The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I want this so damn bad.

thing I forgot to mention: you can't store a billion weapons on yourself at once, you have to either conceal small ones or hide big ones. Something mentioned: you can throw guns in trash cans to hide them. Good feature!

The tension in-gameplay with this is going to be so delicious.

it's funny, only recently I used Absolution's detection indicators as an good example of implementation, but for this Hitman game they're switching to a style closer to AC's over-the-head indicators. Which makes me wonder if I wasn't a bit too hasty to condemn them: they are obviously inherently clearer in the information they convey, and even if that might mean less tension, good stealth gameplay is based on clear information.

Of course, the detection display is all subject to change, and it seems like they'll actually be doing big patch updates to tweak things like this after the game launches.

I never played a Hitman game, but I heard good things about the franchise and these videos show me stuff that I really really like. I'll definitely be on the lookout for this game.

I think you'll like it, the series is all about very focused and complex levels that allow for a lot of creativity and different approaches. After a certain point, you really start to see environments as detailed puzzles.

Absolutely excellent Q and A with fan questions here, at the 3:49:00 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=13701&v=oKwMyu7WtWc#t=3h49m9s

The part about selecting your tools before a mission is my favorite: (paraphased) "we didn't want to do ability or power unlocks, we're focusing more on tools being important, and what you bring in your loadout determining your options in the level".

Y'all probably know I'm all about the player character always being the same, their equipment not needing upgrades, and simply having a whole bunch of significantly different tools that allow you to do different things.

I like that. "For this mission I'll bring my sniper rifle, for this one I'll need night-vision goggles, for this one I'll take some explosives" etc.

I like that the developer said their goal with that was to give people more interesting options for each approach than is possible to bring all at once.
And the coolest thing is you don't store it all in some magical inventory. You have to consider how you'll actually be physically transporting these tools, or if you'll ask an agent to hide one for you at a stash point in the level. Stuff like pistols and crowbars can be concealed on your person, but an assault rifle can't. A sniper rifle might need to be stored in a briefcase and reassembled in a quiet area. And metal detectors and being frisked requires you to think even more creatively. I just love the physical reality of it. Hitman: Blood Money was like that too, but it sounds like they're simulating even more logical stuff.

The mechanic of hiding weapons in the environment and selecting loadouts before entering an area is probably the one thing that's going to win me over the most. What it'll mean for the stealth and combat system sounds amazing, especially since Hitman games are all about trying to turn each Assassination into a piece of art.

You make this game sound very exciting, Jermaine.

I think I'll try to find Blood Money somewhere so I can play it over the summer break.

I suppose I haven't mentioned the slightly weird release schedule of the new game: a digital-only release in december followed by a physical release after all the free content is finished coming out at the end of 2016.

But there's not really enough information to go into detail about that, all they've said is that the digital release will be a big game, and the free DLC will make it the biggest game in the series.

That is really cool, and I'd like to see gaming take this as a popular route of production from now on.
It targets a "best of both worlds" idea. Games nowadays are woefully expensive to produce, but you still have to make them affordable on a consumer level - or at least make them feel worthy or valuable for their price. Once everything has been released, a Physical Copy capping it all off is a great marker of "completion" that anyone can understand.

I think there are potential problems if it doesn't feel like there's enough content initially: people might not understand that more is coming, or get tired of waiting for more. I think that it would be ideal for games to be released all at once whenever possible, and I feel like IO Interactive is doing this because they're under pressure to release by a certain date, and literally are unable to make all the content they want to in that amount of time.

Not exactly a situation I want more devs to be in, but they seem to have a fairly good approach for handling it.

Ideally, yes, there would be no pressure from corporate, or from management for devs to release content this fast.
However, in the very likely event that production managers/publishers do not wise up to how tough it is to produce quality (and quantity) content of this caliber by harsh deadlines, the whole "release the game first, add content later" mentality would be the most practical way to appease all sides.

again, I think that's dangerous as a thing to normalize. I'd just prefer the longer dev times as a rule, but if this is a rare exception that'd be fine.

I'd prefer it as well, don't misunderstand me. I'm 100% sure it's way better for all of us as gamers to have a higher quality end-result no matter how long it takes to get done. The up-side to the Hitman release schedule is that it seems an answer has been found for games that are demanded to be released before their time. Rather than releasing the entire content with all of it being buggy and incomplete, they can release it in stages, each stage being a polished and complete addition to the last ones. It's not perfect - but if publishers are adamant on seeking a half-baked answer to tight deadlines that somehow still works, this would be it. The perfect answer would, of course, be "don't force tight deadlines to begin with."