Tore Blystad
Game Director
Roberto Marchesi
Art Director
Tore Blystad and Roberto Marchesi give some insight into the creation of some of the concept art that was used to help the production of Hitman: Absolution.
ROBERTO
When we started designing the Rosewood Orphanage, we knew that we wanted a level that had a very different feel from the previous “Chicago” levels. The player had to feel safe in the beginning, and the level had to be a shelter from the previous hectic chase. However, things go south pretty quickly with the arrival of Wade and his gang of goons.
Originally, the theme of the level was one of contrast, where the goons and the nuns where two extremes clashing together. The wake of destruction Wade’s boys leave after them was also great fun for the 3D artists to implement!
ROBERTO
Agent 47’s arrival to Hope shakes things up quite a bit. At the start of the project, we really wanted to level a town to the ground and this concept shows one of the phases of the street warfare that occurs during the “Burn” level. The red canisters that have spilled out of the container were supposed to explode in all directions and rain fire left and right. After a while, we decided that might be a bit too extreme, so we settled on blowing up a bourbon distillery instead!
TORE
This was the very first concept made for ‘cinematic gun play’, something we really wanted to work with for Absolution. As you can see, 47 is shooting in two directions and we had a prototype where the player could control each gun independently, but it was too difficult to handle and it was cut. Another feature, Point Shooting, emerged from the ashes.
TORE
As part of our ambition to ‘humanize’ the targets more than previous games, we were even exploring targets that were unable to fight back. Lenny ‘the limp’ Dexter is kind of a tragic character, the unwanted son of the main villain, unable to fulfil his father’s dreams for a good son. Lenny is also jealous of his father’s admiration for Wade, a vicious hired mercenary.
The player knows all this when standing with Lenny, making him dig his own grave. What we discovered was that this actually divided the development team. Some hated Lenny and would kill him immediately and laugh doing it, while others had sympathy for him and wanted to give him the benefit of doubt. In the end, we added the possibility of leaving him alive.
ROBERTO
This concept is one of the images that represent the Hitman fantasy in its purest and coldest form. The act of digging your own grave is so sinister, that some players might lose empathy towards 47.
This is by far my favorite level in the game. At first glance it is deceptively simple, but if players start poking around and threaten poor Lenny with different weapons they will be rewarded with tons of true Hitman moments!
ROBERTO
Concepts rarely survive the changes of production unchanged, and it is amazing how much the final result in the game looks like the original drawing.
This was one of the first concepts of the game, and I remember clearly the first time I saw the cut scene based on this scene in particular. It was almost 1 to 1 to the concept, and I had a very strong sense of déjà vu seeing the animation play out.
TORE
This is the first concept made from ‘Hope, South Dakota’ but at that time, it had no name or location. The location of the Badlands, which is a national park in South Dakota, came to us in the most unexpected way. On a plane back to Copenhagen from China, we stopped in transit at Moscow airport, and met a guy from Chicago who told about an amazing desert area he used to visit. When we saw the pictures, we knew we had found our location and ordered tickets to go location scouting in the area to find our ‘Hope’.
ROBERTO
During the early phases of a project, the team has to take liberties and push the limits of what is considered possible with the lore of a franchise. What if Agent 47 had a conscience, and that drove him into a depression and a crisis? What if he lost his cool, and became a vagrant? Well, we toyed with those ideas, and the results are some of the more destructive concepts of Agent 47 to date. We call it the blue period. One of the give-aways of that time are the sneakers. Try to look for them in other concepts, if you find them, chances are the concept belongs to the Blue period!
TORE
This image tries to describe the original concept of the Run For Your Life level; A frantic rooftop chase in a rainy, ‘noir’ version of Chicago. Later, the level saw big structural changes to add more variety and choice but this image is for me still one of the strongest assets from the entire production.
ROBERTO
What is about to take place in this scene is one of the pivotal moments in Absolution. We wanted to play with the contrast between the kill and an ordinary morning routine. This was supported by choosing a very warm and cozy light setup that gives the scene a very serene feel. As players, we know the inevitable is about to take place and this should create a very strong sense of dread.
ROBERTO
This was a fun concept to make! One of the gameplay pillars in the Hitman series is that the levels allow for any play style. We really want to make sure that if a firefight broke out, players had total control of 47 and that it felt very natural to shoot and go into cover. This concept depicts a classic situation, with lots of bullets in the air, civilians shocked into cover, and seemingly impossible odds.
The actual scene takes place in an elevator, and if you look in the background you can see the lobby of the Blackwater Building, and some more elevators. When this concept was made, the design of the lobby had four elevators facing each other, but as the level designers took over, and the game developed, we ended with only two elevators. That is the beauty of video game architecture.
ROBERTO
What would a Hitman game be without the ability to hide bodies? This is one of the many concepts we made to visualize the different tools at 47’s disposal. They ranged from hiding bodies, fake surrender, sabotage, poison food etc. There is something very sinister about hiding bodies, and I always thought it was extremely cruel to just subdue an enemy, and then dump the poor, unconscious sod into a freezer. Is that just postponing the inevitable?
TORE
We worked a lot with 47’s looks and Roberto was driving that, spending months to explore facial hair, wrinkles, dirt and damage. We really wanted to push 47, to show the mark of the world on him physically, and these concepts bring back fond memories from brainstorming sessions at the very start of the project.
ROBERTO
This is another of the Blue period concepts. As you can see, 47 has really let himself go. From a concept point of view, these are very fun to make because they let us explore the unthinkable, and are very valuable to the team to find what direction we want to take the game. 47 will never fall so hard in the game, but by having visualized it we can also rule it out. And that is the fundamental use of concepts; they are a tool to use, and sometimes abuse.
Some of the most usable concepts are not the ones that will be used for production, but the ones that will be discarded in the hunt for the ultimate look.
