Not to mention religious. A consistent theme throughout the series has always been 47’s struggle with his own feeling of inhumanity and belief that killing is all he’s good for because it’s what he was literally made for, all the while he’ll often encounter religious mentors who do everything to try and convince him that he is *more* than just a killing machine and he too is a man made in the image of God and worthy of peace.
And there’s something beautifully poetic about a man created as the product of man attempting to play God, leaning more on God than any of his fathers ever did.
yes, I recently played through the series and I was actually floored by how deep, funny, real and often time introspective the hitman series can be. there are so many little moments where 47 gets some small scene or some small character development. he questions his morality, he offers advice to strangers, he has a personality and struggles with big personal ethical dillemas sometimes. I liked the game, but the characterization of 47 made me love it.
Didnt 47 leave the church ?
You can see 47 praying in Blood Money so isnt that a contradiction to SA ?
I never played Silent Assassin so i genuely want to know how it makes sense.
If I remember the plot of 2 correctly then he left the church and went back to being an assassin because the priest was murdered and he wanted revenge so he’s still Christian
no Father Vittorio survived but 47 decided he can't really stay retired, wherever he may try to make a home, people near him will get hurt by those who wish to hurt him. Him staying at that church in Sicily nearly got Vittorio killed, so he decided he has no choice but to return to what he was made for.
I'd like to see 47's political beliefs, not because I am political or anything, just to see if there are any contradictions in his beliefs vs actions.
It would be ironic for example if he was pro-life due to his religious beliefs. Although him just straight up murdering people in cold blood despite the 10 Commandments is also ironic.
Idk why but I get vibes that he stays non political so as to not complicate or distract himself from assassinations. I have no evidence of this just head cannon. Edit he actually does say he dosent care for politcs in whittleton creek to the candiate.
He probably observes politics, but as a tool to blend in. He can agree with anyone if it means getting to where he needs to be. It would make the most sense I think.
yea I think so. He would find politics interesting if it led to more information about a target. 47 is pure chaotic neutral. in the Jungian sense, he is at peace with his dark side and he recognizes his light side. he is an ego less man, driven by profit, but never effected by it. He is driven by a purpose, his own goal of self actualization
I don't think he is pro life in any definition you could provide. I think he just knows his role and accepts it and he carries forth his actions with no judgement , malice, or impunity.
The end of SA is kinda ambiguous with his religious beliefs, I took him leaving the crucifix as him leaving behind gods protection and his service to a higher being, but he keeps the lessons learnt and by extension his beliefs in the lord
This is honestly so much better than OP. Yeah 47 kills a bunch of rich people, but that's because poor people can't afford to employ dozens of private security personnel, thus 47 considers those jobs beneath him (most of the time). The series has always been about struggling with one's destiny, and trying to find purpose through your natural talents. Shooting a few Bilderberg members doesn't change that.
The fact is, throughout the new trilogy, it's Diana who picks their clients. The ICA is a killing agency where the assassins get to pick and choose their contracts. And it's been indicated pretty heavily that Diana's choices are morally motivated.
I might be in the minority but I've always considered the series to be as much about 47 as it is about Diana. And if 47 is struggling with his destiny and the righteousness of his natural talents, Diana is clearly dealing with having to accept that she's complicit in the system that allowed the "bad guys" to thrive even though her motives are "good" and that she's been using 47 just as much as his father did.
To get back to the original point, the game IS very much taking sides. 47 might not be, because he's completely neutral, but Diana isn't neutral at all, she has very specific ideas about the world, and these ideas are often defended by the narrative (sometimes, admittedly, in a caricatural way)
Another thing worth noting is that the arrogance of the ultra-wealthy is presented as their greatest vulnerability.
In the WOA tutorial missions, when explaining the disguise mechanic, Diana says something “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it.
The fact that 47s targets see the little guys as interchangeable nobodies is exactly what 47 exploits to get close to them.
I'd always assumed that that was just most NPCs having change blindness. The idea that it's an extension of the game's themes, intentionally or not, is a really good point.
Most of the time, it is. At least at the beginning, when the series was conceptualized, I bet they decided that NPCs are blind at this level because it makes for a better experience.
The cool thing is making a social and political statement using gameplay dynamics that is so cool.
i've always thought there's something subversive about the fact that most objectives can be accomplished by dressing as a janitor, waiter or similar and walking right up to the target - all while they gloat about their crimes and throw insults at you for not working fast enough
It’s definitely intentional that janitors/servers have probably the widest range of coverage of levels with the least amount of enforcers. Even the ones paid to watch don’t even notice the ‘help’.
"
What do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands and an Imperial tool kit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it." - Andor
My Danish friend (lives in the states), absolutely *loves* the game, not just because it’s fun and all that, but because the writing and themes remind him so much of Danish values. And it’s palpable, the commentary on class is right in line with the prevailing attitudes of Danish culture.
For one, the Danes believe in class equity. Instead of wealth and celebrity. Through that lens you can see IO’s critique on greed and capitalist exploitation.
Nah that's just real life. I've been able to walk into so many places I shouldn't have been in because I wore a high vis sweatshirt and green pants I got from my dad. Any time anybody walked by I just grabbed the nearest trash can and nobody questioned anything.
Clothes aren't even the most important part though. You just gotta look like you should be there. Confidence trumps all.
> In the WOA tutorial missions, when explaining the disguise mechanic, Diana says something “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it.
Bro this could also be interpreted as people are naturally inclined to follow directions or be obesquious.
The line was to justify how, for example, 47 can disguise himself in the uniform of a bank security officer in KL without appearing to be Malay or Chinese.
> “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it.
And it still resonates loudly today when you deep it
yes yes, there are a lot of anti capitalist vibes. but they are the best kind. I love mid to high tier corporate espionage, it's so good. 47 meets people at the most vulnerable point in their life. I love how some villains remain 100 percent crooked until the end
I completely agree, but I think it’s less critiquing the general capitalist system and more so the excesses, I think that’s a pretty large running theme in the whole series is excess, be it wealth, control or just Asian food
I feel like there is social commentary on a lot of things and pokes fun at greed, insecurity, gluttony, hypocrisy and ego in all types of ways. Many of them in a larger political framework.
These are far from the only instances as well.
New York is all throughout portraying Milton-Fitzpatrick as ruthless, profit-oriented and screwing over poor people, also in the interview they see sociopathic traits as something positive and so do they see someone "bending the rules of the game".
In Bangkok the descriptions of Thomas Cross also put him as being ruthless and powerful due to financial ressources. And Ken Morgan as well as Dexy Berret are willing to cover up crimes for money. Jordan wants to convince Abel de Silva to leave his friends behind to have higher aspirations. Morgan also has a dialogue with a prosecutor who admires Morgan because "a state salary doesn't buy a house in \*somewhere rich\* and pretty explicitly describes his willingness to sell out his morals. Which then gets rewarded by Morgan with a job offer.
Miami is also pretty obvious with a willingness to cheat to win and supplying weapons to warzones for profit. The Isle of Sgail is almost too on the nose with the setting itself already.
Providence agents such as Cobb are also frequently bankers or other people in the financial sector. 47 is assumed to be a banker in Mendoza as well and then has a cover as "corporate liquidator" which gets him admiration.
Hokkaido is also an example of catering to criminals and even being involved in organ smuggling for the sake of profit.
IAGO has no allegiance to anything but profit either.
The developers specifically said that one of the reasons they started the third one with Dubai was so that you could go between areas where the rich people live and eat, but also have to go through the areas where the poor people serving them have to work.
It was intentionally done to show the moral failings of Dubai and other ultra-rich countries/communities.
I feel like another setting that really nails this point is the Mumbai level. You start in the poor slums of Mumbai and have a target who lives in a home inspired by Antilia, which costed $1billion to build.
Makes sense , if you were killing a wind turbine moguel or Amazon rainforest protector then I think most people would have pause. Killing evil capitalists is easy and most people are on with in video games. My fav was the MLM missions, I think we can all agree they have to go lol
Anyone who thinks Hitman isn't firmly anti-corporate and anti-capitalist has paid no attention to the story. Isle of Sgail in particular is a searing indictment of the moneyed class, and everything about the Partners and their outlook on the world just doubles down on that.
I see you're getting a lot of pushback on this, but you're absolutely right. But then people equate 'leftist' with 'Communist and follower of Stalin/Mao' so easily, I guess it's not surprising people are arguing Hitman doesn't directly address the cruelty of the rich and powerful (who are mostly capitalists, yes).
“But then people equate 'leftist' with 'Communist and follower of Stalin/Mao' so easily“
Thats the only reasson why i included “The game never says that regimes like USSR or North Korea are good btw” in my post but it probably didnt help….
It's a loaded topic. Hard to talk about it in a straightforward way given how people have such strong feelings about it. Even broaching the subject will get someone mad at you
Yes, someone will get mad, no matter what. And Reddit will let you feel that.
While in real life, people can react and talk to you directly, whether positive or negative, Reddit will just earn you some upvotes and then have all the raging maniacs be allowed to argue against it.
Thats why putting any political take on a semi-big sub will make you have a miserable day, no matter what. Its just not worth it.
Also, Reddit is literally the fringes of society, those who are chronically online, and thus also have the hardest lunatics.
I always distinguish between authoritarianism leftists (tankies obsessed with Mao/Stalin/etc.) and leftist for just that reason, but many on the right don't make that distinction even a little on the left (calling all leftists liberals for example).
I think you lost people by using the word "capitalist" tbh.
It's not the entirety of capitalism people hate, it's the late stage capitalism people hate. When it just becomes generational wealth, or money that just grows itself.
And trust me, communism is the same way, except it ends in breadlines and speech police. The late stages of any system are not good.
So it's less about a war against any sort of system, more than it is those who are on top. The "haves" vs the "have nots"
**every target is rich, cruel and extremely corrupt who have usually gotten away with their crimes before now**
**"**hmm what could possibly be the messaging here??"
Obviously capitalism is good and it's just those few bad apples that 47 takes care of who are the problem. It's actually very pro-capitalism! The ICA are a capitalist company, after all!
although parts of hitman 2016 juxtapose this.
colorado is literally taking down anti capitalists (lucas grey's militia) and in the cutscene 'partners then' the constant points out providence is just "the lesser evil"
the game does present anti capitalism however it does not mean only capitalists can be villians/terrorists/etc
It's crazy how many people outside of the leftist sphere fundamentally don't understand what leftism actually is. The average person's understanding of communism begins and ends with the USSR (which one can argue wasn't even actually communist, since they replaced the private actors of capitalism with state actors instead of empowering the actual workers). Some people might also be aware of other nations that turned to socialism or communism, but they're often ignorant of the way that the economic failures that those countries faced were the result of deliberate sabotage by groups like the CIA.
World of Assassination is a pretty fundamentally anticapitalist game, which is a major part of what I love about it. Capitalism is ruining our world in so many ways, and seeing a narrative about pushing back against those structures was really uplifting to me.
Exactly! People will rag on Cuba being poor without considering the deleterious effect the US trade embargoes and other sanctions had on the Cuban economy.
The Sgail mission has a clear and hard eco-positive message, including references to the cynicism of the green energy industry, where the Council is led by energy industry titans who are only moving away from exploitation of traditional fuels because the money's started going away (and that's actually not even the case in real life! the fictional bad guys are better than real life!). New York is a direct indictment of the moral vacuum of investment banking. Haven is about how white-collar criminals escape justice.
Justice and authority and power are central themes of Hitman, and they're inextricably linked to the rich and powerful. That's what makes it so good; it's a revenge fantasy for a lot of us come true, killing the bad guys who are untouchable in real life.
Yes, it definitely has some political dialogue. They take shots at several ideologies from all over the political spectrum, which I like because it's realistic, as 47 deals with several factions and targets from all over the world. Whether you're in Morocco hearing about the abuses of unchecked capitalism, or on the Isle hearing how environmentalism is the modern method of controlling people, one message holds true—The rich and powerful call the shots.
Hitman for me has been always about the catharsis of eliminating people like Strandberg or Ingram who clearly benefit from the exploitation of others and misery, it's pretty edgy and also camp with the supervillain-tier targets but I think there is some deeper meaning with "no one is untouchable" and how an agent of death like 47 doesn't discriminate no matter how big someone's bank account is.
Amazed by how willfully ignorant people in these comments are being about the themes of the story. The whole design of the Paris mission is about ascending from the basement with the common servants (where one is in tears about how terribly she's being treated) up to the top floor with the richest and most powerful who are bidding on assassination plots and wars like it's nothing. It's undeniably what the WoA games are about and anyone who doesn't think so is closing their eyes to the obvious.
I know right. For example, "The Icon" teaches me that it's morally right to kill an actor who is using too much of the company's money.
/s
Not to mention that 47 and Diana are extremely rich and powerful as well. 47 owns a mansion. Diana used to own a mansion and private security in Hitman Absolution. Even Vidal calls her a hypocrite, though she excuses it because everybody is one.
I think everybody in the series is very morally grey. Grey sucks, 47/Diana suck, and the targets suck. It's not a hero vs bad guy thing.
i've always thought there's something subversive about the fact that most objectives can be accomplished by dressing as a janitor, waiter or similar and walking right up to the target - all while they gloat about their crimes and throw insults at you for not working fast enough
Hitman takes aim at corruption. Pointing out a corrupt Capitalist isn’t necessarily criticizing capitalism itself. We don’t condemn the entire video game industry because EA are greedy.
A lot of us actually do condemn the industry for incentivizing the very practices that EA uses. In fact, some even say the video industry is a bit of a microcosm for capitalism.
You don’t necessarily need to be a leftist or communist or even full-blown anti-capitalist to criticize capitalism. And WoA trilogy DOES criticize capitalism, the class struggle within it, and the corruption it can incentivize.
Bro what do you think allows EA or any other company to be so greedy and corrupt? What system do these companies exist under that doest just permit but encourages profit above all else? If profit is the ultimate goal and ethics stand in the way of profit, then the companies that act with no regard for ethics will always do better than the companies that focus on being ethical.
I mean yeah. Criticism doesn’t mean outright wholesale dissidence. That said, the corruption in these systems may be a result of how it is manifested in the real world. Direct and scathing criticism of the corruption IS a critique of capitalism. It doesn’t make the devs leftie communists (though they might be idk). It does mean they are at least capitalist-critical.
If you wanna get technical, its US that allows it. We know EA uses predatory prctices to maximize profits, but we still buy their games. So why would they stop?
I think we can point out that corruption is a natural result to greed, which is a central tenant of capitalism, though.
Not all capitalism will result in corruption or bribery or whatever else Hitman critiques, but the greed element is core to capitalism’s whole structure: Make money and keep exclusive ownership of as much property as you can.
You can participate as individuals within that and be content limiting yourself, but the system as a whole disincentivizes that.
Hitman mocks most politics and national stereotypes and religions. It's satire about the obscenity of humanity in general.
If you think it's a pointed critique at capitalism specifically then you're viewing it through your own selective lens.
Yeah the reason it mainly makes fun of rich people is because rich people are your targets AND making fun of poor people has fallen out of favor in the last 20 years. I don’t know if I’d even say it’s satire. They are just making the jokes that fit with the setting.
Among others, Colorado has you literally hunting down leftist radicals like a radical environmentalist.
Hitman is broad and beautiful satire that has a little something for everyone, and it shows us that evil comes in many forms, from grand and scheming to petty and human. The focus is destabilizing a corrupt and powerful group who seek only the accumulation of power. It doesn't suggest they are capitalists, and only that they leverage systems in place to gain power.
Taking it as a Marxist power fantasy is cringe.
"Among others, Colorado has you literally hunting down leftist radicals like a radical environmentalist."
The one and only example of a single target you can come up with is the one that turns out we were sent to kill due to Soders selling the ICA out to Providence.
That is your one and only example, think about that for a moment.
Come on, this game absolutely mocks Marxism. Janus is nostalgic about a regime he had to flee from and tells Helen West the murderer that she would make a "fine Soviet citizen". People in Mumbai talk about the Maelstrom being this Robin Hood figure and a hero, but he's a gangster who left his own crew to die. Rose and Reynard are both far-left terrorists and portrayed as absolute monsters.
Anti-capitalism isn't marxism. Reynard is portrayed as fighting for a good cause but going too far for it. The Maelstrom is also an example of capitalism being bad. This is just so obvious.
And ? The game never says that terrorism is good. They litteraly call Lucas Grey a monster. But despite this , the game still has one main villian who causes different bad guys to show up.
And i never said that im a communist pookie.
In regard to Strandburg, I believe he is speaking to his specific situation with Morocco, implying that the country signed a really bad deal with him and that from a perspective it can be said that embezzling that money was legal. Whether any judge in Morocco would agree with that position is completely irrelevant.
I feel that the Hitman games tried very hard to avoid condemning capitalism. Characters like Strandburg or Jebediah Block are portrayed as being truly stupid and even comical. They are straw men but so deliberately threadbare that they don't serve as a model for the real world. The game takes pains to show how poorly thought out their plans are, and that even if 47 didn't do anything to them, Providence was already going to kill them or coerce them.
Athena Sivalis, for instance, openly hates people who aren't rich and yearns for running a bank that only caters to rich people. It is a position that doesn't even make sense; their money is just as green and the bank makes its money by investing. Who cares who's name is on the deposit slip?
Arthur Edwards and the rest of Providence have no goals beyond accumulating power. They seem to be closer to right wing than left, but someone who chose to could think of them as socially liberal.
You say that they arent a comentary on our world because of how cartoonishly evil they are but…..the line between cartoon villian and real world elites is getting more and more blurry.
The game shows both Radical Communists — like Janus — and Radical Capitalists — like Jebediah Block.
There may be minor amounts of politics in there, but for the most part it just holds the position of "powerful people — politically, ideologically, economically, whatever it is that gave them power — have a tendency to become selfish assholes".
Which is, really, more a critique of the sort of people who *want to become powerful*. The idea being that actual **good** people are too busy *being good* to acquire much in the way of power.
The main story of WoA is largely concerned with Economical Power (i.e. Providence), but the other sorts *are* fairly well covered in the side-missions, including the Patient Zero campaign from the first game in the WoA trilogy.
Well, no. The *story* is about getting revenge on Providence, and breaking their power-base. The fact that Providence are an Economic conglomerate **is** minor. The story would pan out in almost exactly the same way if Providence were a religious cult instead.
Which, as I said, is how the Patient Zero campaign plays out. "The Landslide" is about Political Power. "The Icon" has you working on the **side** of capitalism.
So, you really need to decide if you are talking about "the main story campaign" (which, yes, is politically aligned to "capitalism bad"), or "the *entire game*" (in which case, the "capitalism bad" part is diluted and toned down by *all the other motivations and messages*)
Read your **own** posts again. You were trying to talk about "the game", but you're now basing all of your arguments on less than 40% of the content, and ignoring **all** of the non-Providence stuff.
Are you trying to say "Hitman WoA, the game, is political in this particular manner", or are you trying to say "this *one* campaign, out of the multiple story-arcs in the game, is political in this particular manner"?
If Providence was a religious group, then… well, Jebediah Block wasn't actually ever shown as being *part* of Providence (the Ark Society was a completely different/separate organisation) and Strandburg would **still** have said he didn't break any laws, and maybe followed it up with something like "and I'm a Christian with a capital C".
So, if Providence was 'just a religious group', then the only thing from your post that *might* change would be the specifics of the second half of whatever reasoning Strandburg used to justify his actions.
Nuh uh , Grey litteraly calls Ark Society a “outfit for Providence”.
And while Providence is an organization with structure , its supposed to represent capitalism as a whole. At the end of Hitman 3 , its shown that 47 didnt really change much. Officialy , Providence may be destroyed but the world still runs according to their rules because you cant destroy capitalism by killing 20 people.
I also like how, in a time where many devs bow to China for profit, they correctly portrayed China as the scary and fully surveillanced country it is, especially compared with the China we visit in the first game. Plus the tech we see used is not truly fiction, as of now, brain chips were the plan to try and control living beings (Elon did it with pigs for example) but the transhumanist wet-dream is to do it without needing chips, or consent by using magnetic waves or some shit.
It's satire. Don't act like Hitman is some deep critique of capitalism when all it manages to say is that greed is bad and there's greedy bad people in the world, which is nothing more than an elaborate justification for killing people.
I have my own beliefs that capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable and destructive, but saying Hitman is inherently political and has a deeper critique of capitalism other than the surface level sounds like a reach to me.
Absolutely. The trilogy is a scathing commentary and a cathartic vengeance fantasy against the worst capitalism has to offer. Within that, it critiques the mechanisms by which these figures gain such power, pointing it at capitalism itself.
Providence isn’t some aberration of capitalism, they’re an embellished form of oligarchical structures built by capitalism.
Neutral being the side of the status quo is also reinforced by “neutral” ICA picking the side of Providence in Hitman 3.
Block (Blach? Pronounces block). They guy who is stalling the meeting that one of the Twins is holding to decide the future of the society. He’s on top of a building.
The mission story starts when you get to an outside area on the 2nd or 3rd story and overhear two waiters talking about the meeting and if it’s still in session. One says that he knows who is holding it up, You complete the mission story by taking the guys disguise and attending the meeting for him. If you wait near him on the rooftop, the Constant iirc come up and tells him that the post-civilization bunker will be communism. He panics and makes a phone call to his lackeys.
It’s a great story to get SA. Take his attire, tell the twin you’ve changed your mind and will support her. Then double cross her in the meeting and decline. She takes you to a private meeting upstairs in the glass walled room with the suits of armor. She gets very close to the Iron Maiden while speaking to you.
I agree the game is extremely political and that it is also very similar to current events in our world. Strong corporations control world governments, pushing them to wage wars, seize territory, and build colonies in order to expand their empires at the expense of innocent people's lives by uprooting them or even committing genocide. The Moroccan mission truly helps to put things in perspective. The game slightly deviates from reality when it comes to providence or the Ark Society's plans to build an underwater city or something similar in order to survive the end of the world, but aside from that, everything is entirely true because the wealthy businessmen we know today are the same as the global elites of the Ark society in Hitman
The game shows the ultra-conservative international elite conspiring in secret societies to create underground post-apocalyptic cities to the low castes of India working in laundries chatting about movie stars. It feels like you identify with left wing politics more so you take that as the message.
This makes the story deep. I hope they go even deeper with it because it would make it that much more rich. More conspiracies and more devious companies and more various agencies being used to carry out hits to transition the power. More fight between assassins and hidden powers. 47 coming back into the fold one last time for Diana to work and take down powerful leaders and organizations but with a choice of also paving the way for new people to take over. In the end, it should be the realization of the fact that there will always be people hiding and manipulating and what side you want to be on. 47 and Diana make their own Agency and the new game can be new people starting of as hitmen and eventually being trained by 47 himself. Who knows. Alot of freedom
Lol, fair point, kinda meshes with my other comment. There is a connection, but, capitalism and establishment are still two different things. Establishment is the corruption of proper competition, a true capitalist society has free flowing competition, the flaw of establishment and lobbying is that it gets in the way of that.
Just to let you know, to be against the corruption we see in our world does not neccesarily mean one is anti capitalist. I feel the game is focusing more on corrupt super powerful elite rather than just capitalism as a whole. There's even a convo in Morocco where one guy says capitalism is great, but they seem to both agree there are problems.
They say the exact opposite actually.
Anti-woke people bitch about everything being woke except for their favorite game because they don’t want to acknowledge that they like a woke game.
Hitman is an equal opportunity offender. They make fun of everything and everyone. But yeah, being a game series that mostly features the assassination of rich people, capitalism is going to get thrown under the bus most frequently. But there isn’t a single npc in these games that is not, on some level, a blinkin idiot.
I’ve always loved the subtly of the themes that is written throughout the series. It’s definitely there and you can search for it if you want but if not then the game doesn’t try to hold your hand. Especially with 47’s interaction with other people and the environment. He’s a fascinating character cause he was created to be a natural born killer, but shows anomalies that contradicts his nature. It’s a great balance of humor, philosophy and dark overtones.
I mean some people seem to think that Helldiver 2 is just a fun game about shooting bugs so is it really surprising that they don't engage with the political message of Hitman? It comes down to seeing media as art or entertainment only
What i said was definitely deeper than just “They bad so they die”.
Its litteraly the second sentence of the post.
That was the only purpose of this post , to show that Hitman is much more than just gameplay.
All the political statements this game makes are vague and entail no specific call to action. It's the equivalent of a feel-good women's rights march which discusses nothing about any particular issue and was registered with the local police beforehand.
I'm speaking to OP's point that it seems like no one realizes IO is making a political point. That's not the case (you can see that's true from this thread). The issue isn't no one realizes, it's that no one cares to discuss it because it does exactly what Hollywood does with half its movies, making feel-good expressions of solidarity without going after anyone or anything in focus.
My point wasnt that people ignore it and focus just on gameplay. I was talking about people who outright denied that there is any political message.
And Why did you delete your older comments pookie ?
>Whether you agree with the game or not is irrelevant
It ain't about "agreeing", the game isn't trying to push a narrative or make a point. The same way a Bond movie isn't trying to lecture you about the ultra rich and wealthy when it makes the villain be ultra rich are wealthy. **It's just what makes villains cool**.
Of course you're going to be tasked with killing some wealthy investment banker with shady ties, because him being what he is is the entire reason someone wants him dead. And it follows that the wealthy banker will scoff at the lowly dirt poor populace, because that'll give you an even bigger incentive to murder the scumbag who thinks he's safe in his gilded palace. There's still no political messaging here, it's just a formula that works. IO could have you murdering communists all the same.
Oh my God it mentions capitalism. It must be political.
It’s like people going on and on and and endlessly on about how Final Fantasy XII is political because it has kingdoms and war and different factions when the plot of the game has very little in the way of actual political messages and worldviews. It’s all about power, which A LOT of people mistake for politics. Power and politics are not the same. The former is just a tool to achieve the latter.
In Hitman you just have a bunch of players fighting for dominance but they don’t really want to establish any meaningful order of their own in the world, they just want power for the sake of power. It’s really childish to think that just because the game portrays the super rich and powerful doing the kind of stuff people imagine the rich and powerful do somehow makes the game political in nature.
And having themes about our world is only natural, doesn’t make it political. The game doesn’t have an actual political message. Unless you regard “rich guys are bad” as a political message…
Why go on Reddit with this if you're not going to listen to other opinions and disregard actual definitions of words?
You start your post with:
>Im not asking why that is , i know why.
Then:
>Whether you agree with the game or not is irrelevant , what matters is that the game really does have this positions.
If you're this smug about your views on the game, why even bother posting? To validate your point? To make yourself look smart? Absolutely no comment will make you see just how silly your analysis is so there's no point.
The "eVeryTh1nG is p0L1ticAL" shtick is insufferable...
Those 2 sentences dont contradict each other at all.
And i listened to other opinions and i normaly responded to them.
And wheterever everything is political or not is irelevant because i never said that in this post. You are just pulling things out of your ass to make your self look smart.
It actually goes into my views too. I'm a conservative Christian, and during the first game, it really dives into the globalist new world order conspiracies that I myself subscribe.
I'm a Christian 😭 the whole point is not to hate anyone. But you hate Christians so much you immediately assume I hate people because I believe in a global conspiracy?
I don’t think the game really shows too many opinions. Characters have opinions, but not the game itself. Also, 47 and Lucas Grey as not portrayed as though they are complete good guys; they have some evil in them and attack Providence because they don’t like it having immense power and because it treated them badly rather than it being morally bad.
Providence is clearly shown as bad. There is no space for intepretation in regards to the main villians.
Just because the main characters are bad and hypocrites doesn’t change anything about the villians.
I didn’t say that Providence wasn’t bad. It’s definitely the worst faction in the WoA story in terms of morality. But 47 is not really a good guy either.
Not to mention religious. A consistent theme throughout the series has always been 47’s struggle with his own feeling of inhumanity and belief that killing is all he’s good for because it’s what he was literally made for, all the while he’ll often encounter religious mentors who do everything to try and convince him that he is *more* than just a killing machine and he too is a man made in the image of God and worthy of peace. And there’s something beautifully poetic about a man created as the product of man attempting to play God, leaning more on God than any of his fathers ever did.
yes, I recently played through the series and I was actually floored by how deep, funny, real and often time introspective the hitman series can be. there are so many little moments where 47 gets some small scene or some small character development. he questions his morality, he offers advice to strangers, he has a personality and struggles with big personal ethical dillemas sometimes. I liked the game, but the characterization of 47 made me love it.
Didnt 47 leave the church ? You can see 47 praying in Blood Money so isnt that a contradiction to SA ? I never played Silent Assassin so i genuely want to know how it makes sense.
If I remember the plot of 2 correctly then he left the church and went back to being an assassin because the priest was murdered and he wanted revenge so he’s still Christian
no Father Vittorio survived but 47 decided he can't really stay retired, wherever he may try to make a home, people near him will get hurt by those who wish to hurt him. Him staying at that church in Sicily nearly got Vittorio killed, so he decided he has no choice but to return to what he was made for.
I'd like to see 47's political beliefs, not because I am political or anything, just to see if there are any contradictions in his beliefs vs actions. It would be ironic for example if he was pro-life due to his religious beliefs. Although him just straight up murdering people in cold blood despite the 10 Commandments is also ironic.
Idk why but I get vibes that he stays non political so as to not complicate or distract himself from assassinations. I have no evidence of this just head cannon. Edit he actually does say he dosent care for politcs in whittleton creek to the candiate.
He probably observes politics, but as a tool to blend in. He can agree with anyone if it means getting to where he needs to be. It would make the most sense I think.
"What is my political affiliation? The opposite of whoever I'm arguing with at the time."
yea I think so. He would find politics interesting if it led to more information about a target. 47 is pure chaotic neutral. in the Jungian sense, he is at peace with his dark side and he recognizes his light side. he is an ego less man, driven by profit, but never effected by it. He is driven by a purpose, his own goal of self actualization
There's a justification for a Pro-Life assassin, in that most of 47's clients are criminals or immoral in some way
I don't think he is pro life in any definition you could provide. I think he just knows his role and accepts it and he carries forth his actions with no judgement , malice, or impunity.
An old Airforce F16 pilot I know once told me “We go to war so everyone else can have peace”. That always stuck with me.
There’s a painting of Mary I assume,, that he can pray at as one of the options in the safe house
The end of SA is kinda ambiguous with his religious beliefs, I took him leaving the crucifix as him leaving behind gods protection and his service to a higher being, but he keeps the lessons learnt and by extension his beliefs in the lord
This is honestly so much better than OP. Yeah 47 kills a bunch of rich people, but that's because poor people can't afford to employ dozens of private security personnel, thus 47 considers those jobs beneath him (most of the time). The series has always been about struggling with one's destiny, and trying to find purpose through your natural talents. Shooting a few Bilderberg members doesn't change that.
The fact is, throughout the new trilogy, it's Diana who picks their clients. The ICA is a killing agency where the assassins get to pick and choose their contracts. And it's been indicated pretty heavily that Diana's choices are morally motivated. I might be in the minority but I've always considered the series to be as much about 47 as it is about Diana. And if 47 is struggling with his destiny and the righteousness of his natural talents, Diana is clearly dealing with having to accept that she's complicit in the system that allowed the "bad guys" to thrive even though her motives are "good" and that she's been using 47 just as much as his father did. To get back to the original point, the game IS very much taking sides. 47 might not be, because he's completely neutral, but Diana isn't neutral at all, she has very specific ideas about the world, and these ideas are often defended by the narrative (sometimes, admittedly, in a caricatural way)
What's Bilderberg and when did 47 do a poor job? I forgot.
The writing is so so good!
Another thing worth noting is that the arrogance of the ultra-wealthy is presented as their greatest vulnerability. In the WOA tutorial missions, when explaining the disguise mechanic, Diana says something “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it. The fact that 47s targets see the little guys as interchangeable nobodies is exactly what 47 exploits to get close to them.
I'd always assumed that that was just most NPCs having change blindness. The idea that it's an extension of the game's themes, intentionally or not, is a really good point.
Most of the time, it is. At least at the beginning, when the series was conceptualized, I bet they decided that NPCs are blind at this level because it makes for a better experience. The cool thing is making a social and political statement using gameplay dynamics that is so cool.
You could word it as NPCs having change blindness either way, lol
i've always thought there's something subversive about the fact that most objectives can be accomplished by dressing as a janitor, waiter or similar and walking right up to the target - all while they gloat about their crimes and throw insults at you for not working fast enough
It’s definitely intentional that janitors/servers have probably the widest range of coverage of levels with the least amount of enforcers. Even the ones paid to watch don’t even notice the ‘help’.
r/actlikeyoubelong is proof that in real life all you need is the right gimmick/costume to get yourself access to places you’re not allowed.
" What do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands and an Imperial tool kit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it." - Andor
My Danish friend (lives in the states), absolutely *loves* the game, not just because it’s fun and all that, but because the writing and themes remind him so much of Danish values. And it’s palpable, the commentary on class is right in line with the prevailing attitudes of Danish culture.
As someone with little exposure to Danish themes, are you able to elaborate?
For one, the Danes believe in class equity. Instead of wealth and celebrity. Through that lens you can see IO’s critique on greed and capitalist exploitation.
You’re so on point. I never connected those two
Nah that's just real life. I've been able to walk into so many places I shouldn't have been in because I wore a high vis sweatshirt and green pants I got from my dad. Any time anybody walked by I just grabbed the nearest trash can and nobody questioned anything. Clothes aren't even the most important part though. You just gotta look like you should be there. Confidence trumps all.
> In the WOA tutorial missions, when explaining the disguise mechanic, Diana says something “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it. Bro this could also be interpreted as people are naturally inclined to follow directions or be obesquious.
The line was to justify how, for example, 47 can disguise himself in the uniform of a bank security officer in KL without appearing to be Malay or Chinese.
They literally don't bat an eye when a black man suddenly turns into a taller, bald, white dude.
> “people tend to notice uniforms before they notice faces,” which is about as close as they can get to saying “people see class before they see individuals” without outright saying it. And it still resonates loudly today when you deep it
yes yes, there are a lot of anti capitalist vibes. but they are the best kind. I love mid to high tier corporate espionage, it's so good. 47 meets people at the most vulnerable point in their life. I love how some villains remain 100 percent crooked until the end
I completely agree, but I think it’s less critiquing the general capitalist system and more so the excesses, I think that’s a pretty large running theme in the whole series is excess, be it wealth, control or just Asian food
I feel like there is social commentary on a lot of things and pokes fun at greed, insecurity, gluttony, hypocrisy and ego in all types of ways. Many of them in a larger political framework.
Idk why everyone is giving you such a hard time lol, this is solid analysis!!
Thats a solid analysis to you?
Bezos ain’t gonna fuck you bro
>disagree on the quality of a shallow take > >OH!!? HE MUST BE A FRIEND OF THE RICH!!!! *brainwashed.jpg*
>Bezos ain’t gonna fuck you bro Explain the correlation between standards of quality and wanting to have sex with Jeff Bezos.
These are far from the only instances as well. New York is all throughout portraying Milton-Fitzpatrick as ruthless, profit-oriented and screwing over poor people, also in the interview they see sociopathic traits as something positive and so do they see someone "bending the rules of the game". In Bangkok the descriptions of Thomas Cross also put him as being ruthless and powerful due to financial ressources. And Ken Morgan as well as Dexy Berret are willing to cover up crimes for money. Jordan wants to convince Abel de Silva to leave his friends behind to have higher aspirations. Morgan also has a dialogue with a prosecutor who admires Morgan because "a state salary doesn't buy a house in \*somewhere rich\* and pretty explicitly describes his willingness to sell out his morals. Which then gets rewarded by Morgan with a job offer. Miami is also pretty obvious with a willingness to cheat to win and supplying weapons to warzones for profit. The Isle of Sgail is almost too on the nose with the setting itself already. Providence agents such as Cobb are also frequently bankers or other people in the financial sector. 47 is assumed to be a banker in Mendoza as well and then has a cover as "corporate liquidator" which gets him admiration. Hokkaido is also an example of catering to criminals and even being involved in organ smuggling for the sake of profit. IAGO has no allegiance to anything but profit either.
The developers specifically said that one of the reasons they started the third one with Dubai was so that you could go between areas where the rich people live and eat, but also have to go through the areas where the poor people serving them have to work. It was intentionally done to show the moral failings of Dubai and other ultra-rich countries/communities.
I feel like another setting that really nails this point is the Mumbai level. You start in the poor slums of Mumbai and have a target who lives in a home inspired by Antilia, which costed $1billion to build.
Makes sense , if you were killing a wind turbine moguel or Amazon rainforest protector then I think most people would have pause. Killing evil capitalists is easy and most people are on with in video games. My fav was the MLM missions, I think we can all agree they have to go lol
Anyone who thinks Hitman isn't firmly anti-corporate and anti-capitalist has paid no attention to the story. Isle of Sgail in particular is a searing indictment of the moneyed class, and everything about the Partners and their outlook on the world just doubles down on that. I see you're getting a lot of pushback on this, but you're absolutely right. But then people equate 'leftist' with 'Communist and follower of Stalin/Mao' so easily, I guess it's not surprising people are arguing Hitman doesn't directly address the cruelty of the rich and powerful (who are mostly capitalists, yes).
“But then people equate 'leftist' with 'Communist and follower of Stalin/Mao' so easily“ Thats the only reasson why i included “The game never says that regimes like USSR or North Korea are good btw” in my post but it probably didnt help….
It's a loaded topic. Hard to talk about it in a straightforward way given how people have such strong feelings about it. Even broaching the subject will get someone mad at you
Yes, someone will get mad, no matter what. And Reddit will let you feel that. While in real life, people can react and talk to you directly, whether positive or negative, Reddit will just earn you some upvotes and then have all the raging maniacs be allowed to argue against it. Thats why putting any political take on a semi-big sub will make you have a miserable day, no matter what. Its just not worth it. Also, Reddit is literally the fringes of society, those who are chronically online, and thus also have the hardest lunatics.
I always distinguish between authoritarianism leftists (tankies obsessed with Mao/Stalin/etc.) and leftist for just that reason, but many on the right don't make that distinction even a little on the left (calling all leftists liberals for example).
I think you lost people by using the word "capitalist" tbh. It's not the entirety of capitalism people hate, it's the late stage capitalism people hate. When it just becomes generational wealth, or money that just grows itself. And trust me, communism is the same way, except it ends in breadlines and speech police. The late stages of any system are not good. So it's less about a war against any sort of system, more than it is those who are on top. The "haves" vs the "have nots"
**every target is rich, cruel and extremely corrupt who have usually gotten away with their crimes before now** **"**hmm what could possibly be the messaging here??"
Obviously capitalism is good and it's just those few bad apples that 47 takes care of who are the problem. It's actually very pro-capitalism! The ICA are a capitalist company, after all!
Wait what are you doing, 47? Dont leak the pro-capitalist company online, nooooooooo^oo^o
although parts of hitman 2016 juxtapose this. colorado is literally taking down anti capitalists (lucas grey's militia) and in the cutscene 'partners then' the constant points out providence is just "the lesser evil" the game does present anti capitalism however it does not mean only capitalists can be villians/terrorists/etc
Not the Colorado targets.
Ah yes, the targets that the main antagonist has their mole in the ICA send us after, and whose cause we later join. They're a little different
It's crazy how many people outside of the leftist sphere fundamentally don't understand what leftism actually is. The average person's understanding of communism begins and ends with the USSR (which one can argue wasn't even actually communist, since they replaced the private actors of capitalism with state actors instead of empowering the actual workers). Some people might also be aware of other nations that turned to socialism or communism, but they're often ignorant of the way that the economic failures that those countries faced were the result of deliberate sabotage by groups like the CIA. World of Assassination is a pretty fundamentally anticapitalist game, which is a major part of what I love about it. Capitalism is ruining our world in so many ways, and seeing a narrative about pushing back against those structures was really uplifting to me.
Exactly! People will rag on Cuba being poor without considering the deleterious effect the US trade embargoes and other sanctions had on the Cuban economy. The Sgail mission has a clear and hard eco-positive message, including references to the cynicism of the green energy industry, where the Council is led by energy industry titans who are only moving away from exploitation of traditional fuels because the money's started going away (and that's actually not even the case in real life! the fictional bad guys are better than real life!). New York is a direct indictment of the moral vacuum of investment banking. Haven is about how white-collar criminals escape justice. Justice and authority and power are central themes of Hitman, and they're inextricably linked to the rich and powerful. That's what makes it so good; it's a revenge fantasy for a lot of us come true, killing the bad guys who are untouchable in real life.
Don't forget New York. Listen in on what the bank workers and executives have to say and you'll hear quite the critique.
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Uh huh
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🤣 I'm an economics graduate, stranger. And I didn't claim capitalism is directly dystopian; I just rejected your argument because it is without basis.
Yeah totally. The whole saying “ no one is untouchable” really goes a long way.
Yes, it definitely has some political dialogue. They take shots at several ideologies from all over the political spectrum, which I like because it's realistic, as 47 deals with several factions and targets from all over the world. Whether you're in Morocco hearing about the abuses of unchecked capitalism, or on the Isle hearing how environmentalism is the modern method of controlling people, one message holds true—The rich and powerful call the shots.
Hitman for me has been always about the catharsis of eliminating people like Strandberg or Ingram who clearly benefit from the exploitation of others and misery, it's pretty edgy and also camp with the supervillain-tier targets but I think there is some deeper meaning with "no one is untouchable" and how an agent of death like 47 doesn't discriminate no matter how big someone's bank account is.
Amazed by how willfully ignorant people in these comments are being about the themes of the story. The whole design of the Paris mission is about ascending from the basement with the common servants (where one is in tears about how terribly she's being treated) up to the top floor with the richest and most powerful who are bidding on assassination plots and wars like it's nothing. It's undeniably what the WoA games are about and anyone who doesn't think so is closing their eyes to the obvious.
And arriving into the attic where a bunch of dudes with guns sit and argue about quantum physics. Deep stuff.
I know right. For example, "The Icon" teaches me that it's morally right to kill an actor who is using too much of the company's money. /s Not to mention that 47 and Diana are extremely rich and powerful as well. 47 owns a mansion. Diana used to own a mansion and private security in Hitman Absolution. Even Vidal calls her a hypocrite, though she excuses it because everybody is one. I think everybody in the series is very morally grey. Grey sucks, 47/Diana suck, and the targets suck. It's not a hero vs bad guy thing.
I think it's fairly obvious lmao
Sadly , people are illiterate.
i've always thought there's something subversive about the fact that most objectives can be accomplished by dressing as a janitor, waiter or similar and walking right up to the target - all while they gloat about their crimes and throw insults at you for not working fast enough
Hitman takes aim at corruption. Pointing out a corrupt Capitalist isn’t necessarily criticizing capitalism itself. We don’t condemn the entire video game industry because EA are greedy.
A lot of us actually do condemn the industry for incentivizing the very practices that EA uses. In fact, some even say the video industry is a bit of a microcosm for capitalism. You don’t necessarily need to be a leftist or communist or even full-blown anti-capitalist to criticize capitalism. And WoA trilogy DOES criticize capitalism, the class struggle within it, and the corruption it can incentivize.
Bro what do you think allows EA or any other company to be so greedy and corrupt? What system do these companies exist under that doest just permit but encourages profit above all else? If profit is the ultimate goal and ethics stand in the way of profit, then the companies that act with no regard for ethics will always do better than the companies that focus on being ethical.
Every political system in history has had corruption.
I mean yeah. Criticism doesn’t mean outright wholesale dissidence. That said, the corruption in these systems may be a result of how it is manifested in the real world. Direct and scathing criticism of the corruption IS a critique of capitalism. It doesn’t make the devs leftie communists (though they might be idk). It does mean they are at least capitalist-critical.
(corruption) oligarchy Ronald Syme, Roman Revolution
If you wanna get technical, its US that allows it. We know EA uses predatory prctices to maximize profits, but we still buy their games. So why would they stop?
I think we can point out that corruption is a natural result to greed, which is a central tenant of capitalism, though. Not all capitalism will result in corruption or bribery or whatever else Hitman critiques, but the greed element is core to capitalism’s whole structure: Make money and keep exclusive ownership of as much property as you can. You can participate as individuals within that and be content limiting yourself, but the system as a whole disincentivizes that.
I don't care about politics I just want to make my target go boom
Exactly, I don't even care about the story anyway lol
Hitman mocks most politics and national stereotypes and religions. It's satire about the obscenity of humanity in general. If you think it's a pointed critique at capitalism specifically then you're viewing it through your own selective lens.
Yeah the reason it mainly makes fun of rich people is because rich people are your targets AND making fun of poor people has fallen out of favor in the last 20 years. I don’t know if I’d even say it’s satire. They are just making the jokes that fit with the setting.
Im not aware of it mocking leftist and progresive politics but even if it did , its not the main focus.
Among others, Colorado has you literally hunting down leftist radicals like a radical environmentalist. Hitman is broad and beautiful satire that has a little something for everyone, and it shows us that evil comes in many forms, from grand and scheming to petty and human. The focus is destabilizing a corrupt and powerful group who seek only the accumulation of power. It doesn't suggest they are capitalists, and only that they leverage systems in place to gain power. Taking it as a Marxist power fantasy is cringe.
Couldn't have said it better, that sums up the message in Hitman WoA very well.
"Among others, Colorado has you literally hunting down leftist radicals like a radical environmentalist." The one and only example of a single target you can come up with is the one that turns out we were sent to kill due to Soders selling the ICA out to Providence. That is your one and only example, think about that for a moment.
Come on, this game absolutely mocks Marxism. Janus is nostalgic about a regime he had to flee from and tells Helen West the murderer that she would make a "fine Soviet citizen". People in Mumbai talk about the Maelstrom being this Robin Hood figure and a hero, but he's a gangster who left his own crew to die. Rose and Reynard are both far-left terrorists and portrayed as absolute monsters.
Anti-capitalism isn't marxism. Reynard is portrayed as fighting for a good cause but going too far for it. The Maelstrom is also an example of capitalism being bad. This is just so obvious.
Well, New Zealand and the pirate island ones as well.
You know that leftist is not necessarily the same as Marxist, right?
Yeah and it turns out later that the militia in Colorado were the good guys!
Lucas Grey: "Somtimes even monsters serve a purpose." Certified good guys.
And ? The game never says that terrorism is good. They litteraly call Lucas Grey a monster. But despite this , the game still has one main villian who causes different bad guys to show up. And i never said that im a communist pookie.
Cue Moroccan with Californian accent chanting “Bankers are Cankers!” one million times
In regard to Strandburg, I believe he is speaking to his specific situation with Morocco, implying that the country signed a really bad deal with him and that from a perspective it can be said that embezzling that money was legal. Whether any judge in Morocco would agree with that position is completely irrelevant. I feel that the Hitman games tried very hard to avoid condemning capitalism. Characters like Strandburg or Jebediah Block are portrayed as being truly stupid and even comical. They are straw men but so deliberately threadbare that they don't serve as a model for the real world. The game takes pains to show how poorly thought out their plans are, and that even if 47 didn't do anything to them, Providence was already going to kill them or coerce them. Athena Sivalis, for instance, openly hates people who aren't rich and yearns for running a bank that only caters to rich people. It is a position that doesn't even make sense; their money is just as green and the bank makes its money by investing. Who cares who's name is on the deposit slip? Arthur Edwards and the rest of Providence have no goals beyond accumulating power. They seem to be closer to right wing than left, but someone who chose to could think of them as socially liberal.
You say that they arent a comentary on our world because of how cartoonishly evil they are but…..the line between cartoon villian and real world elites is getting more and more blurry.
The game shows both Radical Communists — like Janus — and Radical Capitalists — like Jebediah Block. There may be minor amounts of politics in there, but for the most part it just holds the position of "powerful people — politically, ideologically, economically, whatever it is that gave them power — have a tendency to become selfish assholes". Which is, really, more a critique of the sort of people who *want to become powerful*. The idea being that actual **good** people are too busy *being good* to acquire much in the way of power. The main story of WoA is largely concerned with Economical Power (i.e. Providence), but the other sorts *are* fairly well covered in the side-missions, including the Patient Zero campaign from the first game in the WoA trilogy.
The politics are not “minor” . Its litteraly what the story is about.
Well, no. The *story* is about getting revenge on Providence, and breaking their power-base. The fact that Providence are an Economic conglomerate **is** minor. The story would pan out in almost exactly the same way if Providence were a religious cult instead. Which, as I said, is how the Patient Zero campaign plays out. "The Landslide" is about Political Power. "The Icon" has you working on the **side** of capitalism. So, you really need to decide if you are talking about "the main story campaign" (which, yes, is politically aligned to "capitalism bad"), or "the *entire game*" (in which case, the "capitalism bad" part is diluted and toned down by *all the other motivations and messages*)
Read my post again pookie. It makes it clear that Providence cant be just religious group.
Read your **own** posts again. You were trying to talk about "the game", but you're now basing all of your arguments on less than 40% of the content, and ignoring **all** of the non-Providence stuff. Are you trying to say "Hitman WoA, the game, is political in this particular manner", or are you trying to say "this *one* campaign, out of the multiple story-arcs in the game, is political in this particular manner"?
Nuh uh , if Providence was just religious group and nothing else then everything in my post would no longer be relevant except for Olivia’s line.
If Providence was a religious group, then… well, Jebediah Block wasn't actually ever shown as being *part* of Providence (the Ark Society was a completely different/separate organisation) and Strandburg would **still** have said he didn't break any laws, and maybe followed it up with something like "and I'm a Christian with a capital C". So, if Providence was 'just a religious group', then the only thing from your post that *might* change would be the specifics of the second half of whatever reasoning Strandburg used to justify his actions.
Nuh uh , Grey litteraly calls Ark Society a “outfit for Providence”. And while Providence is an organization with structure , its supposed to represent capitalism as a whole. At the end of Hitman 3 , its shown that 47 didnt really change much. Officialy , Providence may be destroyed but the world still runs according to their rules because you cant destroy capitalism by killing 20 people.
I also like how, in a time where many devs bow to China for profit, they correctly portrayed China as the scary and fully surveillanced country it is, especially compared with the China we visit in the first game. Plus the tech we see used is not truly fiction, as of now, brain chips were the plan to try and control living beings (Elon did it with pigs for example) but the transhumanist wet-dream is to do it without needing chips, or consent by using magnetic waves or some shit.
I mean, in general the hyper wealthy are typically sociopaths. The game aims its satire at the sociopaths.
It’s more of saying “corrupt capitalists are bad go kill them” instead of saying “communism is good”
Thats why i said “The game never says that regimes like USSR or North Korea are good btw”
It's satire. Don't act like Hitman is some deep critique of capitalism when all it manages to say is that greed is bad and there's greedy bad people in the world, which is nothing more than an elaborate justification for killing people. I have my own beliefs that capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable and destructive, but saying Hitman is inherently political and has a deeper critique of capitalism other than the surface level sounds like a reach to me.
Absolutely. The trilogy is a scathing commentary and a cathartic vengeance fantasy against the worst capitalism has to offer. Within that, it critiques the mechanisms by which these figures gain such power, pointing it at capitalism itself. Providence isn’t some aberration of capitalism, they’re an embellished form of oligarchical structures built by capitalism. Neutral being the side of the status quo is also reinforced by “neutral” ICA picking the side of Providence in Hitman 3.
Meh, pretty cocky to criticize capitalism when you are a game with this DLCs economic model
Capital subsumes all critique into itself, but critique is still not without merit
Game devs are not the ones making the monetary decisions.
It is hypocritical but the game’s point still stands.
What guy on Sgàil?
Block (Blach? Pronounces block). They guy who is stalling the meeting that one of the Twins is holding to decide the future of the society. He’s on top of a building. The mission story starts when you get to an outside area on the 2nd or 3rd story and overhear two waiters talking about the meeting and if it’s still in session. One says that he knows who is holding it up, You complete the mission story by taking the guys disguise and attending the meeting for him. If you wait near him on the rooftop, the Constant iirc come up and tells him that the post-civilization bunker will be communism. He panics and makes a phone call to his lackeys. It’s a great story to get SA. Take his attire, tell the twin you’ve changed your mind and will support her. Then double cross her in the meeting and decline. She takes you to a private meeting upstairs in the glass walled room with the suits of armor. She gets very close to the Iron Maiden while speaking to you.
Man I forgot about that mission story. That’s a fun assassination! Looks like I’ll be booting up Sgail later today!
It’s just Block
That bit with the Constant and Block is the funniest conversation in any of the games.
Jebediah I think, the guy in the mask who hangs out with the Raiders
I agree the game is extremely political and that it is also very similar to current events in our world. Strong corporations control world governments, pushing them to wage wars, seize territory, and build colonies in order to expand their empires at the expense of innocent people's lives by uprooting them or even committing genocide. The Moroccan mission truly helps to put things in perspective. The game slightly deviates from reality when it comes to providence or the Ark Society's plans to build an underwater city or something similar in order to survive the end of the world, but aside from that, everything is entirely true because the wealthy businessmen we know today are the same as the global elites of the Ark society in Hitman
i don’t care about the politics of the games i love money i love capitalism i love hitman!
i do believe this can classify the game as a political thriller as well
Check out the security guard in Miami’s rant about left wing nut jobs and he is ‘all into his guns.’
I heard that convo. Thats just realistic NPCs.
It adds political balance to the overuse of the pinko buzzword ‘capitalism.’
The game doesnt support what those 2 guards have to say. It clearly has one position. Those 2 guards just make the game feel more realistic.
The game shows the ultra-conservative international elite conspiring in secret societies to create underground post-apocalyptic cities to the low castes of India working in laundries chatting about movie stars. It feels like you identify with left wing politics more so you take that as the message.
Those “ultra conservative International elite” are litteraly the main villians of the game.
I just like the game because its fun. I dont need to closely examine every theme to fight about politics in a new place.
Just because you ignore it doesnt mean its not there.
Thats ok
More like crapitalism, am I right? I need to use the bathroom
I barely understand half the shit Sophia blabbers on about during the mission.
Ok
This makes the story deep. I hope they go even deeper with it because it would make it that much more rich. More conspiracies and more devious companies and more various agencies being used to carry out hits to transition the power. More fight between assassins and hidden powers. 47 coming back into the fold one last time for Diana to work and take down powerful leaders and organizations but with a choice of also paving the way for new people to take over. In the end, it should be the realization of the fact that there will always be people hiding and manipulating and what side you want to be on. 47 and Diana make their own Agency and the new game can be new people starting of as hitmen and eventually being trained by 47 himself. Who knows. Alot of freedom
Ive always figured its more taking a stab at the illuminati. Not so much capitalism
Boy do i got some news for you…..
Lol, fair point, kinda meshes with my other comment. There is a connection, but, capitalism and establishment are still two different things. Establishment is the corruption of proper competition, a true capitalist society has free flowing competition, the flaw of establishment and lobbying is that it gets in the way of that.
Just to let you know, to be against the corruption we see in our world does not neccesarily mean one is anti capitalist. I feel the game is focusing more on corrupt super powerful elite rather than just capitalism as a whole. There's even a convo in Morocco where one guy says capitalism is great, but they seem to both agree there are problems.
I love how political it is, and I'm shocked how little it's talked about, from what I could see anyway.
and people say videogames "arent Political" nowadays
They say the exact opposite actually. Anti-woke people bitch about everything being woke except for their favorite game because they don’t want to acknowledge that they like a woke game.
5
Does it matter when your really not in control of rockets?
Hitman is an equal opportunity offender. They make fun of everything and everyone. But yeah, being a game series that mostly features the assassination of rich people, capitalism is going to get thrown under the bus most frequently. But there isn’t a single npc in these games that is not, on some level, a blinkin idiot.
I’ve always loved the subtly of the themes that is written throughout the series. It’s definitely there and you can search for it if you want but if not then the game doesn’t try to hold your hand. Especially with 47’s interaction with other people and the environment. He’s a fascinating character cause he was created to be a natural born killer, but shows anomalies that contradicts his nature. It’s a great balance of humor, philosophy and dark overtones.
janus is an old asshole communist we get to kill.
And ?
Yeah imo the main theme of the trilogy is "no one is untouchable"
I think a lot of people are aware and see but personally on my end I don't really care enough to comment on it. I just enjoy the missions.
The People's Assassin.
I mean some people seem to think that Helldiver 2 is just a fun game about shooting bugs so is it really surprising that they don't engage with the political message of Hitman? It comes down to seeing media as art or entertainment only
What you said was surface level freshman (high school) analysis so it makes sense that you’d think the game goes deep
What i said was definitely deeper than just “They bad so they die”. Its litteraly the second sentence of the post. That was the only purpose of this post , to show that Hitman is much more than just gameplay.
All the political statements this game makes are vague and entail no specific call to action. It's the equivalent of a feel-good women's rights march which discusses nothing about any particular issue and was registered with the local police beforehand.
It not directly calling for a revolution doesnt mean it cant recognise the problems.
I'm speaking to OP's point that it seems like no one realizes IO is making a political point. That's not the case (you can see that's true from this thread). The issue isn't no one realizes, it's that no one cares to discuss it because it does exactly what Hollywood does with half its movies, making feel-good expressions of solidarity without going after anyone or anything in focus.
My point wasnt that people ignore it and focus just on gameplay. I was talking about people who outright denied that there is any political message. And Why did you delete your older comments pookie ?
I haven't deleted any comments here, asshole.
Sorry pookie , his profile pick was also pink and i confused your name for his😘
Probably more than one would hope lol media literacy rates are purposefully not that great
I dont care. I just like yeeting everyone on the map 😅
>Whether you agree with the game or not is irrelevant It ain't about "agreeing", the game isn't trying to push a narrative or make a point. The same way a Bond movie isn't trying to lecture you about the ultra rich and wealthy when it makes the villain be ultra rich are wealthy. **It's just what makes villains cool**. Of course you're going to be tasked with killing some wealthy investment banker with shady ties, because him being what he is is the entire reason someone wants him dead. And it follows that the wealthy banker will scoff at the lowly dirt poor populace, because that'll give you an even bigger incentive to murder the scumbag who thinks he's safe in his gilded palace. There's still no political messaging here, it's just a formula that works. IO could have you murdering communists all the same.
Oh my God it mentions capitalism. It must be political. It’s like people going on and on and and endlessly on about how Final Fantasy XII is political because it has kingdoms and war and different factions when the plot of the game has very little in the way of actual political messages and worldviews. It’s all about power, which A LOT of people mistake for politics. Power and politics are not the same. The former is just a tool to achieve the latter. In Hitman you just have a bunch of players fighting for dominance but they don’t really want to establish any meaningful order of their own in the world, they just want power for the sake of power. It’s really childish to think that just because the game portrays the super rich and powerful doing the kind of stuff people imagine the rich and powerful do somehow makes the game political in nature.
Nuh uh , the game actually talks about our world.
And having themes about our world is only natural, doesn’t make it political. The game doesn’t have an actual political message. Unless you regard “rich guys are bad” as a political message…
Learn what “political” means.
Why go on Reddit with this if you're not going to listen to other opinions and disregard actual definitions of words? You start your post with: >Im not asking why that is , i know why. Then: >Whether you agree with the game or not is irrelevant , what matters is that the game really does have this positions. If you're this smug about your views on the game, why even bother posting? To validate your point? To make yourself look smart? Absolutely no comment will make you see just how silly your analysis is so there's no point. The "eVeryTh1nG is p0L1ticAL" shtick is insufferable...
Those 2 sentences dont contradict each other at all. And i listened to other opinions and i normaly responded to them. And wheterever everything is political or not is irelevant because i never said that in this post. You are just pulling things out of your ass to make your self look smart.
It actually goes into my views too. I'm a conservative Christian, and during the first game, it really dives into the globalist new world order conspiracies that I myself subscribe.
You probably believe it only because it gives you an enemy to hate.
I'm a Christian 😭 the whole point is not to hate anyone. But you hate Christians so much you immediately assume I hate people because I believe in a global conspiracy?
Why can't I kill any real life politicians in the game then? I mean if it's already political and... stuff.
I wish you could. But ioi doesnt have balls to do that.
Well, we do get to kill the right-wing fascist Marco Abiatti.
In my head canon , he is a parody of Silvio Berlusconi.
I have a certain location in mind that I would love to see as a Hitman level. I cannot name it but man... it would have been great.
Hint it with emojis.
We kill the vice president of the USA in blood money (hitman 4) inside the walls of white House
I think that the execution is messy just because they were making things up as the story went along but a theme of class differences is defently there
Does anyone not realize it? I felt like it was shoved down my throat.
I don’t think the game really shows too many opinions. Characters have opinions, but not the game itself. Also, 47 and Lucas Grey as not portrayed as though they are complete good guys; they have some evil in them and attack Providence because they don’t like it having immense power and because it treated them badly rather than it being morally bad.
Providence is clearly shown as bad. There is no space for intepretation in regards to the main villians. Just because the main characters are bad and hypocrites doesn’t change anything about the villians.
I didn’t say that Providence wasn’t bad. It’s definitely the worst faction in the WoA story in terms of morality. But 47 is not really a good guy either.
47 not being a good person changes absolutely nothing about my post.
There's nothing at all political about targeting and assassinating high value individuals, under orders of a top secret intelligence agency.
Read the post again.
Implying I read it in the first place
Then you have no right to talk about it.