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lucas-grey · 2 years

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Freelancer Closed Technical Test Review

After four days of testing Freelancer, here is my review of the test. Spoilers ahead!

First of all, I'll start with the things I really liked

The Safehouse

For me, the highlight of Freelancer! I love the house and the surroundings. It's interesting to see how 47 spends his free time. He can meditate by the lake or chop wood. But he also has a room where he can mix cocktails or play bongos, for example. Now we know where he gets the skills he uses in his missions!

The references to the old games run through the whole mode and are also visible at the safehouse. There is an old, abandoned church in the forest. A small reference to Silent Assassin, as once again 47's safehouse is located near a church, albeit a destroyed one.

I also like that 47 lives in the house alone (sorry). Diana is present again and the two work together, but just like in the old games. It was already foresighted in Hitman 3 and Freelancer takes it further: IOI seems to go back to the roots, with 47 as the main character and Diana as the voice in his ear.

And I like the loneliness that reigns in the house and the little details. The single plate standing in the sink, for example, and the idea of 47 cooking something delicious for himself and then sitting at his dining table with a candlelit view of the lake. How he tinkers with his motorbike or his cars, makes small repairs to the house and the shed. Just as he tended the garden in Silent Assassin.

This hermit-like atmosphere is joined by an excellent soundtrack. Especially when you are in the woods and garden, you are rewarded with what I think is the best music the trilogy has delivered so far. While the upstairs area is cosy, the basement contains a veritable high-tech arsenal. This is where 47 keeps his weapons and items, plans his missions and regenerates when he's injured.

The changes you can make in the house were unfortunately still a bit buggy in the test (I'll get to that). Still, it's fun to redecorate the house and every time I unlocked something new, I wanted to look at it immediately. The motivation to reach the new levels and unlocks for the safehouse is very great and one of the biggest motivations for me to play Freelancer.

The cutscenes

What a small but fine innovation! Between the missions there are small cutscenes that show 47 driving to his missions, taking shelter wounded or waiting at the airport. The cutscenes make me nostalgic, they remind me a lot of the older games. They are such a nice gap filler between the missions that I can't leave them unmentioned here!

The campaigns

In Freelancer you start a so-called campaign. Each campaign consists of eliminating members of a syndicate. You first do a certain number of easy missions before the campaign ends in a showdown. In total, there are four campaigns to complete, with the level of difficulty increasing each time. While in the first campaign you have two normal missions and a showdown, in the fourth campaign you have five normal missions plus a showdown. So to defeat the whole syndicate you have to finish all four campaigns.

But that's not so easy. At the beginning you have no equipment and no money. You can, however, get both little by little, for example by collecting weapons in the locations and taking them to the safehouse at the end of a mission or by opening one of the many crates that are scattered all over the maps. Sometimes they contain items that you can take with you or even money. You will also receive items in your safehouse when you return after a successful mission. But be warned: if you lose a normal mission, for example because you are wounded or have to flee, you will lose all the items you took with you and you will not be able to start the mission again. If, on the other hand, you lose a showdown, you lose not only the items you had with you, but all the weapons and items you had already unlocked during the previous missions, and you start the campaign again from zero.

In the worst case, you end up with nothing. And half naked.

So planning is the be-all and end-all, which makes Freelancer so interesting, but also challenging. The level of difficulty varies between Professional and Master. However, the goal here is not Silent Assassin and/or Suit Only, as in the regular game. Instead, you are explicitly asked to go beyond your comfort zone and make a real racket, which I like very much. There is the possibility to fulfil additional objectives. At the beginning you can't do most of them, but later on you can and then, depending on the campaign, you'll be asked to kill guards with a machine gun for example. I don't know about you, but machine guns are not really my first choice of weapon in Hitman :D Depending on what equipment you have, it's also impossible to lure a target out of the crowd. All that's left is to shoot and run.

Once you've made it to a showdown, you first have to identify your target. This is where the camera familiar from Hitman 3 comes into play. I think it's a great addition to use it a bit more than just to open doors. In a showdown there are several targets on the map. You get clues from Diana about the target, you take a picture and observe if the clues are accurate. This can include anything from hair colour to behaviour. Once you are sure that you have found the target, all you have to do is eliminate it and return to the safehouse and the campaign is over.

What I didn't like so much about Freelancer

The time aspect

What I am about to elaborate on is not so much a criticism as a personal opinion. Freelancer is a time-consuming game mode. It is definitely not meant to be played in between times when you have an hour to spare and are a bit bored. On the one hand, this makes Freelancer interesting and challenging, but it is not suitable for everyone. Especially if, for example, you have a family, have to take care of people in need of care, have a time-consuming job or generally have a busy everyday life. Basically, I understand IOI's intention to design Freelancer this way, but especially for such people there should perhaps be one or another saving point.

It also takes a long time to collect the necessary XP to advance in the mastery level. You get more XP if you fulfil the objectives, but that doesn't always work because you don't have the necessary equipment every time, especially at the beginning of the game. This is annoying, especially since you only get money when you complete these objectives and not for completing the missions. Therefore, on the one hand it is a bit exhausting because it takes so long to unlock rewards for the safehouse, but on the other hand it awakens an extremely high motivation in you that almost hurts :D

The unlocks

When I lost my first showdown in the third campaign and woke up injured in the safehouse to find I'd lost all the stuff I'd previously collected and bought, I was incredibly frustrated. And in an annoying way, not in a motivated way to try again.

I think the idea of losing the things I carry is very good and interesting and it gives it a certain realism. But the fact that I also lose the weapons that were actually locked in my high-tech bunker doesn't make much sense and it's doubly annoying when you've put money into it before and now you've lost not only this money but also the items that go with it. This is one of the aspects that I disliked the most and my biggest point of criticism.

The level of difficulty

As already mentioned, the difficulty level varies between Professional and Master. With each mission and each campaign, the difficulty level also increases. In principle, I think this is a good idea, but I have had situations that were downright unfair.

Enforcers are sometimes so alert that it's impossible to avoid their gaze, or there are so many of them that it's almost impossible to even get close to a target. Also, there were a few bugs, in Whittelton Creek for example there was a floor that an enforcer could see through and so saw me grab someone on the floor above him. I just hope there will be some tweaking here. Nothing against a challenge, but it should still be fair somehow!

Bugs

Well, it was just a test and there were still many bugs. For example, 47 forgets how to use binoculars or pictures that I put on the wall suddenly disappear again. The game also stopped relatively often, objects floated, 47 suddenly drove to a mission on a quad bike, even though I hadn't unlocked it yet. But I think these are all small things that will be fixed in the final product.

Conclusion

The beautiful safehouse alone is worth playing Freelancer! I can't wait to walk around there with Grey 47 and relax a bit before heading into the challenging missions. It's a time-consuming game and I'm sure I'll spend hours, days, weeks, months on it.

You can tell that with Freelancer, IOI wants to test what can be possible in future games. And you can tell that they put a lot of effort into the game mode. You have to remember that we get the whole thing for free! And for a free product, it's really high class, you can't say otherwise.

Of course, I hope there will be a Year 3, maybe with a new level and a return of Diana, Grey and Olivia, like we had in Ambrose Island. But with Freelancer, IOI is going back to the roots for now and delivering a lot of nostalgia, but also a lot of new things, and I'm looking forward to playing the complete mode in January!

#hitman #hitman 3 #hitman 3 year 2 #hitman freelancer #hitman freelancer closed technical test #hitman freelancer ctt #my review #agent 47 #diana burnwood #lucas grey #olivia hall #hitman spoiler

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r0semultiverse · 3 months

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Mr. 6 made you do a good show to be released?? 👀 um....

This is already giving serious eye vibes.

A whole show dedicated to public humiliation?

The Mr. Bonzo suit started moving??? 👀 Serious stranger vibes. 🤡

"It actually became a sort of ritual"

I've seen people being like "don't cross tag" but buddy... the writing cross tags itself here I mean c'mon! 😂 Something something ritual of the stranger- okay, I'll keep listening!

Hey, what's with the music?? Hey, who is Terrance Menki???👀

"The police said there were eleven bodies in total and his wardrobe was full of all sorts of homemade costumes." BRO IS ACTUALLY MAGNUSPOD WILLIAM AFTON-

"It certainly had a profound effect on the Mr. Bonzo brand." Oh I'm sure it did, holy fucking shit. 👀

Oh, me using this image is rather ironic now.

"In a lot of ways I’m more his prisoner now than I ever was on my show." WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? 👀

"The witness statements from three murders over the last five years that claim a person in a Mr. Bonzo costume was at the scene? Do you think there could be a copycat?" Has the fear of clowns manifested as an actual clown-guything?

"Don’t contact us again." "Us?" "Why am I still trapped dealing with all this this- Why won’t he let me go?! Why-" So Mr. Bonzo is absolutely a clown cryptid of sorts with some sort of hold over Nigel.

Oh no, Gwen's about to fuck around & find out, isn't she? 👀

Hey, is Colin still himself & is he supposed to be back?

Hmm, okay, I guess that's him (hopefully).

"Maybe don’t tell them I’ve been on their terminals. They’ll only get the wrong idea." "If Lena asks, I wasn’t here." Seems like everyone's got their own little secret investigations going on, fun! This can only go well! 🙃

One of the episodes absolutely no one shows up to work except Lena is there & is like "where the fuck did everyone go?"

"Time to get some new hires again I guess."

Let's go!! Ruin exploration gang!!

"Like, it’s Saturday night and I’m choosing to hang out in a hole with you. A wet hole. And not the good kind either."

Alice with the absolute best quotes. lmao

That sounds like something with giant wings like a bat or some sort of cloth flapping in the wind. Let's hope it's the latter!

Oh a rusty old filing cabinet! Wait tetanus- 😭

"That carved floor in the big atrium – I don’t know what’s going on with that." Ah so we're just gonna breeze past that then. 😶

These are probably the remnants of old avatar creation test areas like mentioned in the Gerry & Gertrude episode. I'm just assuming here.

A key? Big find! Let's go!

AS I WAS SAYING-

Gwen, it was nice knowing you. 🫡

"Now get out of his house."

Archivist! 👁👄👁

"symbols of ancient otherworldly power"

Wait could this be a timeline where this universe's Jane Prentiss actually did manage to invade the building & succeed? I'm thinking out loud.

21:10 that sounds like critters, insects specifically 👀

"I have memories of weird stuff I saw here, but no context. I want to know what was happening, why they chose us… why they didn’t choose me. Maybe find the bit where everything started to go wrong." I am so captivated & intrigued please recount said memories to us- I mean Alice so we can learn more. Please. 👀

EXCUSE ME, WHO THE FUCK WAS THAT?!? WHO IS "[ERROR]?"

WHY DO THEY SOUND DISTORTED AS FUCK?? ARE THEY FROM THE PRIME TIMELINE OR IS THIS A NEW THING?

ARE WE GAZING OUR EYES UPON A WRETCHED THING FROM THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES?!

edit:

Is Lucia Wright an avatar of The Flesh now (in this universe or from the original timeline somehow)? Because it sure fucking sounds like it! 👀 Well, at least that key was put to good use! 😂

Also, supposedly Mr. Bonzo is a reference to Mr. Blobby.

Gwen, I'd be quaking in my boots too. That thing is terrifying!

Late observation but this universe & story seems to focus a lot on the cryptids & I like the direction it's going in! Loving this plot of cryptid hunters, childhood avatar experiments, a strange institute where our main character has past trauma, & just all of it is so good! 💜

Amazing episode, 10/10, I was at the edge of my seat the entire time! 💜 That Bonzo scene & the sound design were absolutely horrifying, thank you! The ending too! 🔥