Agent 47 is about to become much more dangerous. With Hitman World of Assassination lining up its PS VR2 shot on March 27, Senior Game Designer Eskil Mohl and Lead & Senior Technical Designer Toke Krainert understood the assignment – and delivered some essential intel on the game.
What are some of the cool things players can do now in the game via VR?
Eskil: We now have an incredible amount of new interactions. There’s a scene where you get a safe combination and you can visibly read it in your hand. The tactile sensation of actually looking at a note like this feels amazing. Every little set piece in the game before was a button press, and now you actually reach out and touch stuff. We were initially afraid they wouldn’t hold up visually and audibly, so we were nicely surprised. Another one is that you can look away from flashbang grenades.
Toke: There are so many ways of playing the game, and I think it just gets better in VR. It opens up that toolbox even more.
Eskil:The other day Toke had one thing in his left hand, and another in his right, and he threw them up and caught them. And he suggested he’d try juggling three things – he was like, technically it’s possible, right?
How has combat been changed by putting the game into VR?
Eskil: It’s significantly improved. Now you can use an items and weapons wheel instead of pausing the game. And with the weapons you feel way more badass. Before putting it in VR, entering combat was almost a fail state because of how often you’d die, but now it’s a lot of fun.
You can holster your gun on your back, and you also need to manually eject the magazine, use your other hand to grab a new one, insert it and then ready the weapon. It took a long time to implement, but it’s so rewarding.
Was there a temptation to keep all of the game in first-person?
Eskil: Absolutely. For instance, in a scene where you’re stirring soup, we created a first-person prototype, and it felt clunky and a little disorientating. And in other places you couldn’t really get that useful overview of the area you’re in, especially when it comes to knowing where the enemies are. So certain scenes should feel more like a safe spot where you can get a strategic advantage, and it actually felt better in third-person.
Did you feel like you had to make more things interactive, given players were now seeing the game world different