed Technical Test in early November and the full release of HITMAN Freelancer, make sure to spend some time reading our You are in control and From CTT to Launch, which will prepare you even more for your first steps into HITMAN Freelancer. 

HITMAN 3 will be updated to version 3.140 on all platforms; PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Switch.Patch Release Time: Thursday 26th January 2023, 11am UTC

Maintenance: 11am UTC – 4pm UTC. If maintenance is extended, updates will be posted to the official @Hitman Twitter account.

Patch size: The new game update weigh in between 1.5GB and 8GB depending on your platform. Cloud: Switch players do not need to download or install the patch. They will get access to the latest version when they launch the game after maintenance has concluded.

HITMAN Freelancer is a brand new, single-player mode that introduces rogue-like elements, strategic planning and a customisable safehouse. And starting today you can become the global hunter and Prepare, identify, and eliminate the most dangerous syndicates in the World of Assassination.

Read all about this new exciting way to play HITMAN here: https://ioi.dk/hitman

Support for Nvidia DLSS 3 – DLSS Frame Generation and Nvidia Reflex Low Latency.

With the 3.140 release, players can now enjoy the added support for DLSS Frame Generation and NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency. 

DLSS Frame Generation uses AI to boost frame rates by generating additional high-quality frames, all while optimizing responsiveness with NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency. DLSS Frame Generation requires a GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics card. 

 
NVIDIA Reflex helps DLSS Frame Generation achieve maximum performance in addition to reducing latency, giving players a more responsive feel in-game. NVIDIA Reflex can be enabled in the graphics menu on GeForce 900 series and upwards. 

Jump on over to Nvidia for more information about DLLS 3: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/ces-2023-rtx-dlss-game-updates

We’ve changed several aspects of the game experience to fit the World of Assassination naming and branding.

- The game’s icon, PC Launcher, boot screen and attraction screen (press X to play) have all been updated to the new WOA branding.

- The in-game hub has been changed to accommodate Freelancer and put a focus on the Story. Players will now have a clear choice of ‘Story’ or ‘Freelancer’ from the Featured hub.

- A new ‘LIVE’ tab will be the new destination for the most recent Elusive Targets, Arcade Contracts, Escalations and other fitting content.

- New players will now start directly at the ICA Facility location, as we want them to start their WOA experience from the very beginning.

- We’ve also taken the time to update the sound effects on the ‘IOI’ logo on game launch, update the credits for work done on Freelancer and update our legal line.

We’ve resolved various issues that could cause the game to crash or be unstable in various ways.

In the October Patch, we added an option for players to enable a ‘toggle’ option when they wanted 47 to run/jog/sprint. Now, we’ve expanded and updated some of those options.

HOLD (unchanged)

The player must hold the ‘run’ button

TOGGLE (changed)

The player may press the ‘run’ button at any time. 47’s speed persists even when he stops moving. An icon in the bottom-left will show his current speed.

PRESS (new)

The player must press ‘run’ when walking. If 47 was already walking, he will run. If he was already running, nothing will happen. When he stops moving, his speed resets to a “walk”.

Santa Fortuna: Hidden Statue

We’ve resolved an issue where the statue involved in the “Heart of Stone” mission story was not covered, when it should have been.

Difficulty Difficulties

We’ve resolved an issue where performing a save/load cycle and replanning a mission on a different difficulty level could cause the game to not reflect the new difficulty level, i.e additional cameras and NPCs would not be added to Master Difficulty.

Challenge Consistency

We’ve updated the menu ordering to sort Challenges in a more logical manner. They’ll now be displayed with numerical order in mind, i.e Tier 1, Tier 2

(Note that the number of bullets in each tile increases by 1)

Agent Seventeen

We’ve updated the image of the Agent 17 suit that is shown when the challenge is unlocked, to better reflect what the actual suit in the inventory looks like.

Letter Dance

We’ve resolved an issue where the words in the UI or on the in-game map could occasionally ‘dance’ when the player quickly moves the camera or scrolls across the map.

Paris Audio Sweep

We’ve overhauled the audio properties of the Paris map, to bring it in line with the current standards. This work was done last year, but never implemented. The following changes have been made:

- New Occlusion System: We’ve changed the occlusion system and adpted the rooming and soundportal setup to use our 3D propagation tech, rather than 2D. This results in a more realistic propagation from room to room, such as being able to hear the water from the fountain at the entrance when you are in the 3rd floor attic room.
The (iconic) music from the Fashion Show itself now uses an occlusion modifier to ensure a smooth propagation throughout the entire palace without any dropouts. Finally, broken glass windows will now act as soundgates, allowing you to hear audio through them, which wasn’t the case previously.

- Improved Sound Assets and variation: We’ve added new background and 3D positional sound assets to the inside and outside of the palace to add more variation and fidelity to the ambient audio.

- Improved Crowd Propagation: We’ve set up crowd templates and updated the crowd to the HITMAN 3 system, which uses 3D spacialization rather than 2D loops. This means that they can now be heard in the adjacent rooms and from further away, resulting in a more natural and immersive experience.

- Added Impulse Response Reverbs: We’ve replaced our algorithmic reverbs to give all rooms a more realistic set of reverbs to simulate each space, which will make them more believable.

- Full Mix Pass: We’ve created new Wwise events and done a full mix pass on the entire level to the mixing standards that we included with the HITMAN 3 locations.

Ripe For the Picking

We’ve resolved an issue where the ‘Ripe for the Picking’ trophy/achievement from Mendoza could be unlocked in Haven Island.

Hawke’s Bay Puddle

We’ve removed a visibly floating puddle from the beach in Hawke’s Bay. Once we did this, it became apparent that there were visible ‘seam lines’ that the puddle was accidentally hiding. We’ve tidied that little issue up as well now by moving the puddle decals out of the seams together with some vertex painting.

Tres-Paris-ing

We’ve resolved an issue where 47 would be considered trespassing on several stairs between the basement and main hall, even though his disguise was permitted in that area.

Despite this being reported as an issue, fixed, re-opened and difficult to reproduce, we now believe it to be fully solved due to a trespass zone from the stairs above going down into the corridor below where the issue was occurring. That particular trespass zone doesn’t actually go far enough down to reach 47’s feet, so it shouldn’t have made a difference, but now we’ve tweaked it, the issue has reoccurred since. So, there you have it.

Paris Light

We’ve resolved an issue where several lighting issues could occur in the ‘second room’ after the main hall in Paris. Certain lights would not appear, others would flicker or disappear from the room because of their draw distance and shadows at a close distance would also disappear just before the lights, causing a ‘flicker’ effect. Changing light settings or enabling RayTracing made no different to these issues.

Here’s the issue as reported by Hitman Forum user 7_62:

To fix this, we changed the shadow fade length, prioritization and angular attenuation of the lights coming into the room. We also added a light that shows when the light from opening the centre door (seen below on the left hand-side of the screen), which has never been there before. After all of that, here’s what the ‘fixed’ area now looks like:

Mumbai Tower Tragedy

We’ve resolved an issue where it was possible for Agent 47 to fall outside of the map in Mumbai. You could say it was his own fault for subduing an NPC from cover near the Crow’s Guard Tower, but we wouldn’t say that to his face. So, we added a collision box to keep him where he needs to be.

Next Level Blend-in

We’ve resolved an issue where one of Rico Delgado’s guards in Santa Fortuna would become part of the wall in order to surprise 47. Thanks to u/Mawashiro for pointing this one out to us.

No Climb For You

We’ve resolved an issue where it was possible for Agent 47 to ‘climb’ a tree near the cocoa plantation to get out of bounds. If the world’s greatest assassin isn’t interested in jumping, then we don’t think he has any business climbing. We’ve blocked this particular area now.

Instinctive Recording

We’ve resolved an issue where it some security cameras would not be displayed in Instinct after 47 has used the ‘camera’ tool in his inventory.

Camera Conundrum

We’ve resolved an issue where it was impossible to use the ‘Hide Menu’ prompt when using 47’s camera to take a photo near a door. This was because the prompt to do so was the same as to open the door, and this was causing an issue. We’ve simply remapped the ‘hide menu’ prompt to avoid this.

Miami Money

We’ve resolved an issue where it was possible for NPCs to scale the small walls / barriers at either end of the tunnel (underpass) at the start of the level. Thanks to u/S00na-M00na for pointing out this unintended parkour.

Sapienza’s Second Saviour

We’ve resolved an issue where The Prince Elusive Target (included in The Deceits Arcade Contract) would be able to use the same blend-in spot as Agent 47 in the church. We’ve given them both their own space now.

Black Almond True SA

We’ve resolved an issue where the Black Almond’s Dagger (Haven Island Mastery unlock) was missing sound effects when attacking NPCs from any direction.

Hokkaido Stem Cells

We’ve resolved an issue that was blocking players from using the stem cells as an assassination method because a specific surgeon would suspend their routine.

The 47th Universe

We’ve removed the Hokkaido spa as a possible location for NPC’s to be sick. Similar to the Bangkok Bread Basket, it didn’t feel appropriate (Don’t ask us if it ever did).
However, for all your emetic poison needs, we’ve added a new one outside the spa at the bottom of the ramp.

Glove Powers

We’ve resolved an issue where the Signature Suit with Gloves would not get wet in the Chongqing rain. The regular Signature Suit did, so it must have been something to do with the gloves.

Invisible Flash Case

We’ve resolved an issue where triggering a remote flash explosive that was concealed within a briefcase would result in the briefcase remaining functionable, but entirely invisible. Now, triggering an explosive that’s concealed will result in the briefcase being ‘consumed’ and no longer usable.

Legal Trouble

We’ve resolved an issue where 47 would be referred to as “Mr Bravuomo”, the good man from Landslide, whilst wearing the Lawyer disguise in Dartmoor. He should have been referred to as “Mr Ford”, the actual lawyer on the Dartmoor map. We don’t have specific lines for the Dartmoor lawyer recorded, so guards will find other, more generic ways to ensure 47 gets an appropriate greeting.

Controller Layout

We’ve made a change so that the controller layout shown on the Pause screen will now update to reflect a players choices for ‘hold’ or ‘toggle’. These options were implemented in our October 2022 patch but the controller image remained static with the default settings. Now, it’s dynamic to your choices.

Sniper Timer Trouble

We’ve resolved an issue where the Score Screen shown after completing a Sniper Assassin mission would display as 00:00, but be shown correctly on leaderboards. Basically, it was just a visual issue on that first screen. We’ve now fixed things so that the proper time is always shown.

Apron Adjustment

We’ve resolved an issue where aprons where not properly displayed, seemingly meshing with the character model. This issue stemmed from a fix we put it place for a different issue, where female aprons could not be seen from the back, but looked fine from the front. We’ve tweaked and aligned the properties of all aprons to render without clipping.

Rocky Terrain

We’ve resolved an issue on Ambrose where an NPC would clip with their chair when picking up a magazine. This was caused by the chair not quite being aligned with the ground. Similar cases with NPCs standing ‘inside’ chairs after sitting and being distracted have also been fixed.

Missing AI dialogue

We’ve resolved several issues, mostly on Ambrose Island, where certain characters dialogue would not trigger properly. These include missing guard dialogue to 47 acting suspicious in disguise or placeholder ‘robotic’ voices being triggered instead of the final recordings.

Double Wetsuits

We’ve resolved an issue where players would see two identical versions of the Guerrilla Wetsuit in the planning stage after unlocking it through the Ambrose Island mastery track.

Barrel Shadows

We’ve resolved an issue where some shadows from fire barrels, notably on Ambrose Island, would display unrealistically. Changes have been made.

New Feature – Career page Elusive Target Split

On the Career page, we have split the Elusive Target overview between Year 1 and 2. This was made to help players have an overview of completed or failed ETs.

Last Stop

Kicking / pushing NPC’s off the train in the Carpathian Mountains didn’t always count as a kill. It now does, so use it carefully.

Casual Dental hygiene

The Bubble Queen Gum pack is a delicious unlock from the Seven Deadly Sins, but unfortunately it was considered as an illegal item on the Casual Difficulty. This has now been changed, so that you can chew in peace.

Exploit with particles and muffins.

Muffins are delicious. But they can also be a powerful tool, especially when it comes to speedrunning. We've fixed the "issue" where players could use muffins to their advantage to get better times by exploiting it. Thing is, we did not intend to fix this, as we liked the content that came with it. Therefore - we will introduce the muffin trick again in a later patch this year. Until then, sorry speedrunners!

We’re always listening to feedback and tracking the issues that get reported. If you’ve encountered an issue with HITMAN 3 and want to tell us about it, please first check the official Known Issues list through the HITMAN 3 Player Support Hub for an updated list, where you can also submit a bug report.