Hitman: Absolution 'used to have regen health' - IO discusses big changes

Hitman: Absolution's protagonist Agent 47 used to have regenerative health in an early build of the game, IO interactive's director Tore Blystad has revealed. The feature was implemented to make the game accessible for everyone, but was since scrapped. Blystad has revealed more secrets in a new interview.

In an OPM interview, Blystad revealed why regen health was scrapped, “You have to think more if you want to play this as a true Hitman game. If you can constantly assault and then hang back and regenerate the challenge gets lost. We actually opted for a hybrid system here. You regenerate something then we have health stations around the game if you want to use them."

Blystad added, “With all the mechanics within the game we tried to apply them in a way that fits the game that we are making. We have some checkpoints to make it slightly easier to get an overview over a section of the game. So you don’t have to worry about the entire massive levels – they’re very, very huge."

"In the old games you had this kind of a butterfly effect where you could be doing something in this corner of the level and it could spread out and it just messed up everything that you did," Blystad continued, "You could spend three hours getting to a point and in three seconds you’d destroyed everything you did. We wanted to make sure the player had more freedom to push the game, and the game would push back, but it wouldn’t demolish you immediately."

Blystad also revealed that Hitman: Absolution's 'Purist' difficulty setting is harder than the first Hitman game. Cripes!

You can check out VG247's full Hitman: Absolution interview here - in which was discuss Contracts Mode an the thorny issue of violence.