You’ve probably heard these before. A vibrant game is coming onto the market. It requires some level of internet connection. Everyone gathers to play on day one, but runs into a series of frustrating roadblocks. Online connectivity is shaky, if at all functional. There are issues with saved data and character progression. Some players are looking for better versions – say an “Ultimate” edition – and have trouble accessing the things they paid for. The developer fires a series of apologetic tweets, says he acknowledges and “investigates” the situation, and publishes a FAQ on the most common issues with a range of answers that are sparse at best and vague at worst.
In other words, the game’s launch is a mess.
The disaster du jour is not one Destiny or a Diablo or a Division. Her Assassin 3, the latest in IO Interactive’s recent series of interactive Instagram posts, available this week for a slew of platforms.
Oh boy. What happened this time?
Assassin 3The problems reportedly started before launch. IOs Hitman games have always had an online element, which relies on a persistent internet connection to track your progress. KotakuRiley MacLeod told me that when he was review the game, connectivity would disappear in and out. As far as he could tell, it didn’t really affect how he played. (When reviewing the game for PC Mag, Mike Williams similarly ran into confused connectivity.) You can technically play Assassin 3 offline, but you miss out on some unlocks.
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That doesn’t sound too bad.
In a vacuum, no, that wouldn’t be a problem. It is normal for online games to have server problems before starting. Assassin 3‘s servers were up and running (on paper) during the review period, but were still running into some issues. And remember, such issues existed despite the fact that only a small number of reviewers – rather than the wider audience playing games – had access to the game.
Problems with the server persisted when the game officially launched on January 20th. Bonus points if you saw it coming.
That is not all. Assassin 3 technically allows players to transfer their progression – both in terms of character progression and unlocked levels – from the previous “World of Assassination trilogy” games, Hitman and Hitman 2. That process, too, has not gone as smoothly as advertised.
Hitman games are determined by their location as much as anything else. Previous games sent Agent 47 to upscale destinations such as Marrakesh, Morocco; Hokkaido, Japan; Miami, Florida; and Sapienza, Italy, which isn’t a real place, but come on, it might as well be a copy of Positano, Sorrento, Praiano or any other holiday destination on the idyllic Amalfi coast. If you owned it Hitman 2, you could import all unlocked levels into Assassin 3 by downloading expansion cards called Access Packs at no extra cost. (Those who owned Hitman or Hitman 2 on disk have to go through an even more complicated download process. It’s a big deal.)
If you try to find these Access Packs in each console’s own storefront, you can show them off at the price. Instead, players had to navigate to Assassin 3‘s Store tab from the game’s main menu. But even that is no guarantee of success. Some Xbox players will not be able to access the first game’s access pack at all, even if they follow the guidelines to perfection. IO says a “resolution” is in the works.
PC players, meanwhile, were confronted some mixed messages about whether or not to buy back PC players Hitman 2 in the Epic Games Store, true Assassin 3 is a timed exclusive. Currently, Hitman 2 is not available on the Epic Games Store, but you can download the Hitman 2 Gold Edition Access package– including the base game and its add-ons – at an 80 percent discount through February 3. In other words, if you own it Hitman 2 on Steam and wants to play the levels of that game in Assassin 3, you will have to pay again. IO says a solution is in the making. It is unclear why Hitman 2 Gold Edition Access Pack is not completely discounted. (Kotaku has reached out to IO representatives for comment.)
And then there is the actual data transfer. If you played Hitman 2you can transfer your player profile – your XP rank, your master levels, your unlocked colors, and so on – to Assassin 3. IO Interactive has even set up a special site that allows players to complete the process seamlessly. The site shrank under pressure almost immediately, with some players encountering error messages. At 2:57 PM ET, IO Interactive acknowledged the problem by writing in a tweet, that everyone who sees an error message is placed in a queue [their] stop and processed. You can do no more. “
“We have taken steps to stabilize the progress of the transfer,” IO wrote in a statement FAQ Thursday morning. “We are cautiously optimistic that we will avoid further problems and we are on deck to keep things going[s] smooth when we reach peak times. “
And then there’s the problem with cross-gene enhancements. It’s no secret that upgrading a game from the PlayStation 4 version to the PlayStation 5 is already a confusing process. Assassin 3 throws in an extra key. In some cases, PlayStation players have reported issues using a PS4 disc of the game to upgrade to the PS5 version, despite IO’s pre-launch promises citing that next-generation upgrades would be free. Today’s FAQs direct players to download the PS4 version to their PS5 first, then head over to the PlayStation Store (on console only) and check the Assassin 3 Disc Upgrade Edition.
In addition, some small pieces of downloadable content apparently don’t even transfer at all. Per IO it is Requiem package– which, fun fact, contains a white rubber duck – is currently ‘AWOL’.
Wow, okay, I’ll take it back. That’s a lot. Why does this always happen?
It always happens, isn’t it?
Speak against Kotaku in 2019 developers rattled a list of common problems that can potentially damage an online game, including crashes, system glitches, a code problem, an unexpected influx of players, or even bugs on an individual player’s computer. Developer Rami Ismail from Vlambeer compared such launches with Mini Metro, the great minimalist management sim of building accessible transit in large urban areas.
It’s also important to remember that these types of problems are not universal. (See: All People Who Respond to Articles About Cyberpunk 2077 with some rant about how the game runs smoothly on their multi-billion dollar platform, and that it’s game of the year, and why it’s getting so much bad word of mouth anyway, what’s the problem?) for some Assassin 3 players, everything is peaches and gravy. For others, the whole ordeal was an exercise in frustration.
And this is a story as old as time anyway. Mass Effect: Andromeda launched like a buggy mess, before BioWare turned around the ship around and transformed the game into if not the best Mass effect, a solid array entry. Similar things can be said about it Halo: The Master Chief Collection–that’s a freakin ‘blast these days-or Diablo III. And everyone knows the No Man’s Sky redemption ark by this time. Is Assassin 3 the next chapter in a long saga of now great games that sputtered at launch? Only time will tell if IO can do this job.