Talking to a Hitman

Apr 13, 2006

There's a time for walking and there's a time for running. A time for casual sneakiness and a time for a gunshot in your enemy's face and throwing their limp, warm body in a trash can and casually walking away with their suit on. Soon, there will be a time when you'll sit down and play the newest IO Interactive game, Hitman Blood Money, and you can do it all.

We recently spoke over the phone with IO Interactive's Game Director, Rasmus H?jengaard, about the nearly finished title.

IGN: What were your major goals when you approached Hitman: Blood Money and what did you want to achieve? When you sat down and reflected on the last game, what did you think you could do better or different, and how could did you feel you could improve the series?

Rasmus H?jengaard: Actually, it's a two-stage rocket for us. The game design for Blood Money was created before Contracts. We made Contracts on a modified engine that we already had, and then when that happened, when we had finished it, we realized we had to be even more ambitious with the design because time had passed, so expectations were even higher. That meant that, apart all the things we wanted to add before Contracts, we wanted to add more features and we decided to reinvent everything. That meant from a tech standpoint, meaning the script engine, AI, and all that. So, the whole thing, all of Blood Money, was created from scratch. We felt that we wanted Blood Money to have the same impact as Hitman 2. We wanted it to feel just as new as when that game hit. So, to publish that on the same platforms we had to change more than just features and graphics, we had to change the way the game feels and plays. That was the initial plan.

IGN: Let's explore those ideas a little. When you say you wanted to make a big change in the way that Hitman 2 was over Hitman 1, what do you mean exactly?

Rasmus: First of all, we wanted things like picking up the controller for the first time and walking around with the character to feel entirely new. That had to feel different. Things like, when you interact with characters, between missions, after missions -- there had to be features that made you feel it was new. So, following the title of the game, we introduced money to the series. It was already in Hitman 1, but it wasn't balanced and you could basically buy anything you wanted. So, it really became a redundant feature. So, we wanted money to become relevant and necessary and to function throughout the game. So, the killing thing and the cleaning up idea become aspects revolving around money. You also have to find something interesting to spend it on. So we enabled you to modify various aspects of Hitman to suit your style of play. In this case, you'll be making even more money on replay missions to buy things that suit you more.

Also, we wanted to have the way you play the game affect forthcoming missions. So, if you play very violently, you'll have a different scenario at the start of the next level than if you played stealthily. Of course, we had to make the game react to those players who only play it violently, so we had to introduce a way to get notoriety, so that you can pay your way out of trouble. So, all of a sudden all of this money has all these different functions, and the way it's been balanced out now actually makes it possible, and it makes sense, for you to play the game more than once, because the experience you're going to get is going to differ a lot depending on how you take on the game.

Damn that was a long sentence.

IGN: (Laughter). Do you think people who play Hitman play it more than once?

Rasmus: We know from the forums that they do. With Hitman 2, the game design wasn't polished enough, so it didn't really work well enough to play it through multiple times. Now, it really works. So if people really liked Hitman 2, they're going to go absolutely nuts with Blood Money. It really feels a lot different. It feels like you have a lot of control. You can get out of tricky situations, whereas in previous games, if you screwed up somewhere, it was really difficult to save it. And if you wanted to really complete the mission fully, you had to back your way out if something went wrong. In this one, if the s*&^% hits the fan, then you are able to run away, you can take someone's outfit, you can hide his body, you can get out of a tight jam, and when everything has calmed down, it works. It's not that difficult once you understand the mechanics a little better.

IGN: There are a couple of things I like and dislike about the series. In Contracts, you had the dark, meat market warehouse level, and that was a really memorable, gruesome mission. It was really likeable in a sick way. So when I look back and I distinctly remember that level, I wonder if Blood Money will feature that same dark, gritty feeling that Contracts was clearly going after.

Rasmus: I'm really glad you're asking this question, because one of the most important goals for this game was to make memorable locations. It's achieved in different ways. We tried very hard in Blood Money to find post-card romantic locations, which makes the stuff you do and see feel even more grotesque. So if you have, for example, a quiet suburb, where the only things you see are people mowing their lawn and grilling steaks, and people are going about their daily lives, and you put a garbage man into the grinder of his garbage truck, it's just going to be so much more powerful than if the location already brings that kind of expectation with it.

I really think we make it a lot more powerful in this game also because a lot of the locations are ones people can really easily relate to. It's a lot more powerful to watch someone get executed in the middle of a street during the news, than it is to watch Terminator 2 kill 25 cops. You're going to understand the locations much better. Also, we have created situations that are always going to challenge the morale of the player. We don't suggest that they do these things, but, you know, we have broadened the spectrum of things you can do. I said earlier that everyone who plays this at least once or twice will say to themselves, "OK, am I going to do this, or am I not going to do this?" That's a pretty powerful aspect in the game, I think.

IGN: The other thing I wanted to talk about is that the controls, the actual mechanics, are a little worrisome. They're awkward. You're supposed to be this stealthy guy, yet simply opening the door requires several non-stealthy interactions. I wanted to know if you felt the same way or not, and if you are addressing the game's controls this time around.

Rasmus: Yes, I have to agree with you. In the last few games, it's taken a little while for me to get comfortable with the controls. I really like the controls of this game. We basically took the two different independent perspectives, the same one that many MMOs use, for instance, so the only difference here is that you can't zoom in and out of the character -- you can basically jump from third-person to first-person views -- and that's a really nice way of controlling a character. Especially if you want to look around corners, or see past spaces or look around boxes, etc., so now the camera is easier to handle than in Hitman 2. You don't get that sticky kind of feel that you did before. Also, whenever you can perform an action, you have a button indication in front of you. It's a little bit like it was in Halo, with instructions of what you can press with a single button. And if you have multiple choices, then you can hold down that button and have a pull-down selection with the analog stick or D-pad. So I don't think there is any reason to feel any doubt of the user interface itself. The health bars, the stealth bars -- they're all a lot easier to understand, plus the fact that we made this incredibly, ridiculously detailed training level to take you through it. So, I'm really sure that even though you can do a lot more in this game, it's a lot easier to get into for people who have never played the series before.

IGN: Let's talk about AI. Many developers have a hard time making stealth games. The reason they do is because the AI has to be really good and complex. So, when you create a stealth game, you're enabling the player to progress through the level in many different ways. You can't just have a rigid, linear design. You usually have to provide multiple paths, to account for many different outcomes. But your AI also has to act with as much complexity as the player is allowed. I always felt the AI in Hitman was very good. It has to be hard; because if it isn't, the stealth aspect is negated. So when you looked at designing the AI for Blood Money, what kinds of questions did you ask yourself? Is the AI smarter, more complex, more difficult, and can it do more things than before?

Rasmus: We haven't used anything in Blood Money from the previous game in terms of code, at least anything that has to do with AI. So we basically allowed ourselves to invent anything we wanted. Basically our goal was to not make the game harder, or easier, but to make it make sense. So, sometimes in previous games, you might end up in a situation, "Oh, what the hell, why did that happen? What did I do to make that happen?" You had no idea. First of all, what we wanted to do is give players more of a chance. For example, if you run into a restricted area, it may be difficult to find out if it's restricted. So, the situations aren't just black and white anymore. You can interact with characters more. Characters might tell you the area is restricted. They might tell you to go away, or they might frisk you. And if they find a piece on you because you forgot to hide it, they don't just whip out a gun and "Bang! bang!" you're dead and you have to start the level over again. They'll take the gun away and store it for you.

Also, you can distract characters now. You can throw stuff around, so you can use other characters to secure your own goals a lot more than in any other Hitman before. The AI is really cool now. Especially with NPC body bagging. And when the AI finds dead bodies, you are told they detected the bodies with a secondary window popping up on screen. There are none of these, "What the hell happened?" moments anymore. That I really love. Those were moments that made me throw the controller out the window when I played the game before.

(Laughter.) So that part I'm really pleased with in this new Hitman.

IGN: Do you feel that the AI reacts to you in the same way, and that there are more options? Or did you program the AI to react to a greater variety of your actions?

Rasmus: The thing about the AI is that they are reacting to the same things and more things, but they're doing it in a more forgiving way. But, if you cross the line, then of course, they aren't forgiving. With Blood Money we're basically adding more features and we're taking away the frustration. And that response works on many levels. It goes for AI, controls, mechanics - in terms of shooting and combat - and we have really aimed to take away the frustration. A game can be as hard as it wants to as long as it's not frustrating.

IGN: Right, as long as the mistakes are yours, not caused by the game.

Rasmus: Exactly. For example, I had a situation the other day when I was playing the casino level. By accident, I pushed a civilian and ran, and then I was given a warning by a guard, because I wasn't supposed to do that. And then I just sort of wanted to provoke him. So I shot the civilian and then the guard started running at me, so I ran away, took out a second guard, stole his clothes, put him in a dumpster, hid in a closet, and saw the first guard come in and look around. Then he left, and I left the closet and sort of walked back into the crowd and met the first guard in the hallway, and he just sort of eyes me as I walked by. That kind of thing was not possible do to in any previous Hitman title. So you have all these things that make you sit back and smile, because it feels really cool, and it feels like you're actually there and you're really cheating these people. So yeah, it's excellent.

IGN: Hitman Blood Money looks really good. The graphics are distinctly better. How do you see them varying in quality on the different systems?

Rasmus: Basically, what we have been doing is totally insane. We did two engines, two renders. And they just sort of crossed over in terms of work flow, but essentially like maybe one half or one third of the geometry is built uniquely for platforms. Also, shader wise, we made it Direct X render for the Xbox and PC version, and we made a not-Direct X version for the PS2. This, of course, caused tons of problems that we didn't have before because lighting models were, all of a sudden, very different, shading models were very different, and basically we were doing such insane things on this game, more than I've done in my life. I'm not sure this is even a good idea. (Laughter.) But when I look at the game now, it's really paid off.

Now we have a game that fully takes advantage of whatever that platform is capable of. I would say that the Xbox was the hardest for us to do. The Xbox is really the same as the PC, but it has a way slower processor and CPU, so we had to custom group every object on the Xbox to make it run fast. And it took a s$#@load of time, but now we have equal performance on the Xbox and PS2. And the Xbox stands farther apart from the PS2 now, and the PS2 does stuff that I've never seen on the PS2 before. I mean, we have in-game normal maps, refractions, specular mapping, all the PC stuff is done, including bump mapping. And I think only Path of Neo has done this before, but when you look at that game, you can't even see it. I don't know what they did. Anyway, it's one big bag of tricks to program a game on the PS2 and still have a decent framerate. From the PC aspect, we have basically incorporated all the stuff you would expect to have when running a high-end PC. If you have seen this game before, maybe last year, it was changed a lot. It's probably going to feel like a whole new iteration of visuals when you see it again.

IGN: Thanks for your time. Good luck with it.

Hitman Blood Money is a single-player action-adventure game published by Eidos and developed by IO Interactive, due May 30 on PC, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360.