Month: January 2021

Hitman 3‘s first destination is an opulent one. The Scepter skyscraper is an engineering feat for the ages, but it’s also home to the next two targets on Agent 47’s list: Carl Ingram and Marcus Stuyvesant. Having faked their deaths, Ingram and Stuyvesant have holed up in the newly-erected building that sits in the heart of Dubai, and it’s up to Agent 47 to make certain that the duo is disposed of before he can dismantle the rest of the Providence organization.

There’s no shortage of methods with which to dispose of your targets here. From skydiving with shredded parachutes to a round of golf that ends with an explosive swing of the club, here’s how you can cross two more names off of your hitlist.

For more guides, be sure to read our Hitman 3 mission 1 story walkthrough for Dubai (On Top Of The World). Otherwise, read our Hitman 3 review.

Impactful Art

Taking out both Ingram and Stuyvesant can be challenging, but there is a chance to kill both of your targets at once. Grab a staff or event security disguise, and make your way down to the staff section of the Scepter. In the smoking room, use your camera to hack open the window and climb up to level 3 via the ledges and pipes.

Once there, disguise yourself as maintenance or a palace guard for an easier time and head to the server room. Take the exit to the right from that room, and subdue the male maintenance worker in the corridor. He’ll drop a server room keycard, which you can use to disable one of the server racks back in the server room. The right rack to interact with is the one that has a screen with “Monitor surveillance disabled” on it.

Once you’re done listening to Lucas Grey’s speech, you have free reign to do whatever you’re capable of to your targets. They will panic and attempt to open the shutters, but you can shoot, stab, poison, or strangle them before that happens. But if you want the Impactful Art challenge, knock both men out, position them on the floor, and then drop a chandelier on them.

Black Gold Eye / Steep Task

We rounded up these two challenges together because they’re variations of the same assassination scenario during the Bird of Prey mission story. As you know, another assassin is on the prowl at The Scepter, but he’s not being allowed upstairs. Once the Vulture decides to take a smoke break, follow him into the garden area. After he chastises a visitor who questions his smoking habits, Kazan will move to the garden section to the right to stare at a control panel. Activate it, hide in the bushes behind it, and wait for Kazan to switch the distraction off before pouncing on him.

Once you’ve assumed his identity, leave all your lethal tools of the trade behind as you’re about to be frisked. Your first meeting with Ingram will be under heavy guard, and you’ll be tasked with eliminating a reporter who is close to discovering that the Providence member is still alive. You’ll be looking for this reporter who is mingling with the crowd:

The journalist can easily be lured to a secluded spot, where you can take care of him. Once you have evidence of his demise, you’ll be allowed to meet with Ingram in his private quarters. This opportunity is still tricky, though, as Ingram is never without a security detail. If you’re looking for some one-on-one time with him, you’ll need to take care of his bodyguards and nearby staff on that floor. One handy way to take out the bodyguards who tail Ingram is to wait for them to pass the penthouse bathroom and distract them with an overflowing tap.

Two passes here on Ingram’s route, and you’ll have taken out his most dangerous security detail. Stealthily clear the way, and your private audience will allow for some creative opportunities to take him out of the picture.

This meeting will also trigger a sequence where Ingram goes to his desk and hovers over his model of an oil rig. That model happens to have a very sharp tower jutting out of it, and it’d be a shame if someone’s eyeball was introduced to it at close range. It’s worth emptying the room with distractions or pre-planning to get Ingram to peer at his replica model. Succeed in killing Ingram this way and you’ll accomplish the Black Gold Eye challenge.

Lastly, you can kill Ingram by pushing him over a railing, which is ideal during this particular scenario. If you hang around at the end of this story mission and don’t kill him with the oil rig, he’ll go out to the balcony and you can push him off. You can even loosen the railing with a screwdriver ahead of time, making it so he topples right off the moment he steps outside. Do this successfully and you’ll accomplish the Steep Task challenge.

Angry Birdy

At the top of the Scepter, Carl Ingram is busy recording his voice notes for his successor in Providence, and he has left specific instructions that noise has to be kept to a minimum. Before you can dispose of Ingram in a bizarre golf incident, you’ll need a key item for the job: an explosive golf ball. On level 3 and to the far left corner of the Atrium, a maintenance worker has hidden the object in a locked storage room. If you don’t have a lockpick equipped, you can open the door by subduing the employee who can be found near the room, talking to a friend about her anger management issues.

Make your way to level 4 of the Scepter, where the small golf course can be found outside the penthouse suite. Place the explosive golf ball in the bucket with the others, and then it’s time to trigger Ingram into a rage that can only be quelled with a round of his favorite game. Wait for Ingram to enter two locations and switch devices on nearby that will raise his blood pressure. The first is a radio that is close to his study in the penthouse:

And the second is a vacuum cleaner outside of his room and second office:

Once those distractions have been activated, Ingram will descend to the golf course, where he’ll vent his frustrations out and allow you to finish the Angry Birdy challenge.

Pick Your Poison

Two types of poison exist in Hitman: One that kills you on the spot, and another (emetic) that sends your target off to the nearest toilet so that they can vomit out their stomach contents. Ingram is a hungry and thirsty man, and there are three prime opportunities to poison his food and drink, which you’ll need to do to accomplish the Pick Your Poison challenge. The first is his favorite glass of whisky in his room:

And the second is another glass that he takes a sip from when he passes through his office:

The third alternative requires some cunning cuisine infiltration. There’s an open kitchen in the penthouse guarded by a chef where you can sabotage Ingram’s food. A storeroom in the back makes for a perfect area where you can subdue the chef and assume his place in the kitchen, finishing Ingram’s meal, adding your poison of choice, and summoning him to come eat. If you use emetic poison, Ingram will make his way to the kitchen toilet to vomit, which results in a prime opportunity to grab the “Hold my hair” challenge.

If you have proper poison on you, which can be attained through career mastery or by stealing it from the rival assassin The Vulture, you can slip that into Ingram’s meal for a quick kill. If you’d prefer to avoid going this route, you can also tamper with the food and the timer in the kitchen, when the chef and the palace guard are distracted.

Mile High Drop / Conserving Ammunition

When you’re at the top of the world, there’s only one escape and that involves some emergency skydiving. As a last resort, Ingram and Stuyvesant will don parachutes and drop from the Scepter. To activate this emergency protocol, you’ll first need to get your hands on a crucial keycard. This can be found in the security office on level 3, which is guarded by a very sleepy palace guard and one easily distracted colleague. You will need the combination code to access the safe, which can be found on a nearby whiteboard or by listening to the Palace Guard who leaves the office to make a phone call.

If you don’t have the patience for that, the code is “6927.” Once you have the keycard, make your way up to the penthouse suite. You’ll need to quickly activate two keycard readers, one of which can be found right here at the top of the penthouse:

And another below it next to the parachutes:

Once the emergency protocol has been activated, Stuyvesant and Ingram will make their way down to the first evacuation site, the helipad. If the helicopter pilot hasn’t been dealt with, they’ll fly off in the chopper. If the pilot is nowhere to be found, they’ll race back to the penthouse and don their parachute gear. Both men have a heavy security contingent around them, so you’ll need to find a less populated section with which to take care of the two targets.

Below the penthouse golf course is a small and unoccupied section of the Scepter you can climb down to. You’ll only have 20 seconds to kill your marks after they’ve jumped, but all you have to do is aim for their parachutes, and they’ll be dealt with permanently. If you have a sniper rifle stashed here, you can also attempt to take out both targets with a single bullet and earn the Conserving Ammunition challenge in Agent 47’s list. Otherwise, successfully killing them while they parachute nets you the Mile High Drop challenge.

If you’d prefer to also avoid firing a single shot and you’d rather watch the pair of Providence agents fall directly to their doom, you can simply sabotage their parachutes before you activate the alarm. All you need is a knife, and you can quickly shred the gear, leading to two more easy assassinations, earning you the Geronimo discovery challenge.

Vertical Approach

Stuyvesant needs a new bodyguard to ensure that no harm comes to him, and Agent 47 is just the man to take advantage of that situation. This mission is easy: All you need is to disguise yourself as event security and grab the transfer papers that’ll get you a private audience with Stuyvesant. Event security can be found all over the Scepter, but for a quick disguise, you can take out one of the members of the security detail on the first two floors. In the room where a security guard and a staff member are smoking, you can close the doors and grab the uniform easily.

Once you have the disguise, make your way downstairs to the staff kitchen, where the staff changing rooms are also located. When the hapless goon’s back is turned, grab the papers, and make your way to the security office on level 2. With the papers presented to Stuyvesant, you’ll walk with him and another security guard to an outside section where you have to pass an easy knife-throwing challenge. Once done, Stuyvesant will dismiss his bodyguard, and he’ll turn his back to you while he stands precariously close to the edge of the skyscraper.

What happens next is all up to you, but if you kick him off, you’ll accomplish the Vertical Approach challenge. You can also avoid obvious temptation and escort Stuyvesant around the Scepter, steering him to a more secluded area for another assassination type of your choice.

Icarus

To celebrate the opening of the Scepter, world-renowned artist Lucy’s art installation has been set up on display inside the building. The key piece of this interactive exhibit is a solar panel that Stuyvesant believes simply isn’t warm enough. Time to fix that. With an engineer disguise acquired, make your way to the backstage area of the installation. You’ll need to grab the fuse cell from the control center, which you can find inside an electrical box that you can pry open with the nearby crowbar.

Go to the opposite side of the installation here and install the fuse cell:

With that extra bit of power, Stuyvesant will bask in the rays of the artificial sun, and if you happen to be watching from the safety of the control panel that regulates the heat that the artwork generates, you’ll be in a prime position to give the Providence agent the most lethal of sunburns. After that brutal scene, you’ll have accomplished the Icarus challenge.

Bonus: The Stuyvesants

This one is technically a Discovery challenge called The Stuyvesants, but we listed it because it’s a handy opportunity you can use to accomplish some assassination challenges. As you might’ve observed, Marcus Stuyvesant doesn’t break his route around the Scepter, but there is an exception: His daughter. The Stuyvesants are due to meet in secret at a private reception next to the open bar.

The only problem is that artist Lucy Phillips has invited herself to the private affair, and Stuyvesant won’t show unless she leaves the area. Getting rid of Phillips is easy enough. Disguise yourself as event staff and man the bar, where you’re able to easily slip her some emetic poison in her drink. If you don’t have spare poison, you can find it in the storage room behind the open bar.

With Phillips indisposed, Stuyvesant will finally appear for a reunion with his daughter. You can also poison him with his favorite drink or whisky if you happen to have a lethal toxin on you. If you haven’t unlocked it in your career inventory yet, you can obtain a fatal dose of poison from the Vulture, another assassin who can be found in the observation deck garden.

Dubai is the opening mission for Hitman 3 and eases you into the wild world of assassination. It’s fairly basic in terms of objectives and the complexity of its Mission Stories. For those new to Hitman, the Mission Stories are events that occur within the mission that lead to opportunities to assassinate your targets or grant you access to the necessary objective to complete your mission.

Mission Stories are good for first-time runs and help you understand the level, but don’t exactly hold your hand. In this guide we’ll walk you through the Mission Stories, highlight the quirks you need to consider, and provide tips for how best to complete them. For more on the game, be sure to check out our Hitman 3 guide hub for walkthroughs on every mission and tips on how to complete special assassination challenges in Dubai.

(In)Security

This one grants you access to eliminate Marcus Stuyvesant cleanly. The best way to go about this is to head to your first marker, which leads you through the main bar and upstairs near the security room; stand nearby and eavesdrop on the Mission Story reveal.

Your next best move is to go to the opposite end of this walkway and subdue the guard who is around the corner when out of sight during his patrol pattern. He walks between one guard overlooking the party, then to the secluded corner. Knock him out and steal his outfit; this will grant you access to all the necessary areas and it’s the disguise you need to carry out the objective.

Make your way back to the bar and go through the staff area door and make your way to the locker room where the recruit’s orders are. A guard will be talking to the laundry lady and you can easily sneak behind him to snatch the orders.

Head back to the security room from earlier and report for duty. Here, your target Marcus Stuyvesant will show up. Follow him through the entire path he leads you. An additional guard will accompany you but pay him no mind. You’ll eventually be outside the building where they’ll ask you to hit targets with throwing knives. Hit the targets and let things play out. The additional guard will eventually leave, which means it’ll just be you and Marcus. At this point, your method of assassination is up to you, but pushing him off the ledge completes a challenge.

Bird Of Prey

To get to Carl Ingram, you’ll want to follow this Mission Story. When you activate this one, follow the marker and eavesdrop on a conversation between Zana Kazem and a woman in a yellow Hanfu robe. Afterward, follow Kazem as he walks to the grassy smoking area across the way–he’ll get into a spat with another woman and he’ll then walk to a more secluded part of this area out of anyone’s sight. This is the perfect opportunity to knock him out and take his disguise. You can also hide his body in tall grass here.

Be sure to drop any illegal items at this point. Head through security where you first found Kazem and get frisked. Talk with the lady Kazem was speaking to earlier (she won’t even notice you’re a different person); follow her and you’ll be in a meeting room with guards. Take the open seat and wait for Ingram to show up. Let the dialogue between you and Ingram play out. Then seek out the target he asks you to incapacitate.

You’ll find the target down by the main area where most people are partying. Your best option is to wait by the white-tabled bar in this area (not the main bar from earlier) and eavesdrop on him asking the bartender for information. Approach and talk to him; you’ll say you have the info he needs, and he’ll start following you. Take him to a secluded area and knock him out–the bathroom near the smoking area where you knocked Kazem is a good candidate. Take a photo of the body and report back to the lady that escorted you to your meeting with Ingram.

Follow her, and after a long walk to the upstairs penthouse, you’ll meet again with Ingram. Guards will still accompany him in his private quarters, but wait for him to walk into his second room, and during this dialogue sequence, walk outside to the balcony and Ingram will follow. Here, you can kill him without guards noticing.

It’s also an opportunity to kill Ingram using his oil rig model for a challenge, but you’ll have to distract one of the guards if you want to get away clean.

How The Mighty Fall

This Mission Story will get you both Stuyvesant and Ingram in one shot. You’ll have to go through staff areas, which you can access through a keypad-locked door toward the back of the main party area. You’ll get the keypad code over comms. If you don’t already have a disguise, you can knock out one of the staffers in this area and hide the body. If you have the staff area entry point unlocked, you can bypass all this, though. Follow the quest markers and you’ll find yourself in a room with massive windows and two people smoking. Wait for them to leave, then scan the windows with your camera to open them.

Jump out the window to start scaling the side of the building. Shimmy over toward the right side and climb upward. This will take you to a hostile area on the upper floor. There’s one guard down this hallway that you can easily approach in the middle of his patrol pattern. Take his disguise and hide the body in a nearby bathroom. Enter the server room and access the terminal, then pull one of the server racks. It doesn’t matter which one–whichever option you choose will activate a lockdown.

Hide in a far corner behind a server rack away from the doors–two guards will show up but won’t thoroughly search the area. To reactivate the server room, go outside and knock out the male janitor on this floor and hide his body while his coworker isn’t looking–he carries the maintenance card you need. Back in the server room, swipe the card and pay attention to the screens on each server rack. Pull the rack from the server rack that has a screen showing yellow text.

You can now access the main terminal. Of your options, “Re-arrange Meetings” gets Stuyvesant and Ingram to meet, “Open Elevator Doors” gives you another exit point, “Disable Cameras” does just that, and “Deposit Emergency Funds” makes gold bars fall out of a vending machine somewhere (which is for another assassination challenge).

Since you have a guard outfit on, you can waltz your way upstairs without a problem–there’s a staircase across the other end of the floor you’re on, which is the same path as the Bird Of Prey Mission Story. You can follow Stuyvesant or run up to the penthouse room where Ingram will be waiting. Once they’re in the penthouse suite together, you’ll be able to initiate a room lockdown to seal off anyone else from entering–the switch will be marked on your UI. Kill both targets however you want.

You can let Lucas Grey finish his speech to them, or get the timing right to drop a chandelier on them to complete a challenge, too.

Dartmoor, Death In The Family, is one of the more interesting Hitman levels because it involves solving a murder mystery. Your target, Alexa Carlisle, has faked her death, so a fake funeral is being arranged at the family manor, but another family member was found dead in his room the night before. The real death was made to look like a suicide, but Alexa suspects foul play. Solving this mystery is fascinating and part of the mission’s challenges, but it also lets you take care of your real objectives–including locating the case file–in the process.

One of the Mission Stories leads you through the whole investigation but doesn’t spell everything out for you. In addition, our guide will look at the other Mission Stories to help you in case you need pointers or get stuck. For more on the game, be sure to check out our Hitman 3 guide hub for walkthroughs on every mission and tips on how to complete special assassination challenges.

Means, Motive, And Opportunity

This one covers the murder mystery and it’s the best one to start with for first-time playthroughs of this mission. The investigator will start at the gates near you, and you’ll need to take his place to uncover the mystery yourself. Tail him by taking the side path on the right through tall grass up until you reach the manor. Stay out of guards’ sights by continuing to stick to the right of the investigator’s path and hop through an open window at the front right of the manor. You’ll be in a hallway right of the main foyer. The investigator will eventually walk through here alone, and this is your best opportunity to knock him out and steal his disguise. You can hide his body in a nearby closet in this hallway.

Now report to the butler and Alexa in the foyer. Follow the butler throughout the tour of the mansion. You’ll eventually get to Zachary Carlisle’s room and you’ll have to scan several objects and use his laptop at a desk nearby to find all the clues here. Afterward, you’re free to question each of the family members to check their alibis and investigate their rooms to find evidence and motive of the real killer.

The next few things you need to do are pretty simple. You can find Emma and Gregory in the Sitting Room on the manor’s first floor. You can find Rebecca in the trophy room, Patrick in the Library, and Edward in the dining hall to the right of the manor map. They’ll all give their alibis, which will be logged in your Intel tab. Make sure to verify each one with the people each suspect mentions. Next, as you go to each of these rooms, be sure to scan objects with your camera–they’re marked with a camera icon on your map. That’ll let you compare handwriting to the suicide note you found in Zachary’s room.

Now, there are a few specific rooms you’ll need to scrub for evidence in order to get the full picture. On the first floor at the lower right of the manor map, break into the butler’s room and collect the necessary data: a bottle of pills by the window and the diary in the fireplace. Then go upstairs to check Emma and Gregory’s room–it’s locked, so you’ll have to go through an open window to the right of the room’s entrance door. In here, you’ll find more clues, one piece of which can be difficult to find–it’s on the floor next to some luggage near the fireplace.

Take the bulldog cane you find in Emma and Gregory’s room, which can open two secret rooms in the mansion. There’s a clue hidden in one on the library’s second floor.

Be sure to stop by Rebecca’s room on this floor to the lower right of the manor. Her door is locked but you can jump out of a nearby window and shimmy across to get inside the room, similar to the previous room. Scan and look for data here. Now head to the Greenhouse all the way at the top of the map, outside of the manor.

The last bits of information are here, and one of the easy ways to get in the Greenhouse would be to pick up the crowbar laying on one of the boxes next to the gardeners near the Greenhouse. Avoid the guard that’s patrolling the vicinity when breaking open the door to be safe, then gather the evidence inside such as the poison-making contraption and the data sheet about the poison used.

At this point, you have enough evidence to accurately accuse the true perpetrator, or if you want, you can frame the Butler Fernsby, since you snatched the pills from his office. You can also claim that Zachary committed suicide. Each of these solutions completes a challenge for the mission. Either way, report back to Butler Fernsby and he’ll walk you up to Alexa’s room. Now you can speak with her directly and present the case in full. Ask for the case file as your reward and she’ll open the safe that contains it.

That’s only one of your two objectives, though. From here, the easiest way to assassinate Alexa is to wait for her to step outside to her balcony, and when she’s overlooking the horizon (and when guards are looking away), toss her over the rails and walk away scot-free.

You can also use your solution to the case as a means of opening Alexa up to murder. If you put the blame on the person who is not the murderer, you’ll leave the culprit free to continue to pursue their lethal agenda. Make sure you repair the poison-making equipment in the greenhouse with a wrench, then go about your business.

A Day To Remember

This Mission Story is easiest when you start as a gardener at the garden entry point. To complete this one, you’ll need to eavesdrop on the photographer near the fountain in the garden, then find a way to subdue him to take his disguise. After checking his camera and talking to the maid, he’ll walk over to a fuse box where a guard is standing, but you can snatch him up in the middle of that route when no one’s looking. Take his clothes and hide the body in the nearby box.

Now go to the outskirts of the greenhouse and pick up a crowbar near the two gardeners there, then head over to the fuse box near the manor, which should be marked on your UI. Bust open that fuse box, take the fuse, then install it into the fuse box that the photographer was having trouble with near the fountain. Return to the camera setup at the fountain, take a test shot with the maid, and then the whole Carlisle family will be called down for the family photo.

It’ll take a few moments, but everyone will show up so you can take the family photo if you want. By this point, the Mission Story is done. It simply gives you an opportunity to lure Alexa outside of the manor so you can assassinate her whichever way you see fit.

Her Final Resting Place

This next Mission Story is one of the most efficient ways to assassinate Alexa discreetly. To make things easy, you can start at the garden again since you need to make your way outside to the graveyard out to the far left of the mission map. Near the graveyard entrance, you’ll overhear a conversation about how the groundskeepers can’t get rid of the crows hounding the vicinity.

You’ll have to get rid of the crows flying over the graveyard–the easiest way to do this is to go to right where the crows are circling around near the trees, hide in tall grass, and pick off the nests stuck in these trees using your silenced pistol. It gives you easy cover and makes no noise. The crows will disperse.

That problem is solved and now the maid and undertaker can proceed with the “funeral” arrangements for Alexa. Keep a watchful eye on the undertaker as you’ll need to knock him out and take his disguise. Conveniently, the maid and groundskeepers or guards will turn away, giving you an opportunity–there’s also a box nearby to stash the body. Now you can call Alexa down to check things out.

It’ll take a moment, but once she comes through, she’ll berate you for the decor but will eventually go over to the grave itself. Keep a close eye on her and her guard. There will be a moment when the guard turns away to overlook the land while Alexa stands over the grave. At this point, just push her into it to get the kill, then pick up the shovel nearby to throw dirt over the body so no one can find it.

Additional Mission Notes – The Case File

While the Mission Story titled “Means, Motive, And Opportunity” leads you directly to the case file objective, the other two will not. However, there are other ways to get your hands on this elusive document.

One way would be to collect two halves of a secret token that grants you access to the case file off-site. There’s a note in the locker room on the third floor of the manor, opposite Alexa’s office. It tells you that two people hold the halves of the token: the butler Mr. Fernsby and Rebecca Carlisle. You’ll need to find a way to knock them out to snatch the half tokens. Also, you’re not required to see the locker room note prior to taking their tokens. That’s all you’d need since the narrative says it gives Agent 47 access to the information he needs outside the mission.

Another way is to get into Alexa’s office on your own. If you can get a high-level security outfit, it would help big time. First, get the Master Key from the butler’s office (located at the lower right of the first floor). Then go up to the third floor. You can avoid the main guard watching Alexa’s door when he talks to the patrolling maid for a brief moment. Once you’re inside, hit the button on her chair to reveal a safe. Four icons sit above the safe, which give you clues on how to find the code. To do it honestly, you’d have to find these objects around Alexa’s office and a number right next to them. If you just want to know, the code is 1975.

Some big things are about to happen in Chongqing for the fourth mission in Hitman 3. The pouring rain, bright neon lights, and high-tech human experimentation going on really give this one a heavy cyberpunk vibe. You have two targets: Imogen Royce and Hush. Both can be assassinated in fascinating ways where you turn their impressive tech against them, which you can do through the Mission Stories.

As per usual, one Mission Story lets you take care of both your objectives in one fell swoop, while the other two are conceptually satisfying. Mission Stories will lead you to opportunities, but often leave you to figure the rest out; we’ll guide you through both if you’re having trouble with that. For more on the game, be sure to check out our Hitman 3 guide hub for walkthroughs on every mission and tips on how to complete special assassination challenges.

Impulse Control

This Mission Story is to hit the target named Hush, who runs human experiments and uses homeless people to do so. The first step is to eavesdrop on a group of homeless people marked on your UI. Grab the crowbar near them, as this will come in handy later. One of them will begin walking off on his own, and you should follow him to find an opportunity to knock him out and steal his outfit. People will show up sporadically along the path so be careful. He also drops a flyer for the Future Progress Initiative, which gives you a location hint for where Hush is posted up.

On the wall of the neon-lit internet cafe, someone tagged “The Block” with a cube and Chinese characters that match the flyer. Follow the path it’s pointing to and you’ll find the complex easily. Make sure you don’t have illegal items on you as you’ll get frisked. Follow the guard, who will lead you to the experiment signup process. Wait in the room and get called up. Turns out they don’t need more test subjects, but now you know the experiments are happening on the top floor.

There’s a locked door in the hallway from which you came; use the crowbar to bust it open. You’ll be trespassing at this point, but you can ascend two floors. You’ll come across two guards in blue jumpsuits; when one turns the other way to walk, knock out the one left open and take his outfit and hide the body in a box nearby. You can walk freely to find another staircase to finally get to Hush’s floor.

Once you’re in his lab, head to the right where a nervous test subject is being held. Knock them out, take their outfit, and hide the body in the closet in the room. Now, you’ll be able to pose as the test subject. Follow the lab assistant to the test chair, take a seat, and prepare for some weird mind control-type stuff that happens between you and Hush. You’ll have to press Y or triangle to break his will in these tests. He’ll take a break afterward and go for a walk, but he’ll return.

The Mission Story is done at this point, but you still have an opportunity to actually kill Hush using his own mind games. When Hush and his guard leave, knock out the lab assistant who kept arguing against pushing the experiment. Hide her body and wait for Hush to return. The testing will continue and push Hush beyond his limits. Call an ambulance, but not for Agent 47!

Certainty Principle

Head to the restaurant marked on your UI and eavesdrop on the conversation happening there. A man named Pritchard is there to tour the secret facility run by Imogen Royce. He left his P41 form, which is some sort of authorization, at his apartment, so head over the apartment complex marked on your UI. Pritchard’s door is locked, though. Get to the roof of the complex and find a broken piece of the wall to scale down a pipe and enter through a window. Search his room for the P41 under the bed.

The next step requires you to disguise yourself as Pritchard, but he stays in the restaurant. Go back to the restaurant and go to the bathroom left of the entrance. Look out for rat poison in the bathroom then jump out of the window there. Shimmy to the left of the building to enter the kitchen, knock out the chef closest to you when the other one isn’t looking, take his outfit and hide the body in a box nearby.

There’s a bowl in the kitchen where you can prepare Pritchard’s food–do that, then drop the rat poison in it. Ring the order-ready bell next to the dish and let it be served. Leave the kitchen and watch Pritchard rush to the bathroom, knock him out there, take his outfit, then drop his body in the laundry hamper.

Head back through the kitchen to meet your contact behind the restaurant and present your P41 form. It’ll be a slow walk to the secret facility, but be patient. Also, before you head in, drop all illegal items as there is a frisk coming up. Continue following her tour, but be ready to think fast.

At a certain point, your identity will be under scrutiny–what you need to do is hack a computer in the room ahead of you once this sequence of events gets triggered. Approach the laptop at the corner of this lab, use your camera to hack-scan the window in front of the laptop, then use the laptop, and all will be fine.

Eventually, you’ll link up with Imogen Royce. Follow her to where she leads. You’ll end up in her office, where she explains her behavior analysis tech, but pay close attention to how she describes it. She says that she can predict the behaviors of employees when they get fired, and that she has the power to fire them literally immediately. She leaves the room, and now you have free access to her system.

Imogen will then walk around the facility and back to the Core Engineering area you walked through before, and the area that gets a manual biological cleansing. You’ve completed the Mission Story at this point, but this is a prime opportunity to eliminate Imogen in style.

First, fire Jeremy Bolt. He’ll be distracted since he’ll call his mom about it right when it happens. Then fire Alicia Reynolds who will manually disable the safety protocols for the Core Engineering area, only after walking past a distracted Jeremy Bolt. Wait to see Imogen to show up in the Core Engineering camera feed, then fire Sharon Reed, who will initiate the cleaning process, subsequently burning Imogen to death. Congratulations Imogen, you played yourself.

All-Seeing Eyes

This one is the most straight-forward Mission Story of the bunch and lets you kill two targets in one effort. You have to find your way to the rooftop of the laundry building marked on your map. You can get past the door inside the laundromat by keypad code or lockpicking–you can distract patrons by disabling the fuse box here as well. You can also climb a ladder surrounded by fences outside to cross a big neon sign that connects to that same building.

Either way, you need to work your way up to the top. On your way there, knock out the guard overlooking the city who has a sniper rifle next to him. Take his outfit, hide the body, and take the sniper rifle and extra ammo. At the very top, examine a destroyed drone. Now, use your sniper rifle to destroy a total of five drones flying across the city. They all have patterns in front of the sniper’s perch on this rooftop. They’re a bit hard to see, but look for fast-moving floating balls with red lights on them.

Once you take out two, you’ll hear radio chatter between Imogen and Hush, then take out the other three. Two guards will then investigate the rooftop, one of which can see through your disguise. Stay out of sight and when they leave, pick off two additional drones that get deployed. At this point, Imogen and Hush will meet at the Lotus Path, which is a walkway near the big neon blue lotus sign, which you have a clear view of from the same sniper’s perch. Once they’re together arguing, take your shot(s).

Additional Mission Notes: Hacking The Data Core

“Hack Data Core” is only a primary objective the first time you play the mission. You can only complete this objective once both Hush and Imogen are dead. You should also plan for easy access to the Core Engineering area at the secret facility, as you’ll see in the “Certainty Principle” Mission Story.

Regardless of how you access the data core, you’ll need to be alone in that room. After a cutscene, the facility will be on high alert. You can escape by following a series of ventilation shafts connecting to different parts of the facility. You’ll still have to avoid or fight guards in the process, but you’ll be able to leave back the way you came into the facility. Crowds will surround the entrance with a few hostile NPCs around, so be careful when making your exit.

A new patent filed by Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive suggests that the studio is looking into new gameplay systems to increase the situational awareness of its NPCs.

The patent, titled “System And Method For Virtual Navigation In A Gaming Environment,” outlines tech aimed at creating a “realistic experience” in video games by making AI smarter at detecting their environment. Specifically, the patent is targeting NPC vehicle driving behaviors.

Currently in video games, NPCs can only sense a few objects in their immediate vicinity. This level of detection is typically relegated to other cars almost exclusively, which is why NPC drivers tend to not only run into each other but also into the objects found within the world. Through this new patent, though, Rockstar is looking to give NPCs a distinct driving profile.

According to the patent–which was filed by Rockstar’s associate director of technology David Hynd and lead AI programmer Simon Parr–an NPC could “define its own specific characteristics for traversing the road nodes.” Roads in games are linked together like dotted lines, joined in nodes that the AI reads to determine its path. This new method would give NPCs a sense of autonomy on the road. If one road is backed-up with traffic, NPCs could decide to take another route. If the roads are slick because of rain, NPCs could avoid them.

On top of analyzing weather conditions and making judgements based on those external circumstances, NPCs could recognize non-moving obstructions on the road–like a car crash–and navigate around them. Additionally, the behavior of an NPC driver could dynamically change based on the situation, such as slowing down to drive on residential streets.

Moreover, through this patent, NPCs could take into account other external factors, such as speed limits, vehicle handling and top speed, cornering and maneuvering, and breaking times. All of this is aimed at creating a more life-like driving experience when on the road with NPCs.

Of course, it’s worth noting that a filed patent doesn’t mean it will become a part of a project. It also doesn’t mean that Rockstar intents to use the technology it’s filing a patent on. It simply suggests that the studio is looking into ways to improve how NPCs are currently designed.

While the patent doesn’t mention any Rockstar-associated project, it has garnered some speculation by Reddit users that it has some sort of connection to Grand Theft Auto 6. The authors note that the tech is being built for “virtual navigation and management of objects in a multiplayer network gaming community” and targeting PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Neither mean much, but if the patent does become proper Rockstar technology, it could appear in the long-rumored Grand Theft Auto 6 or the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto Online.

In other GTA news, Rockstar is bringing the seven-year-old Grand Theft Auto 5 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S later this year. PlayStation Plus subscribers playing on PlayStation 4 will receive cash bonuses in GTA Online every month until the mode hits Sony’s next-gen console.

The new Lucasfilm Games publishing umbrella once again dominates our conversation this week, as the first new non-EA Star Wars game in a decade gets announced. We discuss Ubisoft and Massive’s upcoming open-world Star Wars adventure, including what it might be, what we hope it is and isn’t, what it means for The Division, and more. Plus: Ninja Gaiden’s creator would be “honored” to work with Microsoft again, and more!

Subscribe on any of your favorite podcast feeds, or grab an MP3 download of this week’s episode. For more awesome content, check out the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, featuring an interview with Brian Raffel, the cofounder of Raven Software – the studio behind Star Wars Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast, Soldier of Fortune, Heretic, Hexen, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, X-Men Origins Wolverine, and this year’s Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War, among many others:

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It’s already been an incredibly fun year of Xbox coverage, and the best is yet to come. Join us! Oh, and feel free to leave us a video Loot Box question below using Yappa and you might be featured on an upcoming episode!

For more next-gen coverage, make sure to check out our Xbox Series X review, our Xbox Series S review, and our PS5 review.

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Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s Executive Editor of Previews. Follow him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan, catch him on Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.

Now that wireless controllers are the standard, there are two reasons to get a wired controller. At this point, most manufacturers spin it as a means to ensure a stable connection that minimizes input lag and lost inputs. But there’s another, more obvious reason – it’s cheaper. PowerA’s Enhanced Wired Controller for Xbox Series X/S, the next-gen version of its wired Xbox One gamepad, leans heavily on that second consideration.

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At $34.99, it’s just a little over half the $59.99 of the standard Xbox Series X controller. Even if you care more about convenience than performance, and see a hardline tether as a flaw, it’s easier to accept as a concession that keeps money in your wallet. And, as it turns out, the Enhanced Wired Controller Series X is a perfectly passable controller. Though certain aspects of it look and/or feel exactly like the knockoff you’d expect, it performs well in all the ways that count, and offers a couple of useful extra features, to boot.

PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller – Design & Features

Aside from the MicroUSB-powered detachable cable and a few extra buttons, the PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller looks and feels very similar to the standard Series X controller. The chassis measures 6.00 x 4.13 x 2.53 inches (WDH), just a hair larger than the standard Series X controller. Weighing 208 grams, it’s deceptively light: I wouldn’t describe it as especially light in my hands, but it weighs substantially less than the Series X controller (287g). The key takeaway here is that you really don’t feel the controller in your hands at all.

The Enhanced Wired Controller feels nearly identical to Xbox controllers in many key respects: The core button, trigger, and stick layouts are the same. Its face buttons have a touch more travel, but have a similar tactile press. The sticks have the same responsiveness. Since this an Xbox Series X update, a small round version of the Series X/S controller’s new share button features prominently at the center of the face, just below the Xbox button.

There are a few places where you can feel the difference, though. The “grips” on the handles are purely cosmetic, etched into the plastic. Likewise, the analog sticks have textured rims, but aren’t rubberized for grip as they would be on most gear. They will not help your hands steady as you move around the gamepad, or prevent slippage when your hands get sweaty. The D-pad, a simple cross, feels a bit squishy. There’s a strong tactile bump when you press, which is good, but the directional spokes sink a bit when you make a full press.

Build quality is also a concern. The bumpers and triggers are made from a glossy hard plastic, which feel fine while you’re playing, but seem a bit flimsy. The bumpers, in particular, wiggle a bit right out of the box. I’ve only used the controller for about four days and there haven’t been any problems, but after a lifetime of using controllers I wouldn’t expect the Bumpers’ to last for many years, or endure much abuse.

Though I primarily see the Enhanced Wired Controller as a budget-friendly alternative to the standard controller, it does have a couple of useful extra features. Like the Enhanced Wired Xbox One controller, it has a pair of programmable rear buttons, angled at the base of the handles where your middle fingertips naturally rest. You can program the buttons to replicate any of the face buttons, bumpers, or triggers using the program button in the center of the controller’s back. That functionality, while limited compared to the Xbox Elite: Series 2, is standard for most third-party Xbox controllers. Though simple, it’s one of the best two-button rear input designs I’ve used: They feel more intuitive than most rear buttons and paddles, which makes it easy for anyone to pick up and use without any practice or awkward acclimation period.

New to the Series X model, the Enhanced Wired Controller now has a large, transparent headset audio control switch at the bottom of the gamepad. Hovering just over the 3.5mm headphone jack, the dial allows you to adjust a wired headset’s volume by pressing left or right, and mute its microphone by pressing it in.

In general, I have mixed feelings about the utility of putting audio inputs on controllers: On the one hand, it’s easier to make adjustments on the fly with them than with a headset’s onboard controls. On the other, the controls only work with 3.5mm wired headsets that you plug into the controller, which fewer and fewer headsets use as their preferred means of connection. The audio controls do not impact the controller negatively at all, so it isn’t as if I don’t appreciate their presence, but their value is actually more niche than you might realize at a glance.

PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller – Gaming

The Enhanced Wired Controller creates a reasonably comparable experience to the standard Xbox Series X controller. Aside from the wired connection, which provides the standard performance benefits and potentially inconvenient logistical limitations, there are very few times where I noticed what controller I was using. That may sound derisive, but it’s an endorsement: Since the controller costs nearly half as much as the first-party default, “comparable” is a significant achievement.

Playing long multi-hour stretches of Cyberpunk 2077, the controller felt good in-hand. The analog sticks felt snappy, so my movement and aim felt precise. Aside from the bumpers, whose wobble and hard edges are mildly unpleasant, the buttons and triggers all felt comfortable. You only use the D-pad occasionally in Cyberpunk, but I found myself pressing the directions a little longer than I would have with other controllers.

Thanks to their very prominent placement, I found myself integrating the back buttons into my play organically more often than with other controllers. They’re very easy to use and easy on the hands. They’re also easy to flick accidentally so don’t use them anything too critical. (I accidentally skipped some dialogue a few times when I had “B” mapped to the right back button).

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I had a similar experience with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer. Responsive analog stick movement made my movement and aim feel natural. After switching from a high-end third-party controller with configuration software that lets you fine-tune your analog sticks, there were times when the certain movements, like horizontal movement on the right stick, felt sluggish: When I went back to the standard Series X controller, though, the action was very similar.