Hey! We have have a lot to share with you today regarding the growing concern around game-damaging updates from IOI and the future of hitman speedrunning.

1) First, we all hope you are enjoying the new Herbalist Elusive Target, and we are happy to share that the leader board has been updated to include Snoop. Additionally, the ET will be split between the official Elusive Target + Arcade and the new Special Assignment due to differing spawn-point availability. Finally, we will also be changing the elusive target order from chronological to reverse chronological to make it easier for players to find the most recent, and often times most popular, elusive target at the time (https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_woa_ets).

2) Unfortunately, the new ET wasn't the only thing added to the game in the last update, as we also saw game-breaking AI changes (for the second update in a row) to a level we haven't seen before. This update would normally have invalidated nearly all Mumbai skywalk, Hokkaido bomb launch, Sapi tower, and Colorado any% individual level runs as well as all the S1, S2, and Trilogy full-game runs on the leader board (again). Instead, after months of consideration and debate, we've decided that the best way to future-proof ourselves is to allow down patching for all Hitman WoA leader boards. This was something that was previously polled during the last update and saw a majority of players in favor of down patching of some kind after a much less damaging update.

How will it work? All Hitman WoA leader boards will now allow players to down patch to any version from 3.100 to current and submit runs. In defense of fair play, we are banning all versions before the release of Hitman WoA on Steam (3.100) and all tech associated with those versions (Druz wall bang, Berlin utility hole, etc.). We will work quickly to move all applicable NLP runs back to the leader boards and abolish the NLP category in favor of an external spreadsheet for all runs that used still banned glitches. We understand the concern that this may cause console players and I promise I am personally looking into a mutually beneficial solution, but this was something we needed to address quickly considering the number of runs affected by the latest update. Any and all information pertaining to down patching can be found here (https://rekt05.github.io/hitman-downpatching/), including what down patching is, how to do it, and notable patches. We encourage everyone and anyone to reach out for questions, as we understand this is going to take some time to get used to, but we hope, given some time, that we find ourselves in a more stable position with the game we all love so much. Thank you so much for your time and good luckInformation on downpatching Hitman WoA

All Y1 banned runs are preserved and can be found here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1reUOH0CxtILSQR3VhQs2uZoZ3ONMiaxcEx1VhW3qDaI/edit?usp=sharing).

Hey everyone ! After waiting for the dust to settle around the most recent major update, I'm here to talk about everything we know and talk about the decision we've, made with the help of the poll, regarding downpatching.

Firstly and most importantly I want to talk about downpatching. The poll resulted much like our mod vote where most people would be okay with downpatching (w/ caveats), but nobody could agree on how to implement it leaving the option to treat this patch the same as others the most popular preferred choice. Because of this and our subsequent mod discussion we've decided the best course of action is to treat this patch the same as others, NLP relevant runs, and move on (for now). Something tells me this will be further discussed in the future, but for now this is how we'll proceed forward on SRC. Below you can find all the changes we know of and how they've affected the leaderboard. Thank you for your time. (NLP = No Longer Possible)

Changes:

• Newspaper KO changed to soft KO (confirmed intentional) -> NLP
• Subdue Glitch Patched (confirmed intentional) -> NLP
• Guard AI Changes (the extent is unknown) -> NLP on a case by case basis, but nothing so far
• Movement Changes (lunge and nullification of strafing) -> Not NLPing right now
• Chawls start CS is shorter and camera spawns in the ceiling (who knows) -> NLP until a future patch we hope
• Ninja start camera spawns backwards (again, who knows) -> Not NLPing as CS is same duration and no time is lost due to time to uncover

Hello! With the release of Hitman WoA on the Switch 2 and mobile (unreleased), we've been forced to discuss and decide that these versions of the game are so uniquely different that they cannot be allowed on the same leaderboard as PC/Console.

Switch 2 - It's been made clear to us that the port to the Switch 2 has produced many bugs in the game that are not present on any other platform, and could absolutely give an unfair advantage. Unless all of these Switch 2 specific bugs suddenly disappear, we believe this justifies a separate leaderboard for all Switch 2 speedruns.

Mobile - We understand that the mobile version of Hitman WoA is yet to be released, but we have certain expectations of the game and how it will work. We believe how different the game is physically played and the hardware limitations of mobile justify treating it as it's own game.

I will support and assist any speedrun interest that spawns from the Switch 2 and mobile communities, but I believe that these leaderboards should only be managed by players from those platforms. As it stands, this means we'll personally take no steps in establishing leaderboards ourselves, but feel free to reach out with any questions. Thank you all and goodluck!

Hey gamers , Twitch has officially gone live with their 100 hour limit on highlights which means any runs with a "dead link" will be rejected in compliance with the rule requiring all runs to have a viewable video. This doesn't affect anyone wishing to resubmit their runs with a valid link, but we ask that all runs be submitted via Youtube, Bilibili, or Google Drive (visibility set to public).

In addition, we're making one final change regarding game audio to bring our rules more in line with the standard of most games on speedrun.com. All future submissions to any Hitman WoA leaderboard will be required to have game audio audible, doing away with moderator discretion. This will also apply to large gaps of muted audio within a run with an emphasis on any audio being better than no audio.

Thank you and goodluck!

Hello everyone, I hope you're all having a great start to the new year! We have 3 pretty important topics below to share new rules about so I appreciate you all taking the time to read this!

1) TG Poll Results - After about a week or polling and a subsequent week of deliberation we have decided that the poll didn't reflect strongly enough in favor of allowing TG for CEs, ETs, or Escalations. While roughly 60% of players were in favor of TG on at least one leaderboard, the votes were evenly spread across the three LBs meaning no single leaderboard received a significant majority vote in favor of allowing TG. Tranq glitch will remain unbanned ONLY for the main Hitman: World of Assassination leaderboard.

2) Nvidia Profile Tweaker - Tweaking the games visuals beyond the extent of the in-game settings menu via third party tools such as nvidiaprofileinspector, or editing the game's .ini files will not be allowed. These tools create an unfair playing field for speedrunners and throw verification of runs into question.

3) OnlineTools SDK - OnlineTools was recently added to the ZHMModSDK as a simple and easy way to switch servers, even while the game is running. This mostly affects Peacock users switching between Official and Peacock thus we see no issue with players using the tool.

That wraps up our current SRC announcements. Thanks again for your time and I hope you all have the best luck in your runs!

Hello Hitman WoA Speedrunners ! The moderation team and myself have been heavily discussing a number of topics over the last couple weeks that will undoubtedly change the future of the game. I hope you all understand that every decision listed below was not made lightly and we feel that these decisions will be best for the game going into the new year. Without further ado, thank you for your time and your trust. We hope you all have a Happy Holidays and good luck agents.

1) Tranq Glitch - We have decided that in the current scope of the game the ban on tranq glitch was outdated and not a reflection of the community's opinion on the tech. Because of this, we have made the first step in unbanning TG starting with the Hitman WoA main leaderboards on SRC. We will continue to discuss and monitor the community's thoughts on this in the coming months, but for the time being TG will remain banned for all other leaderboards.

2) Fullgame Reset Penalty - We have revised the rules regarding resetting during fullgame speedruns to apply a penalty for all resets from the start of the level to the end, including during cutscene. This will be a 1 second minimum penalty for all resets and after 1 second the penalty will be equivalent to the time on the in-game timer when the reset takes place. The only exceptions to this are Bangkok and all Sarajevo Six levels which will carry a higher 10 second minimum penalty. This is a change that will take time to be fully reflected on the leaderboards, but we will work as quickly as possible to retroactively apply penalties where applicable. This new rule applies to ALL Hitman leaderboards with fullgame speedruns.

3) Elusive Target Stuff:

• The Splitter LB - The Splitter has been added to the Hitman WoA Elusive Targets leaderboard. Because Agent 47 is forced to start in a disguise, Suit Only (SO) is not possible and we will only accept SA and Any% submissions.

4) Autosplitter Issues - I just wanted to end this by quickly addressing the issues that players have been having with the Peacock and Freelancer autosplitters by assuring you that we are aware and working on it. An announcement will be made as soon as these programs are back online and working.

Hello Hitman WoA Speedrunners! This is a very important and impactful announcement so I hope you all take the time to read this message in its entirety.

The moderation team and myself have decided to ban ALL visual and game changing mods from Hitman: WoA speedrun submissions going into effect immediately. I know this will be somewhat controversial, but I hope you all understand that our only goal with this is to ensure the integrity and validity of the speedruns we verify. All speedruns currently on speedrun.com that use mods will NOT be removed and are now grandfathered in. This new rule only applies to speedrun submissions from this point forward. Below I've answered a few questions I expect to be asked, but feel free to reach out to me with any further questions or concerns. Thank you for your time and trust. (Rules are updated on SRC)

1) Why make this change? This decision was not made lightly and has been discussed on and off even before I was ever a member of the moderation team. The core of this comes down to the sheer number of mods and an inability to verify that they don't impact the way the game functions.

2) Is Peacock still allowed? Absolutely, but Peacock plugins/mods are not.

3) Can I still have Ansel/Freecam installed? Yes, you do not need to uninstall. This rule applies directly to mods that are visible and game changing. As long as Ansel/Freecam isn't used or active during the run then it's okay.

Hey freelancer runners! Thanks to Mitchell Merry we have a new and improved freelancer autosplitter!! This autosplitter now removes ALL loads and in main menu time to adhere to the new timing rules.

Also, we strongly recommend activating the autosplitter within livesplit, if you haven't already. This way you will be able to receive automatic updates when needed, without having to manually download the script each time. Linked below is a video guide on how to install, or you can refer to the written guide on the hitruns wiki.

Load Remover Install Guide & Demo

Hello everyone! As of today we are changing how we time freelancer runs. I will go into more detail below, but the main change that comes from this is that server fetching and main menu navigation (does not include being paused) will be removed from your time along with regular loads like before.

Another big change is that all platform categories have been merged into one, so we can have a more competitive Freelancer scene. This means console will now have the same timing rules as PC. We are to do this because now moderators will be re-timing runs before verifying. This may lead to slightly longer verification times, but we hope it will be better for the game overall.

Timing Rules - PLEASE READ

The timer will start the moment 'Yes' is selected on the first syndicate. The timer will pause once the player exits a location (safehouse or level) or exits to the main menu (for skipping non-alerted missions). It will then resume when the next location (safehouse or level) loads. The timer then ends once the player exits the final showdown for the category. To be more specific with when to pause and resume:

• The timer pauses on the first frame after the exit prompt is completed or the first frame after "Confirm" is pressed when exiting to menu.

• The timer resumes on the first frame after the loading screen disappears, which is once the screen turns black before the location cutscene.

An auto-splitter currently does not exist for this timing method, but there are still a few options for tracking your time. You can:

• Manually split your times while running. This will give a close estimate of your final time, but its accuracy will depend on you skipping at the right times.

• Use the old auto-splitter that does not remove server fetching or main menu navigation, this will give a rough estimate for your final time. Do keep in mind the final time will be anywhere from ~2-5 minutes faster than this auto-splitter will give you.

• Time from the start to end without pausing for loads. While this will not be close to your final time, it can give an alright estimate against other runners who have similar load times to you.

NOTICE: Whichever timing method you use, a moderator will re-time your run before verifying!

We're happy to announce we've added our first new category, first syndicate%! We'll be considering several other categories very soon so stay tuned for more amazing speedrun opportunities! Goodluck and thank you! https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3_freelancer?h=any-first-syndicate-official-pc-normal-standard&x=wdm17g4d-ylq33e38.qoxjrm2q-onv97km8.qvvvngrq-ylq3vg78.1w4766oq

Because of the August 17th patch (https://ioi.dk/hitman/patch-notes/2023/hitman-woa-august-patch-notes), we have moved multiple runs to the “No Longer Possible” category. Runs from the Hitman 3 main boards, category extensions, elusive targets, and freelancer were all affected. This patch has only affected runs with Dartmoor due to:

• Ledge drop outside of Alexa’s bedroom being removed

• Audio distractions not being heard by guards in and around the trophy room

The audio patches have mainly affected runs that use Rebecca lure, and runs that shoot the door to panic the guards standing near the hearse key. As well as runs being moved because of this current patch, there also were multiple runs moved because of previous patches that were not spotted before, mostly relating to the other ledge drop methods being removed. All affected runs can be found under the No Longer Possible/NLP tab on SRC. Thanks!

Hey everyone! I want to preface this by saying that ONLY Freelancer speedruns are affected by this decision and it's only because of the way Freelancer speedruns are timed (RTA). After thorough discussion we've decided to separate runs based on server, Official server runs will now have a separate tab from Peacock server runs. This decision stems from various differences out of our control that could give Peacock an unfair advantage over Official. The main differences being a quick menuing ability on Peacock and no fetching time compared to the sometimes very long fetching times on Official servers. This decision wasn't made lightly and we hope that this benefits Freelancer speedruns far into the future. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me. Otherwise, thank you for your time.

We're very happy to announce the brand new Hitman 3 (WoA) Freelancer Leaderboard! Please be sure to read ALL the rules for the game and each category to avoid confusion or rejected runs. If you have any questions, feel free to message myself or another mod on discord or src. There will surely be changes made as we discover new strategies and build more tools, but our focus will always be on the runners. We look forward to seeing your runs and wish you good luck agents!

https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3_freelancer?h=PC-Any-Normal&x=zdn3m7e2-6njyzmen.1399ydr1-onv97km8.qvvvngrq