Hitman 2016 released on GOG with online-only features, gets review-bombed - now delisted

[ferratilis]

Well, this was unexpected.

https://af.gog.com/game/hitman_game_of_the_year_edition?as=1649904300

 

[lukaszek]

Well, this was unexpected.

https://af.gog.com/game/hitman_game_of_the_year_edition?as=1649904300

This game has online DRM. You can play though the game with the basic options, but many features, such as unlocking weapons, items, outfits, starting locations and more are locked behind an online requirement. The GOG page does not made this clear and is extremely misleading.

 

[AdamReith]

Play blood money instead.

 

[racofer]

Well, this was unexpected.

https://af.gog.com/game/hitman_game_of_the_year_edition?as=1649904300

But the real question is: have all online-only requirements been removed? Mission progress, weapon unlocks, bonus objectives, bonus disguises, etc... these were all tied to an always-online model.

I want none of that on if:

But that is highly unlikely and most likely tied to using Galaxy and having a permanent connection to IOI servers.

 

[ferratilis]

Well, I thought they removed the online crap because GOG is DRM-free, at least that's what makes sense. If it's not the case, then I'm done with GOG forever (which should've happened after that bullshit with China, but I thought that was an isolated incident).

 

[racofer]

Someone took one for the team and purchased the game on GOG: https://af.gog.com/forum/general/release_hitman_game_of_the_year_edition_11093/post56?as=1649904300

This is what happens:

Fucking disgusting.

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

Well, this was unexpected.

https://af.gog.com/game/hitman_game_of_the_year_edition?as=1649904300

Bwahahaha, watch that user score PLUMMET!

It was 2.8 a minute ago, now it's 2.5.

edit, 7 minutes later: 2.4 now

edit: 8 minutes later: 2.2

edit: 12 minutes later: 2.1

edit: 6 minutes later: 2.0

edit: 22 minutes later: 1.9

Congratulations, gog! Whatever street cred they didn't manage to blow with the Galaxy-exclusive cosmetic bullshit in Cyberpunk they well and truly blew with this release. Chapeau!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Well, this was unexpected.

https://af.gog.com/game/hitman_game_of_the_year_edition?as=1649904300

Bwahahaha, watch that user score PLUMMET!

It was 2.8 a minute ago, now it's 2.5.

edit, 7 minutes later: 2.4 now

2.3 sirrah

 

[lukaszek]

another mmx moment

 

[Melcar]

More Galaxy forced games?

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

You had one job, gog. One job. And you went and screwed it up.

 

[ferratilis]

This is not only a GOG problem, this is the inevitable future of Hitman trilogy. Some day, they will decide that keeping these servers online is not profitable and shut them down, regardless of the platform. What we will be left with is a crippled game. Yeah, you'll still be able to play all the missions and the online ranking system was shit from day one, but still the game will not be complete.

The worst part is that a lot of modern games have these always-online features, so we'll have a lot of barely functional games in the future. Hell, even that Quake remaster from Nightdive needs to connect to Bethesda servers if you want to download their curated mods. Gaming industry has gone to shit.

 

[AwesomeButton]

This is not only a GOG problem, this is the inevitable future of Hitman trilogy. Some day, they will decide that keeping these servers online is not profitable and shut them down, regardless of the platform. What we will be left with is a crippled game. Yeah, you'll still be able to play all the missions and the online ranking system was shit from day one, but still the game will not be complete.

The worst part is that a lot of modern games have these always-online features, so we'll have a lot of barely functional games in the future. Hell, even that Quake remaster from Nightdive needs to connect to Bethesda servers if you want to download their curated mods. Gaming industry has gone to shit.

The real benefit on online rankings:

 

[ferratilis]

If they cared about this game being truly DRM-free and functional at the same time (which they don't), they would've removed the leveling and all the online stuff like Elusive Targets (which were never that interesting to begin with, for me at least), and make the game more like Blood Money, where you unlock things with the money made during missions, which is directly tied to how stealthy you are. That would be a hundred times more interesting than forcing you to log in every week just so you don't miss a target. Or they could've added some mutators you could toggle on and off to add replay value to missions. It's not rocket science, and must be cheaper to implement that the cost of maintaining online infrastructure. There are so many possiblities how they could've done this. But they don't care, and that's what makes me angry, because the game itself is so fun to play.

 

[ADL]

It's been five years, they should just unlock everything from Hitman 2016 across the board. This would affect 2/3 players and they could release 2016: Definitive Edition everything included completely offline. Personally I like the "GaaS" stuff from the new trilogy but at some point they need to give everybody everything and if you're gonna sell the game on GOG, now should've been that point for 2016's online unlocks and elusive contracts.

The last decade of video games is gonna be disastrous once servers start going down left and right.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm sure the justification is "well, you can play the game without any DRM".

 

[Alienman]

I want those fugging elusive targets, holy shit how hard is it to release those.

 

[ADL]

Wonder what the contract of Sean Bean's elusive target is like. You know how songs are negotiated for specific platforms and games are updated to gut those? I could see his likeness being limited to a certain number of platforms for a specific period of time. I think Gary Busey and Gary Cole from Veep were targets too. Including celebrities is probably a huge mistake and might be excluded from a "definitive edition" even if they were to release everything.

 

[CyberModuled]

I'm sure the justification is "well, you can play the game without any DRM".

The sad thing is, that literally is their argument.



"Yeah man, just play the game without the entire fucking progression system for equipment, starting locations, outfits, etc."

 

[ferratilis]

Despite the 1.5 rating, it's a top seller. What has to happen for people to wake up and stop consooming shit?

 

[ADL]

It's arguably the second best game in the series despite the issues I have with it being overly reliant on scripted sequences but at this point why even buy it on GOG instead of buying the upgraded version within 2 or 3 on another storefront? You can definitely get it cheaper elsewhere and from a gameplay standpoint 2016's content is vastly inferior to playing that same content within 2 or 3.

I'm not 100% sure about this but I think you can even use the demo/free locations of those games to access 2016's locations within the new games.

 

[m_s0]

Gaming industry has gone to shit.

Brain 'Lustmord' Williams was saying Interplay was very corporate back in the late 90s. This industry has been shit for a very long time, but at some point it's been given what's essentially weapons of mass destruction and they're using them exactly the way you'd expect from a bunch of barely sentient primates with serious complexes.

Makes you even more glad that Carmack had the kind of attitude he had, and released the source code for DOOM and Quake.

 

[Syl]

Makes you even more glad that Carmack had the kind of attitude he had, and released the source code for DOOM and Quake.

He promised to release the source code of previous engine once a game with a new one was released, and he kept his word until the end.
Starting with Wolf 3D in 1995, then Doom, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, all the way to Doom 3 engine in 2012, just before resigning from id/Bethesda/Zenimax.
As you'd expect, all id engines are proprietary since then, and to add insult to injury, licensed games using them have to be published by Bethesda.

John Carmack is a legend.

 

[ADL]

Shame Carmack isn't influencing Oculus for the better because that whole environment is walled garden cancer and now they're outright killing PCVR support for all upcoming titles as far as I know. The VR market was volatile enough without Facebook coming in, buying a handful of really great studios and migrating entirely to proprietary ARM-based devices.

 

[m_s0]

Shame Carmack isn't influencing Oculus

No such thing as Oculus - just Facebook, and they're too big for a guy with an ethos to influence anything anymore.