Hello again Hitman WoA speedrunners! As you may know, Ambrose island has officially been moved into it's place in the Hitman WoA trilogy which means we are now tasked with figuring out the best way to implement the change to the SRC leaderboards. We as a team have decided the best action for now is to add a 'w/ Ambrose' category to the Trilogy and Season 2 leaderboards. We strongly encourage runners to play the 'w/ Ambrose' categories as having two Trilogy and S2 leaderboards is strictly temporary. Our hope is that eventually we can simplify and phase out the current categories as the new 'w/ Ambrose' leaderboards fill up. Along with this change is a decision to remove the Season 2 (no DLC) category and move forward with Season 2 and Season 2 w/ Ambrose. We hope that these changes will best support and sustain the community into the future. Thank you so much for reading and goodluck!

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!

As of today, we've completed the migration of Sarajevo Six runs and leaderboards to the main Hitman 3 leaderboard and have added leaderboards for Sarajevo Six category extensions. After the recent release of Sarajevo Six to the official game we felt it best to move everything to improve ease of access and discoverability. New leaderboards for the Sarajevo Six can be found here: https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3 and https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3_extensions. Thanks so much and good luck!

Boosts are back and as far as we can tell so far they are exactly how they used to be, so all prior runs that were only invalidated by boosts were restored to main category for the Hitman 3 Leaderboards.

To avoid repeating myself, see here for a list of other Hitman patch changes as they pertain to speedruns (including info that is not included on the official patch notes):

https://hitruns-wiki.vercel.app/docs/h3_patch_notes

Screenshot Examples of the Merged Leaderboards:

After some internal moderator discussion, we have decided to delay the Ambrose full game category poll until IOI adds Ambrose to the "Campaign" menu, as there is a good chance IOI themselves will clear up Ambrose's location as part of Season 2 or 3 campaigns.

Thanks for understanding. And remember, regardless of what speedrun.com looks like, you can always run your own category for your own enjoyment.

Edit: To be clear, you can submit any full game runs you like now, there is no longer an embargo. However, remember that full game categories may change in future.

We have also added Ambrose to the Hitman 3 / Hitman 3 Category Extensions Leaderboards as an individual level: https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3/level/Shadows_in_the_Water_Ambrose_Island https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3_extensions/level/Shadows_in_the_Water_Ambrose_Island

I've added a few runs already that were done over the past week but not all, so please send in your submissions.

We will have a week long embargo on the new Ambrose Island level, Season 2 full game, and Trilogy categories, in the interest of letting people enjoy this map casually and also to think about how or if to fit the new map into a full game category.

We will add the new map to speedrun.com on August 2, and we will also have a poll on August 2 regarding Ambrose Island's status in the full game categories.

Thanks for your understanding.

EDIT: The poll has now closed, thank you everybody.

The vote was quite firmly in favor of not allowing bubblegum lethal throw glitch for poison category.

Update: The following Master Difficulty runs were rejected if from before May 24:

• Dubai 24-27s (normal leaderboard not Default Loadout) runs from old patch
• Chongqing Default Loadout
• Season 3 and Trilogy (both normal and Default Loadout)

Old Patch Runs Archive: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HMmk0EIT1rtz4-no6h-ODByo_Sh6ndSp9wYwqGGwxkY/edit?usp=sharing

I want to stress that this was a difficult decision to make. It is definitely not our intention to invalidate the hard earned records of our runners, nor to lose all of the accumulated strat knowledge due to an admittedly minor patch.

However: Given that even full game runs have come within a second of each other in the past, it is best to be prudent and remove any run that can not be performed 1:1 on current patch from the leaderboard, out of fairness.

I've included the Old Patch Runs Archive prominently in the rules for S3 and Trilogy, to empasize that new Master runners should still watch the old patch runs and learn from them, as most stuff is still the same from a strat learning perspective.

Know that this is a game where things are apt to be patched at any time, and at this time there is not a good way to downpatch this game (let's just say that the game being Always Online makes it very difficult to downpatch).

Also, the full game leaderboards may need to be shaken up again come July, when the new map comes out, so you've been warned (depending on how the community feels about it).

After receiving numerous complaints, the decision has been made to restructure the Default Loadout (NG+) category regarding difficulty subcategories.

Individual Level Default Loadout Changes

The Default Loadout leaderboard for Individual Levels is now split into two subcategories: "Either Difficulty", and "Master".

"Either Difficulty" is mostly consisting of pro difficulty runs.

Only submit Master difficulty runs to "Either Difficulty" subcategory if your run is a new record on both Pro and Master.

If your Master difficulty Default run does not break the Pro Default record, just submit it to the Master subcategory only. Hopefully that makes sense.

The reason for having an "Either Difficulty" subcategory to begin with, is to give more visibility to master default loadout runs that have surpassed the pro/ default runs, and give an option of both a combined and a filtered leaderboard to satisfy both sides.

See attached images for clarity on how this will be organized.

Full Game Default Loadout Changes

Note: For the time being, Default Loadout Full Game Runs remain merged between difficulties, because in every full game category, the Default Master record is faster than Default Pro record.

If and when a faster Pro Default Full Game Run comes along, we can consider reorganizing the full game leaderboard for a difficulty split, but for now that seems premature.

After some deliberation with the moderator team, the decision has been made to retire the "Default Loadout/ Any Start" category.

While an interesting concept, there were several problems with the category, in terms of logistics.

The original idea of the category was to see which default loadout/ default start records could be beaten from a non-default start, while using default loadout still.

Originally, all default loadout/ default start records were submitted to default loadout/ any start as well for completion's sake, but this became unsustainable over the long term.

Accepting only non-default start runs into "default loadout/ any start" was considered, but this resulted in people submitting slower runs on purpose than the existing default loadout/ default start strategies.

And explaining how any of the default loadout categories to newcomers was always very cumbersome (even the name of the category is so long).

The category was also just very unpopular in general.

In the end, I don't think the category is a good fit for Speedrun.com's site layout, it is better suited as a personal challenge away from Speedrun,com. I have archived the category here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pbQCvOgzn0w4KuQ_erNunVKlQFKf4YvGHhQA5Otd_ng/edit?usp=sharing for anyone who wants to build off of the existing knowledge and keep pushing the idea further.

In other news: After internal moderator discussion, we are staying firm to keeping difficulty (Pro/Master) as only a variable for Category Extensions. We understand that some users are not pleased by this decision, but the moderator position is that merging the subcategories improves visibility and ease of use of the site overall.

As a trial, difficulty has been changed from a subcategory to a variable. This effectively merges the pro and master category extension runs onto one leaderboard.

The difficulty is still indicated on the leaderboard, and if you wish to submit both a professional and master run, both runs will show up.

The reasoning behind this change: There simply is not as much interest in master difficulty category extensions to really justify existence as a separate category.

With the exception of master/ default loadout, which is relatively popular. However, merging the leaderboard will help the master/ default loadout runs in most cases, as the master/ default runs have become more optimized than the pro/ default loadout runs in several levels.

If the change proves unpopular, it is easy to revert.

There are currently no plans to apply this difficulty merge to the main leaderboard (https://www.speedrun.com/hitman_3), as there is a higher level of interest in playing Master there.