Twenty eighteen is rolling by and we’re already into March! About time for some Curated Contracts!
All Curated Contracts are chosen by a different member of the HITMAN community each month. They cherry pick the best contracts on offer from other players and we publish them alongside the Featured Contracts for all players. They say that you really get to know a person depending on the contracts that they curate. Let’s find out if that’s true…
Our curator for March is an Oscar-nominated director/producer from Toronto, whose had some of his own Contracts in the Featured list before. Now he’s on the other side of the fence are curating 10 contracts that will be live in the game on March 28 on all platforms!
Hello JetBlackIris!
Hey guys!
Can you tell us a bit about who you are?
In the real world, I’m a journalist and filmmaker. As a journo, I’ve written for a whole bunch of different newspapers and magazines, mostly covering the entertainment industry. As a filmmaker, I wrote, directed and produced the HBO film Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, and am in development now on my second movie. And, of course, I’m also a long-time Hitman fan, going back to Contracts.
Where can people find/watch/follow you online?
Well, I’m on HitmanForum and YouTube as JetBlackIris, or you can find the real me on Twitter @AdamBenzine.
You’ve already had some of your own Contracts ‘featured’, which one are you most happy with?
I think I’d go with Fall Season Preview – it was my first to be featured, it was challenging to a lot of players, and it embraced my love of puns in the title! You essentially had to push five targets to their death, however some players found a way around that by KO’ing targets and dumping them. Now that there is a ‘no KOs’ restriction, perhaps I should remake it?
How did you go about picking the contracts to be featured – and how do you feel about your final choices?
I wanted to be transparent about the process, so I opened it up to players on HitmanForum for discussion. I encouraged a conversation among players. I made clear specifically what I was looking for – a strong sniper contract, a puzzle contract, a fibre-wire contract, a loud and messy contract, etc – but I was also open to other players’ favourites. I’m happy with the 10 I’ve chosen – it’s quite hard to design contracts now, because the maps and NPC routes are very well-known to players, but these ones are all pretty great.
Graduation – From Candidate to Agent is a fantastic fibre-wire contract on the ICA Facility Map from a relative newcomer; Shooter is a great sniping contract; Dead Presidents and Backpack Runners make smart use of little-observed NPC details, which I love; and Bangkok Ninja is a challenging puzzle. Finally, and perhaps a little indulgently, I dropped one of my own very special contracts into the mix as well, which I hope agents will enjoy.
How would you sum up your HITMAN playstyle? Are you all about speed, stealth, roleplaying – or something else entirely?
Definitely I prefer the role-play aspect of it. I grew up loving assassin movies such as The Day of the Jackal, Grosse Point Blank, The Bourne Identity and The Living Daylights, and as such I like to be immersed in the mission. No disrespect to those who love speed-running – and there are plenty of players who do – but to me it seems anathema to the whole notion of being a contract killer. Especially as that play style often involves running around and causing as much noise and chaos as you can to distract from the kill. I prefer to be slow and methodical.
Often on a user contract, I’ll go back to get my suit at the end, even though I don’t need to, simply because that’s what 47 would do.
Looking back at the now-more-than-two-years of HITMAN, what single moment stands out for you?
I think when Sapienza dropped, everyone’s mind was kind of blown. We were already impressed with the Paris map, but Sapienza felt like an entire coastal seaside town, and really demonstrated the possibilities of the game in a quite spectacular way.
If that’s the past, let’s look to the future. What do you hope to see in Agent 47’s futures adventures?
I like and support the episodic model, it adds longevity to the game. I’d love to see missions in London, New York, Tokyo, Rio and Las Vegas. Three of the six maps from season one (Paris, Bangkok, Hokkaido) were essentially single, enclosed buildings, so I’d like to see more open city maps with street crowds, like Sapienza and Marrakesh. I also hope for a few new, inventive game modes, beyond Elusive Targets and Featured Contracts.
Also, this is kind of specific, but I’d love to see a small mission set aboard a large commercial airplane with limited movement, hiding spaces and weapon availability. You could have restricted movement between economy class, business class, a first class upper deck and the pilot cabin, but with plenty of poisoning and fibre-wire kill possibilities. I actually really liked some of those smaller, interstitial missions and maps in Absolution.
If there’s anything else you want to say, the stage is yours…
Carrying a golf club through a five-star hotel is suspicious, but carrying a crowbar isn’t? Really? 😉
On a serious note, you guys at IOI have done a great job with the game, you really have. There is nothing else out on the market like it. You should be exceptionally proud. Roll on season two!
Thanks JetBlackIris!
Thank you.
