title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Stadia (under the title "Hitman: World of Assassination"), and Nintendo Switch (via cloud gaming) on 20 January 2021. The game received positive reviews, with praise for its level design and atmosphere, stealth mechanics, and 47's abilities. Some critics called it the best entry in the series and it has been cited as one of the greatest stealth games of all time. "Hitman 3" was the most commercially successful game in the franchise. It won various awards including "PC Game of the Year" at the 2021 Golden Joystick Awards.


title: Hitman 3

text: Like its predecessors, "Hitman 3" is a stealth game played from a third-person perspective and players once again assume control of assassin Agent 47. In the game, 47 travels to various locations and carries out contracted assassinations, continuing the story of the last two games. The base game features six new locations: Dubai, Dartmoor, Berlin, Chongqing, Mendoza, and Carpathian Mountains, Romania. Owners of "Hitman" or "Hitman 2" are able to import maps, levels, and their progress into "Hitman 3".


title: Hitman 3

text: The new locations in "Hitman 3" include persistent shortcuts, a new gameplay feature to the series. Each stage includes several initially locked doors which can only be unlocked from one side; once unlocked, these doors stay open in all future playthroughs, allowing initially closed-off locations to be reached more quickly. "Hitman 3" added a new camera item available by default which can be used to take photos and is used for gameplay purposes such as opening doors on certain maps. Another new feature in the game is numerical keypads, where players have to find four-digit codes and enter them manually to open doors and safes.


title: Hitman 3

text: The game features PlayStation VR compatibility on the PlayStation 4 version, with support for PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility, Support for VR on PC was added on 20 January 2022. The VR functionality retroactively applies to levels imported from the previous two entries. Unlike "Hitman 2", there are no multiplayer modes, with Sniper Assassin being solely single-player, and Ghost Mode being removed entirely.


title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" features Contracts Mode, where a player can select up to five targets across all the maps in the series, add rules and complications like specific kill methods and share their contracts with other players. 'Featured Contracts' are regularly added, which may be a selection of community contracts on a certain theme (such as during the Seasons of Sin) or contracts made by specific gaming publications or YouTube channels like Kinda Funny or Eurogamer. The game features side missions created by the developers known as "Escalations" which are multi-stage contracts that get progressively harder as the player completes each stage.


title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" features 'Elusive Targets' which are time-limited missions that can only be attempted once. On 20 January 2022, IO Interactive added a new game mode called 'Elusive Target Arcade'. This allows users to play 'Arcade Contracts', with each contract consisting of a series of previous Elusive Targets that must be eliminated in order. Each contract has a complication, which may require the player to change their strategies. Players can earn rewards for completing contracts but if the player fails a contract, they must wait 12 hours before attempting it again.


title: Hitman 3

text: During the events of "Hitman 2", professional assassin Agent 47 and his handler, Diana Burnwood, defected from the International Contract Agency (ICA) and joined forces with rogue mercenary Lucas Grey to destroy Providence, a secretive alliance of corporate executives and industrialists collectively wielding political, military, and economic influence. While 47 and Grey seek revenge on Providence for turning them both into assassins, Diana is motivated by the death of her parents, unaware that 47 carried out the killings. The trio kidnapped Arthur Edwards, Providence's intermediary known as the Constant, who identified the three Partners controlling Providence: Carl Ingram, Marcus Stuyvesant, and Alexa Carlisle. Edwards, however, later escaped captivity and seized the Partners' corporate assets for himself.


title: Hitman 3

text: Working together, 47 and Grey eliminate Ingram and Stuyvesant in Dubai during the inauguration of the Scepter, the world's tallest skyscraper, and Carlisle at her ancestral manor in Dartmoor, England. Following the Partners' deaths, Edwards assumes control of Providence and deploys mercenaries who capture Grey and Diana. Grey commits suicide to ensure 47 is not captured.


title: Hitman 3

text: 47 arranges to meet hacker Olivia Hall, Grey's only other trusted ally, in Berlin. Discovering that the ICA is tailing them, 47 kills several ICA agents sent to eliminate him, before he and Hall decide to conclusively stop the ICA by exposing its crimes to the public. 47 eliminates Hush and Imogen Royce, the overseers of the ICA data storage facility in Chongqing, China, allowing Hall to steal and publish all of the ICA's operational data while deleting all records of himself and Diana. The ICA is irrevocably compromised and dismantled, ending 47's career as a professional assassin.


title: Hitman 3

text: Meanwhile, Edwards attempts to convert Diana to succeed him as Constant and seeks her betrayal of 47 by revealing his killing of her parents. Diana seemingly double-deals both sides, accepting Edwards's offer while inviting 47 to a gathering of Providence members in Mendoza, Argentina, where he is instructed to eliminate the only people opposed to Diana's succession—Tamara Vidal and Don Archibald Yates—so that she can dismantle the organization upon assuming control. While he follows her instructions, 47's longtime trust in Diana is shaken when she incapacitates him with poison in revenge for the murder of her parents.


title: Hitman 3

text: In a dream, a vision of Grey persuades 47 that Diana has not betrayed him, but rather helped to put Edwards within his reach. 47 wakes up imprisoned on a train travelling through the Carpathian Mountains, with Edwards also on board. Though Edwards intends to make 47 into an assassin for Providence once more by wiping his memory with a serum injection, 47 breaks free, either kills Edwards or injects him with the serum, and flees into the wild. Meanwhile, Diana assumes power as Constant and enacts a purge of Providence's members from leadership positions at major global corporations, dismantling Providence's power structure.


title: Hitman 3

text: One year later, 47 reconnects with Diana, tracing her call to a secluded cabin in the snow, but finds Diana is no longer staying there anymore. 47 eventually makes contact with Diana with a phone that was left for him at the cabin. The pair collectively agree to return to their former roles as assassin and handler as a means of keeping the global elites in check, but will no longer have ties to the ICA, effectively making them Freelance.


title: Hitman 3

text: In an alternate ending, if 47 injects himself with the serum while confronting Edwards, he passes out, and later awakens in a padded room, greeted by Edwards's voice telling him, "Wake up. Wake up, my friend. It's the dawn of a new day, and you have things to do"—akin to the opening of "".


title: Hitman 3

text: The game was announced on 11 June 2020 at the PlayStation 5 reveal event with the tagline 'Death Awaits'. The first location of the game, Dubai, was revealed on the same day. Developers stated that the game would be "a lot more mature, serious and darker" than previous installments in the trilogy. It was confirmed that fully animated cutscenes like in the first "Hitman" would be returning after "Hitman 2" used still images for its cutscenes. The Stadia version titled "Hitman: World of Assassination" was announced on 14 July 2020, which acts as a hub to play "Hitman" and "Hitman 2" on the platform. This version was the debut of Stadia's 'State Share' feature which lets players share 'game states' allowing others to play the same contract with the same items and starting location as them even if they have not unlocked them yet. On 28 October 2020 during a Nintendo Direct the game was announced to be coming to Nintendo Switch via cloud streaming technology. A VR mode releasing for PlayStation VR was announced during a PlayStation State of Play live stream on 6 August 2020.


title: Hitman 3

text: The second location, Dartmoor, was revealed on 26 August 2020 with IO Interactive also confirming they had signed a 12-month exclusivity period for the PC version with the Epic Games Store, explaining "as an independent studio, our partnership with Epic has given us the freedom to create "Hitman 3" exactly as we imagined and self-publish the game to our players directly". The Chongqing location was revealed on 24 November 2020 and the final 3 locations were revealed on 11 January 2021. IO Interactive confirmed the game would support 4K resolutions at 60 frames per second on consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. The opening cinematic was revealed on 15 December 2020.


title: Hitman 3

text: Each location in the game started with the team deciding on some keywords and phrases that would define the themes of the level with game director Mattias Engström saying in an interview that the decision of where to set each level comes from where they wanted the emotions and story to be at that location.


title: Hitman 3

text: Engström gave the level designers and artists for the opening mission in Dubai phrases such as "an inviting beginning", "open and airy" and "on top of the world" (which is the name for the mission in the game). Engström describes how the keywords and mission name refer not only to the setting, but also to how "they have momentum in a story where everything is going fine. You can see that in the colors and the general feel of the mission". During development the team felt that the level was not living up to the "vertigo" and "verticality" keywords and giving the player the feeling they were high up on massive skyscraper. As a result, the beginning of the mission was changed with the player no longer starting at the elevator leading up to the atrium and instead starting outside the skyscraper and having to work their way inside. IO Interactive's art director and lead environment artist visited Dubai early in development to gather reference material. The United Arab Emirates is the first Middle Eastern country to feature in the "Hitman" franchise with the fictional Burj Al-Ghazali building seen in the Dubai level inspired by the actual tallest building in the world the Burj Khalifa (also located in Dubai).


title: Hitman 3

text: Dartmoor was based around phrases like "a house filled with secrets", "ominous" and "vulnerable". The mansion setting was decided quite early on in development and features a gothic design inspired by detective fiction such as Agatha Christie novels. Developers at IO had wanted to create a murder-mystery level for a long time but the idea was always very daunting with developers questioning things such as if the killer should change every time and how to tie the mystery into the gameplay. In an interview with "Screen Rant" Engström describes how the idea stuck "because it's not really core Hitman in a way, but role playing and taking a disguise and living out the fantasy, that's a core Hitman idea. It sort of fits the general tone for this trilogy". As this was the final entry in the trilogy, the team decided take the opportunity to fulfil many of these ideas like the murder-mystery which previously they had been unable or afraid to do. Engström says that this confidence came from how they had "been able to master the tools, but also how to design a mission" over the course of developing the trilogy. IO were aware that Agent 47 would realistically probably not waste his time actually solving a murder but they thought the idea was too fun.


title: Hitman 3

text: A murder-mystery allowed the team to fulfil another one of their goals which was providing insight into Providence. This was done through the player learning the backstory of the Carlisle family as they discover clues and interrogate suspects. In order for the idea to work the detective disguise needed to have free access to most of the level which contrasts with most "Hitman" levels where the player has to avoid being detected, with Engström saying to "Game Informer" "I don't think a "Hitman" game needs to be hard or a level needs to be hard in order to be fun. That's not needed, and I think we prove that quite well in England".


title: Hitman 3

text: The linear structure of a murder-mystery caused IO rework some of their mechanics and narrative paths as they clashed with the design principles of replayibility and player freedom. The team experimented with using randomized culprits but struggled to build as deep a narrative and found it "mess[ed] with the canon of the plot". Despite the singular fixed story, Engström states "there's replayability, because you need to play it many times to really understand how everything connects". The player is able to gather evidence to accuse different characters resulting in different outcomes. The intel system had to be redesigned into organised categories to allow players to more easily keep track of information. The clues themselves had to be designed to be found in a non-linear fashion.


title: Hitman 3

text: The first version of the mission allowed the player full freedom to explore rooms and talk to people but the player would not know who exactly they could talk to or which rooms were relevant. Senior level designer Toke Kreinart describes to "The Washington Post" how in response he "took the blunt force approach and put a little icon on everyone and everywhere that was relevant" but this was "actually not that much fun" as playtesters would just go around each icon interacting with all the prompts. The final mission uses more subtle ways to guide players, for example conversations between staff members and guards are deliberately placed to ease players into the story. Sound cues such as a draft of wind through a room or the sound of ruffling paper are also used to hint the player in the right direction towards clues. The addition of a secondary target where the player would be asked to kill the true culprit if they accused them of the murder was considered but was cut. This was due to the sheer amount of content that was already in the level and also for story reasons because the mood of the level changes once all objectives are completed.


title: Hitman 3

text: The team had already been working on Dartmoor for some time before going to see the film "Knives Out" (which Dartmoor has been compared to by reviewers) and decided to include a baseball in the level as a reference to the film.


title: Hitman 3

text: The Berlin mission was based around the key words "loneliness" and "isolation" and features a cold opening and none of the guided missions stories found in other "Hitman" levels. Engström describes how in this level "47 is defining his own mission for the first time". The forest featured in the opening was deliberately designed to be cold and isolating to contrast with the rave found in the main part of the level. Berlin started out as a typical "Hitman" level with a primary target, Agent Montgomery (the only agent with a bodyguard in the level), and the other agents as optional targets. However, it was later decided to make the choice of targets fully up to the player in order to give them more freedom to explore the level. Initially, all 10 agents would show up in the game's instinct mode just like targets in other levels, but this was found to be overwhelming for a first playthrough. This resulted in the gameplay mechanic of the player having to find and identify the agents around the level. The introductory sequence where the player kills one "snack target" was designed to introduce this concept to the player. Agent 47 stealing this first agent's earpiece to listen to their handler provided a way to update the player with information in a level without a typical handler like Diana or Olivia. Berlin was the most expensive level to make in the game due to the development that went into features such as the target identification and how to present information to the player.


title: Hitman 3

text: Berlin is the first level in the trilogy to feature armed targets who will fight back at the player instead of running into lockdown. A lot of development was required to make sure this mechanic was not too punishing for the player. In earlier versions, the targets would immediately pull out their weapon to shoot Agent 47 if they spotted him which would result in players almost always dying. Adding to the difficulty was that targets initially walked around in pairs. A feature was prototyped where if one target spotted the player, they would call all the other targets to come to that location. However despite being more realistic this idea was found to be breaking the level, with level designer Bjarne Christiansen explaining "one target sees you and then suddenly you have all the targets in the same location and you're done with the mission".


title: Hitman 3

text: IO spent a lot of effort into making the rave and music in the Berlin nightclub authentic. The main level designer for the mission lives in Berlin and did location scouting for the level such as taking reference photos and recording sounds. Instead of using tracks from other sources, "Hitman 3" composer Niels Bye Nielsen wrote all of the additional music featured in the game such as the rave music which is a first for the series. The crowd NPCs are programmed to adjust their dance moves in response to the music as it builds. Lead game designer Sidsel Hermansen described to "Game Informer" how she used to go raves a lot but had not been able to due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She says experiencing the club in VR has "actually been kind of a reminder. It's been a beautiful thing to be able to go there".


title: Hitman 3

text: Chongqing features the introduction of new water effects, as raindrops will hit Agent 47 and get his clothes wet which adds to the player immersion. The location showcases the improved lighting and reflections of "Hitman 3" due to the neon lighting found in the level. The heavy rain was designed to match the tone of the story during the mission with Engström saying that "you're basically killing who you have been for the past 20 years as a hitman" in Chongqing.


title: Hitman 3

text: The Mendoza location was IO Interactive's first attempt to depict Argentina in the "Hitman" franchise. The original two ideas for the level were a "tango location set in Buenos Aires" or a vineyard in South Africa. Both these ideas were combined and Mendoza was chosen as the final destination due to its nature as "one of the most internationally recognizable wine regions in Argentina". The company went to great lengths to create a fictional location with authentic-looking terrain and vegetation, to show the winemaking process, and to accurately portray aspects of Argentine culture like the tango and the drinking of mate. As IO Interactive's associate producer Pablo Prada is from Argentina, he provided insight for many aspects of the level. The real-life Villavicencio Natural Reserve was an inspiration for the architecture of the level while professional dancers were hired for the tango animations and consulted about the music. The level features an asado barbecue pit.


title: Hitman 3

text: The one major compromise to the authenticity of Mendoza was the decision to reuse existing non-player character (NPC) dialogue which had been recorded with Colombian and Mexican accents, rather than recording new NPC dialogue with authentic Argentine accents. According to IO Interactive, this was because of time and budgetary constraints and the additional complication of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company chose to focus on securing appropriate voice talent for the Chongqing location.


title: Hitman 3

text: Agent 47's handler Diana Burnwood appears in-person for the first time in the series in the Mendoza mission. At the end of the mission, 47 meets Diana on the dancefloor for a tango. IO chose to limit the player's outfit choices for this particular moment in order to maintain the atmosphere and not undermine the storytelling. When speaking to "Polygon" about this decision Engström says "we have Diana in-game; they're going to do a tango on the dance floor. We're going to treat it with respect all the way through". Both David Bateson and Jane Perry, the voice actors for Agent 47 and Diana respectively, named the tango scene as their favourite Agent 47 and Diana interaction from the series.


title: Hitman 3

text: With the final level set on a train in the Carpathian Mountains, the purpose was to have "a narratively driven set-piece that is setting up closure for the trilogy” as described by Engström to "Polygon". The train was designed as a metaphor for 47 spending his life "following a path determined by others", with his stepping off the train at the end being symbolic of 47 leaving his past as a contract killer behind at the end of the story. Developers were aware the train level may be controversial but ultimately Engström stated "I read and hear and, like, I can understand the criticism and the feedback. But, you know, it did what I think we wanted and needed it to do". In an interview executive producer Forest Swartout Large describes how even though this level is more "on-rails" they still provide the player with options as they can go "action-style, guns blazing" taking out all the enemies or instead use stealth to sneak past.


title: Hitman 3

text: Ambrose Island was added as a free downloadable content (DLC) as part of the Year 2 Update and is set during the events of "Hitman 2". Live game director Kevin Goyon describes how they wanted a "pirate fantasy" and "to make a location that felt dangerous – but where 47 would belong". IO wanted to feature Lucas Grey and explore what happened to the militia after he left them during "Hitman 2". Goyon describes how they "found it interesting to explore who could have taken over the leadership of the militia, but also hint at the past relationship with the Maelstrom's pirate syndicate at large", with the Maelstrom being a central character in the Mumbai location from "Hitman 2". Another idea they explored in the map was that of rival factions, with the militia and pirates on the island "on the brink of a conflict" which Goyon describes allowed them "to create a rich lore and interesting situations".


title: Hitman 3

text: The location being set on an island came easily to the team and provided a natural way to define the boundaries of the map. In contrast to other outdoor "Hitman" maps such as Santa Fortuna and Mumbai from "Hitman 2" which heavily revolve around built-up areas, Ambrose Island was designed around the natural rocky topology and jungles of the island with much of the map consisting of natural environments. These divide the map into different zones and allowed the team to experiment with more verticality than usual on the map.


title: Hitman 3

text: For "Hitman 3" IO Interactive wanted a more mature darker tone than "Hitman 2" which had embraced more of the comedy and playful elements of the franchise. This led to the introduction of many hand-crafted moments designed around the first time playthrough, with the aim being to integrate many core story moments into the gameplay. Game director Mattias Engström says that in "Hitman 2" the Mumbai and Miami missions were examples of IO reaching their limit in terms of mission size, and that "it's better to be a little sharper and more focused, to create a more polished and coherent experience" as large levels can be overwhelming for players to replay.


title: Hitman 3

text: The ending of the game was conceived early in development and was used as the starting point from which to create the story and all the locations. Engström says "from [the ending], we created an emotional journey so that each and every location had a purpose in terms of tone and feel to make the ending hit as good as it could". He describes how each of the first four missions gets "greyer" and darker than the last. The ending was designed to be a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy for players but was intentionally left open in line with "Hitman"s theme of "player empowerment".


title: Hitman 3

text: Developers were inspired by immersive sim games when adding many of the new features for "Hitman 3" like the keypads. These provided a new way to create puzzles for the player. The introduction of persistent shortcuts that can only be opened from one direction but will stay open permanently in all future playthroughs was designed to "encourage exploration, reward curiosity, and incentivize replayability". Predictability and consistency were key factors for the AI with developers wanting the game to be fun and interesting to experiment with even if it meant the AI seemed to be "stupid" sometimes. The number of guided mission stories and opportunities was reduced to three on most maps, with Berlin and Carpathian Mountains featuring no mission stories at all. This was done to focus on making the guided ones longer and more complex, however the game still features many 'unguided' mission stories with Forest Swartout Large saying "there are around a dozen story-supported ways of taking out your targets".


title: Hitman 3

text: IO Interactive considered using an episodic model for "Hitman 3" like that seen in 2016's "Hitman", where the first location would have released in August 2020.


title: Hitman 3

text: IO Interactive decided to make heavy use of lossless LZ4 compression to reduce the file size of "Hitman 3". Due to engine improvements it was now possible to run nearly everything in the game through this compression algorithm. With "Hitman 3", the way the content from the older titles is imported was changed, which results in less duplicate data compared to "Hitman" where each episode needed all the code and assets to work standalone. The end result is a file size for "Hitman 3" of only around 60-70 GB including all of the maps and content from both "Hitman 2" and "Hitman". By comparison, the full size of "Hitman 2" with all the maps from "Hitman" is nearly 150 GB.


title: Hitman 3

text: In November 2020 IO Interactive announced that they had teamed up with Intel to optimise "Hitman 3" performance on high-end CPUs with 8+ cores, which results in more crowds and environment destructibility. They announced they were introducing Variable Rate Shading into the game, a technique for improving rendering performance by dynamically changing the rate of shading in different parts of the frame. The PC version supports directional reverb, where sound reflected off surfaces will emanate from the general direction where the sound is located instead of seeming to come from all around the player. This improves the clarity of the audio mix and player's ability to localize sound in a given space. More high-end CPU features were added to the game on 24 May 2022 with the introduction of real-time raytracing and adaptive supersampling (using Nvidia DLSS or AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution). Intel XeSS technology was implemented into the game in October 2022, which uses machine learning to improve performance and image quality.


title: Hitman 3

text: The idea to add a VR mode to the game originated in 2018 when a senior game designer brought his PlayStation VR headset into the office to show it off. People at the office found that they "couldn't stop playing" the game "" which inspired the developers to make their own VR mode for "Hitman 3". The size of the VR team was only around 10 or 12 people. The team found during development that the nature of the game's levels naturally suited the new perspective offered by VR even though they were not designed with it in mind. The cover system was reworked with players physically crouching to hide out of sight instead of locking into a cover system. Similarly players now have free-form movement with the game's melee weapons instead of being locked into scripted animations. Many items which previously would have been quite small on the screen or obscured by UI can now be seen up close in detail. The guns in the game were found to already have the necessary holographic sights required for aiming in first-person despite being part of a third-person game. Due to the nature of VR being designed to be an immersive personal experience and the team's decision not to tone down any of the violent content of the game, developers found themselves playing the game slower and less violently.


title: Hitman 3

text: With the PC VR release in 2022, IO Interactive wanted to include more physicality into the game and to take advantage of having two controllers instead of a single DualShock controller, for example with how the player throws items or holds a weapon with two hands.


title: Hitman 3

text: On 15 January 2021, IO Interactive announced that unlike console players, PC players would have to pay for an access pass to unlock "Hitman 2" locations in "Hitman 3", even after announcing in August 2020 that players would unlock them in "Hitman 3" at no additional cost. This lead to criticism over IO's exclusivity deal for the game with the Epic Games Store, especially since most players already owned "Hitman 2" on Steam. Tim Sweeney, Epic Games' CEO, later responded to the announcement with: "Sorry, the team is looking into this with IO. It's never Epic's intent to create a situation where someone who owns a game on Steam would have to buy it again on Epic Games Store to get the full benefits of it." Two days later, IO Interactive said they were working on a solution to allow Steam players to import locations to the Epic Games Store. They guaranteed that players will not need to repurchase the games; however, they admitted there would be a delay and players could not import "Hitman 2" locations into "Hitman 3" for a few weeks. The location transfer system was implemented a month later on 18 February 2021.


title: Hitman 3

text: On 27 August 2020, digital-only pre-orders for the game launched for PlayStation, PC and Xbox players. A 'Trinity Pack' featuring 9 items (3 suits, 3 pistols and 3 briefcases all with Red, White and Black variants) was available as a pre-order bonus. It was announced that a Deluxe Edition of the game would be released, which includes Deluxe Escalations, in-game items and suits as well as digital soundtracks for the trilogy and a digital book featuring information about targets and locations from the trilogy. On 8 September 2020, pre-orders for Stadia went live. On 15 October 2020, it was announced that physical copies of an exclusive variant of the Deluxe Edition containing all the digital content and an exclusive physical passport would be released by Limited Run Games. On 30 October 2020, standard retail physical copies for both editions of the game were announced through traditional brick and mortar retail stores.


title: Hitman 3

text: The game released on 20 January 2021, with IO Interactive self-publishing the game. It was released for Windows via Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch (via cloud gaming) and streaming service Stadia (under the title "Hitman: World of Assassination"). The physical version was distributed by Square Enix in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Australasia. Despite IO Interactive having to shift to remote working during the development of "Hitman 3", they were still able to release the game on time.


title: Hitman 3

text: After launch the game was plagued with server-based issues, with users unable to transfer over their progress from "Hitman 2", users unable to use their Access Pass levels, and users unable to access the servers at all, leaving them unable to make progress in the game.


title: Hitman 3

text: A week after "Hitman 3" release, IO's studio head Hakan Abrak stated they had made back their development costs for the game, and "that puts us in a really good place and allows us to confidently move forward with our ambitious plans for future projects.", the first being a James Bond game.


title: Hitman 3

text: Downloadable content (DLC) for the game was confirmed in an interview with IO Interactive on 29 January 2021, although no specific release date was given. On 24 March 2021, IO Interactive announced "Seven Deadly Sins", an expansion made up of seven content packs themed around the seven deadly sins. Despite being announced two months after the game released, the DLC was not included in the Deluxe pack. The sins are Greed, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Envy and Wrath, with the packs being released in that order. The first pack (Greed) was released on 30 March. The packs can be bought individually or collectively as part of a season pass. Each pack contains a unique escalation, a new suit and a new sin-themed item. The release of each pack started a new 'Season of Sin' lasting between four to six weeks, during which the regular free content such as featured contracts and elusive targets would be themed around the sin for that season. The final pack (Wrath) was released on 26 October 2021, with the "Season of Wrath" concluding on 29 November.


title: Hitman 3

text: The "Hitman 3 Free Starter Pack" was made available on 30 March 2021, which grants players permanent access to the ICA Facility training missions as well as periodic free access to other locations from the trilogy. It allows players who own "Hitman" and "Hitman 2" but not the full "Hitman 3" game to import their maps in order to play with the features added in "Hitman 3" such as improved lighting and the new camera item.


title: Hitman 3

text: On 30 March 2021 a seasonal Egg Hunt escalation set in the Berlin map was added temporarily to the game. It was later permanently added to the game in April 2022. A permanent new event called the Dartmoor Garden Show was added for free in August 2021, with contracts mode also being added on the new map variant.


title: Hitman 3

text: In September 2022, Google announced they would be discontinuing their Stadia service in January 2023. In response IO Interactive announced: "To all our "Hitman" fans on Google Stadia. We hear you - we are looking into ways for you to continue your "Hitman" experience on other platforms."


title: Hitman 3

text: On 22 November 2021, IO Interactive announced the Year 2 update for "Hitman 3", which features ray tracing for PC, PCVR support and a permanent new game mode known as 'Elusive Target Arcade'. On 13 January 2022, IO Interactive fully revealed the Year 2 update and announced the "Hitman Trilogy", a collection of the three games in the "World of Assassination" trilogy. Both "Hitman 3" and "Hitman Trilogy" were announced to be releasing on Steam and Xbox Game Pass/PC Game Pass on 20 January 2022. The full Year 2 update reveal included further details about the Elusive Target Arcade and the announcement of a new 'Freelancer' game mode. Freelancer, which is set sometime after the "Hitman 3" epilogue, would introduce a customisable safehouse for 47, mission hub, and various items and NPCs. Freelancer was due to release in Q2 2022, however, in May the game mode was delayed until the second half of 2022. A new map codenamed 'Rocky' was advertised, with the name later being revealed as 'Ambrose Island'. The map was released on July 26 as a free expansion for all players. In October the Freelancer mode was delayed again with a new planned release date of 26 January 2023. IO Interactive announced it would be a free update for all "Hitman 3" players and they would be allowing select PC players to participate in closed technical tests over the coming months.


title: Hitman 3

text: On 20 January 2022, "Hitman Trilogy" was released, which contains "Hitman 3" and access passes for importing the levels from the first two games into "Hitman 3". The game was released to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and Windows 11, this version has full cross-progression support with the Xbox version. The Elusive Target Arcade was released on the same day.


title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" was released to Steam on 20 January with PCVR support on the same day. The Trinity pack pre-order bonus was available for free for anyone who purchased the game on Steam in the first 30 days. Upon launch the Steam version was met with a wave of negative reviews with players complaining about the price being the same as when the game had launched on the Epic Games Store a year earlier. There were complaints that the pricing system was confusing due to the large amount of different versions of the game available. In response, IO Interactive said in a statement that the ""Hitman 3" launch on Steam didn't go as planned" and offered all players who had already bought the game or who purchased it through to 19 February a free upgrade to the Deluxe Edition of the game. Players who already owned or purchased either the Deluxe Edition or "Hitman Trilogy" would gain the Seven Deadly Sins DLC for free instead.


title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It has been considered by some critics to be the best entry in the series and one of the greatest stealth games of all time.


title: Hitman 3

text: "IGN" gave the game a 9/10, writing "Rich, rewarding, and highly replayable, "Hitman 3" is a superb instalment of IO's idiosyncratic but much-loved stealth series." "GamesRadar+" gave the game 4.5/5 stars, praising the "fun and imaginative murders, beautiful levels to explore, [and] incredible world-building" and calling it a "slick and entertaining conclusion to the trilogy". "GameSpot" wrote: "What's good about "Hitman"—its level design and the creativity, experimentation, and exploration that affords—is great in "Hitman 3"." "PC Gamer" wrote: ""Hitman 3" is a magnificent videogame and a perfect swansong for Agent 47".


title: Hitman 3

text: The game's level design received critical praise. "PC Gamer" writes in their "Best Stealth" award article that "[the] impeccable design is what makes "Hitman 3" not just a great stealth game, but a near endlessly replayable one". The Dartmoor map was particularly praised for the optional murder mystery elements, drawing comparisons to the movie "Knives Out". "GameSpot" named Berlin as "one of the best sandboxes to explore in 2021" and a "standout level that encapsulates everything that's fantastic about the recent trilogy into a layered and lethal sandbox of creative carnage". The Mendoza level was celebrated for its realistic depiction of Argentina. The final level set on a train in the Carpathian Mountains however received criticism for its linearity and for feeling out of place for a "Hitman" level. "Polygon" writes how some fans were disappointed with the final level after IO Interactive promised the game would contain 6 new maps, assuming this would mean 6 new sandbox levels.


title: Hitman 3

text: The ability to import content from "Hitman" and "Hitman 2" in order to have the maps of all three games in one was praised with "PC Gamer" stating that "do that [import the levels from the previous games], and this is easily one of the best games on PC". However it was noted by some reviewers that the process for doing so was "convoluted".


title: Hitman 3

text: The removal of Ghost Mode and the co-operative Sniper Assassin mode from "Hitman 2" was criticised by some reviewers, with "GameSpot" describing how it meant "the game itself is scaled down somewhat as an overall package".


title: Hitman 3

text: The PlayStation VR mode received mostly positive reviews and was praised for its immersion, impressive visuals for a PSVR title and for supporting all the maps in the trilogy. It was however criticised for the visual downgrades required to make it run on PSVR compared to the regular game such as a lack of reflections and low draw distance. The control scheme utilising a combination of DualShock 4 controller and motion controls received mixed reviews. The PC VR version released in 2022 was heavily criticised for not offering full motion controls or improving upon the flaws of the PlayStation version.


title: Hitman 3

text: It was reported on 24 January 2021, "Hitman 3" had taken the number 1 position in the UK game boxed charts, with launch sales up 17% over "Hitman 2".


title: Hitman 3

text: By April 2021, IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak stated that "Hitman 3" had performed "300% better commercially" than its predecessor "Hitman 2".


title: Hitman 3

text: It was reported on 22 November 2021 that "Hitman 3" was the most successful game from the franchise and that the entire "World of Assassination" trilogy had reached 50 million players.


title: Hitman 3

text: "Hitman 3" received the "PC Game of the Year" award at the Golden Joystick Awards 2021 and the "Best Stealth" award from "PC Gamer". Several publications considered it one of the best video games of the year, including "Push Square", "Electronic Gaming Monthly", "Time", "Ars Technica", "The Guardian", "IGN", "Techradar", "GamesRadar", "The Washington Post", "Edge", "Kotaku", "GameSpot", "Rock Paper Shotgun", "Giant Bomb", "VG247", "NME", "Eurogamer", "Gamereactor", "Mashable", "The A.V. Club" and "Polygon". "PC Gamer" placed the game 2nd in their 2021 "Top 100 PC Games" list and 5th in their 2022 list.


title: Hitman 3

text: The game was nominated for "Best VR/AR Game" at The Game Awards 2021 for its PlayStation VR mode. "Eurogamer"s Ian Higton named it as the best PS VR game of the year and it was voted the best PS VR game of the year by readers of PlayStation Blog.


title: Hitman 3

text: An episode of the "A Sound Effect Podcast" featuring "Hitman 3" developers titled "How "Hitman 3"s powerful sound was made with the audio team at IO Interactive" was nominated for "Best Game Audio Presentation Podcast or Broadcast" at the 2022 Game Audio Network Guild Awards.


title: Hitman 3

text: In various interviews conducted with IO Interactive, they have confirmed that despite "Hitman 3" being the final game in the "World of Assassination" trilogy, it will not be the last game in the franchise. Christian Elverdam, IO Interactive's chief creative officer, has said that walking away from the "Hitman" franchise for the time being and closing the door on this chapter of Agent 47's story feels fitting. IO Interactive have confirmed they are likely going to do a new take on the gaming formula when they return to the "Hitman" series in the future.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The 2014–15 UEFA Champions League was the 60th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 23rd season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The final was played at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, Germany, with Spanish side Barcelona defeating Italian side Juventus 3–1 to win their fifth title and complete an unprecedented second continental treble. Real Madrid were the title holders, but they were eliminated by Juventus in the semi-finals.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: This season was the first where clubs must comply with UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations in order to participate. Moreover, this season was the first where a club from Gibraltar competed in the tournament, after the Gibraltar Football Association was accepted as the 54th UEFA member at the UEFA Congress in May 2013. They were granted one spot in the Champions League, which was taken by Lincoln Red Imps, the champions of the 2013–14 Gibraltar Premier Division.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: On 17 July 2014, the UEFA emergency panel ruled that Ukrainian and Russian clubs would not be drawn against each other "until further notice" due to the political unrest between the countries. Another ruling centred in regional instability was also made where Israeli teams were prohibited from hosting any UEFA competitions due to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. The rules regarding suspension due to yellow card accumulation were also changed such that all bookings expired on completion of the quarter-finals and were not carried forward to the semi-finals. Moreover, this was the first season in which vanishing spray was used.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 77 teams from 53 of the 54 UEFA member associations participated in the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which do not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The winners of the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League were given an additional entry as title holders if they would not qualify for the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League through their domestic league (because of the restriction that no association can have more than four teams playing in the Champions League, if the title holders are from the top three associations and finish outside the top four in their domestic league, the title holders' entry comes at the expense of the fourth-placed team of their association). However, this additional entry was not necessary for this season since the title holders qualified for the tournament through their domestic league.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: For the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2013 UEFA country coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2008–09 to 2012–13.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: Since the title holders Real Madrid qualified for the Champions League group stage through their domestic league (as the third-placed team of the 2013–14 La Liga), the group stage spot reserved for the title holders is vacated, and the following changes to the default allocation system are made:


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The schedule of the competition is as follows (all draws held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The final date of 6 June could cause problems for South American international players called up to play in the 2015 Copa América, which begins on 11 June. FIFA international rules require clubs to release players 14 days prior to the start of an international tournament, which means the players would have to miss the Champions League final if the rules were enforced. If the players were allowed to play in the Champions League final, that would leave them as few as five days to travel and train prior to playing in the Copa América.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: In the qualifying rounds and the play-off round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2014 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the first and second qualifying rounds was held on 23 June 2014. The first legs were played on 1 and 2 July, and the second legs were played on 8 July 2014.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The first legs were played on 15 and 16 July, and the second legs were played on 22 and 23 July 2014.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The third qualifying round was split into two separate sections: one for champions (Champions Route) and one for non-champions (League Route). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League play-off round.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 18 July 2014. The first legs were played on 29 and 30 July, and the second legs were played on 5 and 6 August 2014.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The play-off round was split into two separate sections: one for champions (Champions Route) and one for non-champions (League Route). The losing teams in both sections entered the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League group stage.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the play-off round was held on 8 August 2014. The first legs were played on 19 and 20 August, and the second legs were played on 26 and 27 August 2014.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the group stage was held in Monaco on 28 August 2014. The 32 teams were allocated into four pots based on their 2014 UEFA club coefficients, with the title holders being placed in Pot 1 automatically. They were drawn into eight groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The matchdays were 16–17 September, 30 September–1 October, 21–22 October, 4–5 November, 25–26 November, and 9–10 December 2014.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 18 national associations were represented in the group stage. Ludogorets Razgrad and Malmö FF made their debut appearances in the group stage. For the first time since 1995-96 season, England's Manchester United did not qualify to group stage.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: Teams that qualified for the group stage also participated in the 2014–15 UEFA Youth League, a competition available to players aged 19 or under.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The group winners and runners-up advanced to the round of 16, while the third-placed teams entered the 2014–15 UEFA Europa League round of 32. See 2014-15 UEFA Champions League group stage for tiebreakers if two or more teams are equal on points.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final. The mechanism of the draws for each round was as follows:


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the round of 16 was held on 15 December 2014. The first legs were played on 17, 18, 24 and 25 February, and the second legs were played on 10, 11, 17 and 18 March 2015.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 20 March 2015. The first legs were played on 14 and 15 April, and the second legs were played on 21 and 22 April 2015.


title: 2014–15 UEFA Champions League

text: The draw for the semi-finals and final (to determine the "home" team for administrative purposes) was held on 24 April 2015. The first legs were played on 5 and 6 May, and the second legs were played on 12 and 13 May 2015.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Vincent John Martin (born 3 July 1960), known professionally as Vince Clarke, is an English synth-pop musician and songwriter. Clarke has been the main composer and musician of the band Erasure since its inception in 1985, and was previously the main songwriter of several groups, including Depeche Mode, Yazoo, and the Assembly. In Erasure he is known for his deadpan and low-key onstage demeanour, often remaining motionless over his keyboard, in sharp contrast to lead vocalist Andy Bell's animated and hyperactive frontman antics.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Erasure have recorded over 200 songs and have sold over 28 million albums worldwide. Vince Clarke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of Depeche Mode.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Vincent John Martin was born on 3 July 1960 in South Woodford, Essex; he later moved to Basildon, Essex. He initially studied the violin and then the piano, but he was inspired to make electronic music upon hearing Wirral synth band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Along with OMD, other early influences included the Human League, Daniel Miller, and Fad Gadget.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In the late 1970s, Clarke and schoolmate Andy Fletcher formed a short-lived band called No Romance in China, with Clarke on vocals and guitar and Fletcher on bass guitar. In 1979, Clarke played guitar in an Ultravox-influenced band, the Plan, with friends Robert Marlow and Paul Langwith.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In 1980, after the Plan dissolved, Clarke and Fletcher formed Composition of Sound, and were soon joined by Martin Gore. Clarke provided vocals until lead vocalist Dave Gahan joined the band, which was renamed Depeche Mode. At that time he adopted the stage name Vince Clarke, by which he is currently known. The band initially adopted a slick synthesised electropop sound, which produced the studio album "Speak & Spell" and the Clarke-penned singles "Dreaming of Me", "New Life", and "Just Can't Get Enough" in 1981.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke left Depeche Mode shortly thereafter. There were many rumoured reasons for his departure. He commented on Depeche Mode's later material as being a little dark for his taste, but good nonetheless. Clarke also stated that he did not enjoy the public aspects of success, such as touring and interviews, and found himself frequently at odds with his bandmates, particularly on the tour bus. He also stated: "I think everybody in the band, especially myself, imagined that the reason we were doing so well was because of themselves ... We were pretty young and very lucky, and things had happened very quickly for us, and I don't think we were really mature to handle the situation." Clarke was replaced by musician Alan Wilder, and Depeche Mode went on to achieve international stardom.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke then teamed up with lead vocalist Alison Moyet (at the time known by the nickname of "Alf") to form the popular synth-pop duo Yazoo (known as Yaz in the U.S.), which produced two studio albums and a string of hits including "Only You," "Don't Go," "Situation," "The Other Side of Love," "Nobody's Diary," and "Walk Away from Love."


title: Vince Clarke

text: Yazoo disbanded in 1983, and Moyet went on to have a successful solo career. Yazoo reformed in 2008 for a series of live dates to celebrate 25 years since the duo's split.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke teamed up with Eric Radcliffe in 1983. Their idea was to collaborate with different artists on each new single, under the name the Assembly. With singer Feargal Sharkey, former lead vocalist of the Undertones, they scored the top 5 UK hit "Never Never". Meanwhile, Clarke founded the label Reset Records with Radcliffe. During 1983 and 1984 he produced four singles, "The Face of Dorian Gray", "I Just Want to Dance", "Claudette", and "Calling All Destroyers" for his friend Robert Marlow, which were released on this label. They also produced a studio album, at first shelved but later released in 1999, under the name "The Peter Pan Effect". In 1985, another collaboration took place with Paul Quinn of Bourgie Bourgie; the result was the single "One Day" by Vince Clarke & Paul Quinn. However, the project never took off, and Clarke moved on to other projects.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In early 1985, Clarke placed an advertisement in "Melody Maker" for a singer, and one applicant was Andy Bell, who was a fan of his earlier projects. He teamed with Bell to form the group Erasure, and the duo became one of the major selling acts in British music with international hits like "Oh L'amour", "Sometimes", "Chains of Love", "A Little Respect", "Drama!", "Blue Savannah", "Chorus", "Love to Hate You", "Take a Chance on Me", and "Always".


title: Vince Clarke

text: As of November 2022, the duo have released 19 studio albums and have enjoyed a long string of hit singles spanning their four decades together.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In 2011, Clarke collaborated with his former Depeche Mode colleague Martin Gore for the first time since 1981, as techno duo VCMG, on an instrumental minimalist electronic dance album called "Ssss", released on 12 March 2012. The first EP, entitled "Spock", was released worldwide exclusively on Beatport on 30 November 2011. The second EP, "Single Blip", was once again first released exclusively on Beatport on 20 February 2012. Their third EP, "Aftermaths", was released on 20 August 2012.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In July 1984, Clarke teamed up with Stephen Luscombe of Blancmange, Pandit Dinesh, and Asha Bhosle. The group, West India Company, released a four-track, self-titled EP.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke worked with synth-pop producer Martyn Ware (of Heaven 17 and The Human League) in 1999 as The Clarke & Ware Experiment and released the album "Pretentious". The duo collaborated again in 2001 for the album "Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle", which was created with "3D music technology" specifically designed for listening in headphones. That same year also saw the release of the Clarke-produced album "Erasure's Vince Clarke", which featured "The Peter Pan Effect", an album that he and Eric Radcliffe produced for his long-time friend Robert Marlow. Clarke wrote "Let's Get Together" for the pop girl group Girl Authority for their second and final studio album, "Road Trip" (2007). The song was originally meant to be for Depeche Mode but was never recorded by them. Clarke also co-wrote "What Do I Want from You?" with Freeform Five, for their debut studio album "Strangest Things" (2005).


title: Vince Clarke

text: Also in 2001, Clarke founded Illustrious Co. Ltd. with Martyn Ware, to create new forms of spatialised sound composition using their unique 3D AudioScape system, collaborating with fine artists, educational establishments, the performing arts, live events, corporate clients, and educational settings round the world.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In 2004, Clarke provided additional music for an episode of Johnny Bravo entitled "The Time of My Life". This was a collaboration with Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke was an essential component of a 2000 project called Family Fantastic. They produced the album "Nice!". In 2008 Family Fantastic released a second album, entitled "Wonderful".


title: Vince Clarke

text: On 21 May 2009, Clarke was awarded with an "Outstanding Song Collection" prize, during the Ivor Novello Awards ceremony of the same day, in recognition of 30 years in the music industry.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In 2012, Clarke collaborated with the band the Good Natured on a track called "Ghost Train", available as a free download on their website, in exchange for a Tweet.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Also in 2012, Clarke produced a cover of the Depeche Mode song "Fly on the Windscreen" featuring Ane Brun.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke also did DJ sets in various locations in North America and Europe and also continued his production work of remixing songs for Dido and Chad Valley.


title: Vince Clarke

text: In October 2013, Clarke announced on his Twitter page that he was providing assistance to musicians BT and Christian Burns for their All Hail the Silence project.


title: Vince Clarke

text: On 14 July 2015, Clarke announced a collaboration with Jean-Michel Jarre called "Automatic", which was released as a part of the full album "" on 16 October 2015.


title: Vince Clarke

text: On 10 June 2016, in collaboration with Paul Hartnoll, Clarke digitally released the album "2 Square" on his new record label, VeryRecords.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Since 2017, Clarke has hosted "The Synthesizer Show" with VeryRecords artist Reed Hays on Maker Park Radio, a non-profit community streaming radio station from Staten Island, New York. The first episode aired 20 December 2017.


title: Vince Clarke

text: When Clarke started making music, synthesisers were predominantly analogue; digital synthesizers were rare and would remain so until the launch of the Yamaha DX7 in 1983. In order to connect analogue synthesisers, analogue drum machines and analogue sequencers together, multiple CV/gate cables were required between each device. This system was not standardised, so inter-operability between instruments from different manufacturers was not always straightforward. In addition, some manufacturers used their own proprietary interfaces. When an industry-wide standard called MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was introduced in 1983, Clarke, like most other electronic musicians, gradually migrated to the new technology. However, he continued to prefer his older analogue instruments:


title: Vince Clarke

text: ""... CV and Gate is tighter. I can hear and feel that it's tighter than MIDI – we can even prove it using 'scopes. Because everything is clocked simply, it arrives bang on the beat. The whole production starts to 'tick over'. Just look at Kraftwerk's stuff. I think that 'feel' has been lost with MIDI sequencers. No matter what you do with MIDI, the music will never sound as good as it did in the good old Futurist days. That's why our tracks sound the way they do.""


title: Vince Clarke

text: For Erasure's fifth studio album "Chorus" (1991), he gathered together his collection of analogue synthesisers from various recording studio locations in London and set up a small studio in Amsterdam. This led Clarke to assemble an intricate patch system to more easily enable the control of his analogue instruments:


title: Vince Clarke

text: ""... the secret is having a good patch system – not as in patching to the mixing desk, but in patching CV and Gate. Because we don't use MIDI at all, you have to run three or four cables between each synth module – CV, Gate, Filter, Amplitude or whatever – and you've got to have a really unique system to do that."""


title: Vince Clarke

text: ""Andy [Bell] and I get together with a guitar and a tape recorder, I'll strum some chords, he'll sing a melody, and we work in little sections, four or eight bars long. Then we'll try stringing the sections together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. I find it very hard to relate songwriting to synthesisers, actually – we write songs in a very traditional way. The electronic side of things is just to create the atmosphere. It's mostly just messing about..! Once we've worked out a song, I start programming up the arrangement on the BBC UMI sequencer, which lets me run 16 synths simultaneously. That way you get a better idea if parts are working together or not. Then we start refining the individual sounds. And finally the whole lot is transferred to my Roland MC4, piece by piece, so it's being run in CV and Gate. Once we've got that, it's a case of Andy sketching out vocal ideas – in the studio we use two 48 track digital tape machines, which gives Dinger 24 tracks just for his voice!" ""


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke continued to expand his collection of analogue synthesisers and in 1994 set up "37B", a recording studio built adjacent to his custom-made home, "Ammonite", in Chertsey, Surrey. From 1994 to 2003, all Erasure studio albums were either wholly or in part recorded at "37B".


title: Vince Clarke

text: In 2004 Clarke moved to Maine. While waiting for his studio equipment to be shipped from the UK he began using an Apple Mac laptop with Logic Pro, Max/MSP, and various software synthesisers (many of which were analogue emulations). Since then he has continued to use Logic Pro, along with both software and analogue synthesisers:


title: Vince Clarke

text: ""Nowadays, you can take the best bits from digital and analogue. On certain projects – say, if I'm doing library music – where you need to have instant recall all the time, then it's obviously much more convenient to use the computer. When it comes to writing a new song, though, I still like to have the old analogue gear there, too. But, a lot of soft synths have a character of their own, too; the Moog Modular V is just crazy! I think that analogue has an inherent sound to it – it's like the old argument over vinyl versus CD. It seems that you hear more frequencies coming from an analogue synth than you do from a software synth, but the great thing about the latter is that you can do far more complex modulation, both within the synth itself and on the keyboard. To emulate any of those really complex modulations on an analogue ... well, you'd need a mile of cable." ""


title: Vince Clarke

text: As of 2009, Clarke has installed his analogue synthesisers alongside his Logic Pro-based workstation in a custom-built commercial studio called "The Cabin" in Maine.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Current & past studio equipment: Dave Smith Instruments Mopho, Roland System 700, Roland System-100M, Roland Jupiter-8, Roland Jupiter-4, Roland MKS-80, Roland SH-1, Roland VP-330, Roland JP-8000, Roland Juno-60, Roland Juno-106, Roland Super JX, Roland D-550, ARP 2500 Modular, ARP 2600, PPG Wave 2.2, Waldorf Microwave, Waldorf Pulse, Moog Modular, Minimoog, Moog Source, E-Mu Modular System, Buchla 100 series Modular, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Oxford Synthesiser Company OSCar, Synton Syrinx, Korg MS-20, Korg MS-10, Korg 700, Korg M1, Korg DVP, Serge Modular, Polyfusion Modular, Oberheim Xpander, Oberheim SEM System, RSF Kobol, Electronic Music Studios VCS 3, Matten and Wiechers x2 48 track sequencers total 96 track, Sennheiser Vocoder VSM201, Apple iPad 2, Apple Power Mac G5, Apple MacBook Pro.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Current & past software: Apple Logic Pro, Cycling '74 Max/MSP, Arturia ARP 2600 V, Arturia Minimoog V, Arturia Moog Modular V, GForce impOSCar, GForce Oddity, LinPlug Octopus, Muon Tau Pro, Native Instruments Absynth, Native Instruments Reaktor, Native Instruments FM7, Native Instruments FM8, Vienna Symphonic String & Choir Libraries.


title: Vince Clarke

text: Clarke has been married to Tracy Hurley since 2004. They have a son named Oscar and live in Brooklyn, New York City, with another home in Maine. Tracy Hurley is co-founder of the Morbid Anatomy Museum (now closed) in Brooklyn. Her twin sister, the American author Tonya Hurley, is married to Michael Pagnotta, the former manager of Erasure.


title: John Edwards

text: Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He also was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina's 1998 Senate election. Toward the end of his six-year term, he opted to retire from the Senate and focus on a Democratic campaign in the 2004 presidential election. He eventually became the 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president, the running mate of presidential nominee Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.


title: John Edwards

text: Following Kerry's loss to incumbent President George W. Bush, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.


title: John Edwards

text: Following his 2008 presidential campaign, Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 3, 2011, on six felony charges of violating multiple federal campaign contribution laws to cover up an extramarital affair to which he eventually admitted. He was found not guilty on one count, and the judge declared a mistrial on the remaining five charges, as the jury was unable to come to an agreement. The Justice Department dropped the remaining charges and did not attempt to retry Edwards. Though he was not convicted of any crime, the revelation that he had engaged in an extramarital affair and fathered a child while his wife, Elizabeth, was dying of cancer, gravely damaged his public image and essentially ended his political career.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards was born on June 10, 1953, to Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita "Bobbie" Edwards (née Wade) in Seneca, South Carolina. The family moved several times during Edwards's childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina, where his father worked as a textile mill floor worker and was eventually promoted to supervisor. His mother had a roadside antique-finishing business and then worked as a letter carrier when his father left his job. The family attended a Baptist church.


title: John Edwards

text: A football star in high school, Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University for one semester before transferring to North Carolina State University. He graduated from NCSU with high honors with a bachelor's degree in textile technology and a 3.8 GPA in 1974, and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law (UNC) with honors.


title: John Edwards

text: After law school, Edwards clerked for federal judge Franklin Dupree in North Carolina, and in 1978 became an associate at the Nashville law firm of Dearborn & Ewing, doing primarily trial work, defending a Nashville bank and other corporate clients. Lamar Alexander, a Republican and future governor of and U.S. Senator from Tennessee, was among Edwards's co-workers. The Edwards family returned to North Carolina in 1981, settling in the capital of Raleigh, where he joined the firm of Tharrington, Smith & Hargrove.


title: John Edwards

text: In 1984, Edwards was assigned to a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been perceived to be unwinnable; the firm had accepted it only as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti-alcoholism drug Antabuse during alcohol aversion therapy. In other cases, Edwards sued the American Red Cross three times, alleging transmission of AIDS through tainted blood products, resulting in a confidential settlement each time, and defended a North Carolina newspaper against a libel charge.


title: John Edwards

text: In 1985, Edwards represented a five-year-old child born with cerebral palsy – a child whose mother's doctor did not choose to perform an immediate Caesarean delivery when a fetal monitor showed she was in distress. Edwards won a $6.5 million verdict for his client, but five weeks later, the presiding judge sustained the verdict, but overturned the award on grounds that it was "excessive" and that it appeared "to have been given under the influence of passion and prejudice", adding that in his opinion "the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict." He offered the plaintiffs $3.25 million, half of the jury's award, but the child's family appealed the case and received $4.25 million in a settlement. Winning this case established the North Carolina precedent of physician and hospital liability for failing to determine whether the patient understood the risks of a particular procedure.


title: John Edwards

text: After this trial, Edwards gained national attention as a plaintiff's lawyer. He filed at least twenty similar lawsuits in the years following, and achieved verdicts and settlements of more than $60 million for his clients. Similar lawsuits followed across the country. When asked about an increase in Caesarean deliveries nationwide, perhaps to avoid similar medical malpractice lawsuits, Edwards said, "The question is, would you rather have cases where that happens instead of having cases where you don't intervene and a child either becomes disabled for life or dies in utero?"


title: John Edwards

text: In 1993, Edwards began his own firm in Raleigh (now named Kirby & Holt) with a friend, David Kirby. He became known as the top plaintiffs' attorney in North Carolina. The biggest case of his legal career was a 1996 product liability lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain cover. The case involved Valerie Lakey, a girl who at five years old sustained pool suction-drain injury. She was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover had been removed by other children at the pool, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.


title: John Edwards

text: In his closing arguments, Edwards spoke to the jury for an hour and a half and made reference to his son, Wade, who had been killed shortly before testimony began. Mark Dayton, editor of "North Carolina Lawyers Weekly", would later call it "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen." The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional punitive damages, rather than risk losing an appeal. For their part in this case, Edwards and law partner David Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service. The family said that they hired Edwards over other attorneys because he alone had offered to accept a smaller percentage as his fee unless the award was unexpectedly high, while all of the other lawyers they spoke with said they required the full one-third fee. The size of the jury award was unprecedented, and Edwards did receive the standard one-third-plus-expenses fee typical of contingency cases. The family was so impressed with his intelligence and commitment that they volunteered for his Senate campaign the next year.


title: John Edwards

text: After Edwards won a large verdict against a trucking company whose worker had been involved in a fatal accident, the North Carolina legislature passed a law prohibiting such awards unless the company had specifically sanctioned the employee's actions.


title: John Edwards

text: In December 2003, during his first presidential campaign, Edwards (with John Auchard) published "Four Trials", an autobiographical book focusing on cases from his legal career. According to this book, the success of the Sta-Rite case and his son's death (Edwards had hoped his son would eventually join him in private law practice) prompted Edwards to leave the legal profession and seek public office.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards, his daughter Cate, and David Kirby started a new law firm in 2013, named Edwards Kirby, with offices in Raleigh and in Washington, D.C.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards promotes programs to eliminate poverty in the United States, including arguing in favor of creating one million housing vouchers over five years in order to place poor people in middle-class neighborhoods. Edwards has stated, "If we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together too." He also supports "College for Everyone" initiatives.


title: John Edwards

text: Although Edwards initially supported the Iraq War, he later changed his position and in November 2005 wrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post" in which he said he expressed regret for voting for the Iraq War Resolution and discussed three solutions for success in the conflict. He denounced the "troop surge" in Iraq, was a proponent for withdrawal, and urged Congress to withhold funding for the war without a withdrawal timetable.


title: John Edwards

text: On social policy, Edwards supports abortion rights and has a universal healthcare plan that requires all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance, "requires that everybody get preventive care", and requires employers to provide health care insurance or be taxed to fund public health care. He supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, is opposed to a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage; and supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards endorsed efforts to slow down global warming and was the first presidential candidate to describe his campaign as carbon-neutral.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards won election to the U.S. Senate in 1998 as a Democrat running against incumbent Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth. Despite originally being the underdog, Edwards beat Faircloth by 51.2% to 47.0% — a margin of some 83,000 votes.


title: John Edwards

text: During President Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial in the Senate, Edwards was responsible for the deposition of witnesses Monica Lewinsky and fellow Democrat Vernon Jordan, Jr. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Edwards was on Democratic nominee Al Gore's vice presidential nominee short list (along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gore's eventual pick).


title: John Edwards

text: In his time in the Senate, Edwards co-sponsored 203 bills. Among them was Lieberman's 2002 Iraq War Resolution (S.J.Res.46), which he co-sponsored along with 15 other senators, but which did not go to a vote. He voted for replacement resolution (H.J Res. 114) in the full Senate to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, which passed by a vote of 77 to 23, On October 10, 2002, he stated that:


title: John Edwards

text: He defended his vote on an October 10, 2004, appearance on "Meet the Press", saying "I would have voted for the resolution knowing what I know today, because it was the right thing to do to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein ... I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that's why [John Kerry and I] stand behind our vote on the resolution". He subsequently changed his mind about the war and apologized for that military authorization vote. Edwards also voted in favor of the Patriot Act.


title: John Edwards

text: Among other positions, Edwards was generally pro-choice and supported affirmative action and the death penalty. One of his first sponsored bills was the "Fragile X Research Breakthrough Act of 1999". He was also the first person to introduce comprehensive anti-spyware legislation with the "Spyware Control and Privacy Protection Act". He advocated rolling back the Bush administration's tax cuts and ending mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent offenders. Edwards generally supported expanding legal immigration to the United States while working with Mexico to provide better border security and stop illegal trafficking.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards served on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary, and was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.


title: John Edwards

text: Before the 2004 Senate election, Edwards announced his retirement from the Senate and supported Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff, as the successor to his seat; Bowles was defeated by Republican Richard Burr in the election.


title: John Edwards

text: The day after his concession speech, he announced his wife Elizabeth had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Edwards told interviewer Larry King that he doubted he would return to practice as a trial lawyer and showed no interest in succeeding Terry McAuliffe as the Democratic National Committee chairman.


title: John Edwards

text: In February 2005, Edwards headlined the "100 Club" Dinner, a major fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. That same month, Edwards was appointed as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for studying ways to move people out of poverty. That fall, Edwards toured ten major universities in order to promote "Opportunity Rocks!", a program aimed at getting youth involved to fight poverty.


title: John Edwards

text: On March 21, 2005, Edwards recorded his first podcast with his wife. Several months later, in August, Edwards delivered an address to a potential key supporter in the Iowa caucus, the AFL–CIO in Waterloo, Iowa.


title: John Edwards

text: In the following month, Edwards sent an email to his supporters and announced that he opposed the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States. He was also opposed to the nomination of Justice Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice and Judge Charles Pickering's appointment to the Federal bench.


title: John Edwards

text: During the summer and fall of 2005, he visited homeless shelters and job training centers and spoke at events organized by ACORN, the NAACP and the SEIU. He spoke in favor of an expansion of the earned income tax credit; in favor of a crackdown on predatory lending; an increase in the capital gains tax rate; housing vouchers for racial minorities (to integrate upper-income neighborhoods); and a program modeled on the Works Progress Administration to rehabilitate the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. In Greene County, North Carolina, he unveiled the pilot program for College for Everyone, an educational measure he promised during his presidential campaign, in which prospective college students would receive a scholarship for their first year in exchange for ten hours of work a week. The College for Everyone program was canceled in July 2008.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards was co-chair of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on United States-Russia relations alongside Republican Jack Kemp, a former congressman, Cabinet official and vice presidential nominee. The task force issued its report in March 2006. On July 12, the "International Herald Tribune" published a related op-ed by Edwards and Kemp.


title: John Edwards

text: In October 2005, Edwards joined the Wall Street investment firm Fortress Investment Group as a senior adviser and consultant, a position for which a close aide reported he received an annual salary of $500,000. Fortress owned a major stake in Green Tree Servicing LLC, which rose to prominence in the 1990s selling subprime loans to mobile-home owners and now services subprime loans originated by others, but in an interview Edwards said he was unaware of this. Subprime loans allow buyers with poor credit histories to be funded, but they charge higher rates because of the risk, and sometimes carry hidden fees and increased charges over time. In August 2007, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that a portion of the Edwards family's assets were invested in Fortress Investment Group, which had, in turn, invested a portion of its assets in subprime mortgage lenders, some of which had foreclosed on the homes of Hurricane Katrina victims. Upon learning of Fortress's investments, Edwards divested funds and stated that he would try to help the affected families. Edwards later helped set up an ACORN-administered "Louisiana Home Rescue Fund" seeded with $100,000, much of it from his pocket, to provide loans and grants to the families who were foreclosed on by Fortress-owned lenders.


title: John Edwards

text: In 2000, Edwards unofficially began his presidential campaign when he began to seek speaking engagements in Iowa, the site of the nation's first party caucuses. On January 2, 2003, Edwards began fundraising without officially campaigning by forming an exploratory committee. On September 15, 2003, Edwards fulfilled a promise he made a year earlier as a guest on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to unofficially announce his intention to seek the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. The next morning, Edwards made the announcement officially from his hometown. He declined to run for reelection to the Senate in order to focus on his presidential run. Edwards's campaign was chaired by North Carolina Democratic activist Ed Turlington.


title: John Edwards

text: As Edwards had been building support essentially since his election to the Senate, he led the initial campaign fundraising, amassing over $7 million during the first quarter of 2003 – more than half of which came from individuals associated with the legal profession, particularly Edwards's fellow trial lawyers, their families, and employees.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards's stump speech spoke of "Two Americas", with one composed of the wealthy and privileged, and the other of the hard-working common man, causing the media to often characterize Edwards as a populist.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards struggled to gain substantial support, but his poll numbers began to rise steadily weeks before the Iowa caucuses. In these he had a surprising second-place finish with the support of 32% of delegates, behind only John Kerry's 39% and ahead of former front-runner Howard Dean at 18%. One week later in the New Hampshire primary, Edwards finished in fourth place behind Kerry, Dean and Wesley Clark, with 12%. During the February 3 primaries, Edwards won the South Carolina primary, lost to Clark in Oklahoma, and lost to Kerry in the other states. Edwards garnered the second-largest number of second-place finishes, again falling behind Clark.


title: John Edwards

text: Dean withdrew from the contest, leaving Edwards the only major challenger to Kerry. In the Wisconsin primary on February 17, Edwards finished second to Kerry with 34% of the vote.


title: John Edwards

text: He largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004, debate in New York, in which he characterized him as a "Washington insider" and mocked Kerry's plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.


title: John Edwards

text: In the Super Tuesday primaries on March 2, Kerry finished well ahead in nine of the ten states voting, and Edwards's campaign ended. In Georgia, Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry but, failing to win a single state, chose to withdraw from the race. He announced his official withdrawal at a press conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, on March 3. Edwards's withdrawal made major media outlets relatively early on the evening of Super Tuesday, at about 6:30 pm CST, before polls had closed in California and before caucuses in Minnesota had even begun. It is thought that the withdrawal influenced many people in Minnesota to vote for other candidates, which may partially account for the strong Minnesota finish of Dennis Kucinich. Edwards did win the presidential straw poll conducted by the Independence Party of Minnesota.


title: John Edwards

text: After withdrawing from the race, he went on to win the April 17 Democratic caucuses in his home state of North Carolina, making him the only Democratic candidate besides Kerry to win nominating contests in two states in 2004.


title: John Edwards

text: On July 6, 2004, Kerry announced that Edwards would be his running mate; the decision was widely hailed in public opinion polls and by Democratic leaders. Though many Democrats supported Edwards's nomination, others criticized the selection for Edwards's perceived lack of experience. In the vice presidential debate, Dick Cheney told Edwards they had never met because of Edwards's frequent absences from the Senate, but that was later proven to be incorrect. Videotape later surfaced of Cheney and Edwards shaking hands off-camera during a taping of "Meet the Press" on April 8, 2001. On February 1, 2001, Cheney thanked Edwards by name and sat with him during a Senate prayer breakfast. George W. Bush's campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt described the event as an "inconsequential meeting". On January 8, 2003, they met when John Edwards accompanied then-Senator Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in while Cheney was President of the Senate.


title: John Edwards

text: Kerry's campaign advisor Bob Shrum later reported in "Time" magazine that Kerry said he wished he had never picked Edwards, and the two have since stopped speaking to each other. Edwards said in his concession speech, "You can be disappointed, but you cannot walk away. This fight has just begun."


title: John Edwards

text: On December 28, 2006, John Edwards officially announced his candidacy for President in the 2008 election from the yard of a home in New Orleans, Louisiana, that was being rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina destroyed it. Edwards stated that his main goals were eliminating poverty, fighting global warming, providing universal health care, and withdrawing troops from Iraq.


title: John Edwards

text: National polls had Edwards placing third among the Democratic field beginning in January 2007, behind Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. By July 2007, the Edwards campaign had raised $23 million from nearly 100,000 donors, placing him behind Obama and Clinton in fundraising.


title: John Edwards

text: Edwards was first to boycott a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate in March 2007. Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barack Obama followed suit.


title: John Edwards

text: On January 3, 2008, in the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the nomination process, Edwards placed second with 29.75% of the vote to Obama (37.58%), with Clinton coming in third with 29.47% of the vote. On January 8, Edwards placed a distant third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with just under 17% (48,818 votes). On January 26, Edwards again placed third in the primary in South Carolina – his birth state – which he had carried in 2004, and he placed third in the non-binding January 29 vote in Florida.


title: John Edwards

text: On January 30, 2008, following his primary and caucus losses, Edwards announced that he was suspending his campaign for the Presidency. He did not initially endorse either Clinton or Obama, saying they both had pledged to carry forward his central campaign theme of ending poverty in America. In April 2008, he stated that he would not accept the 2008 vice presidential slot if asked. On May 14, 2008, Edwards officially endorsed Senator Obama at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.


title: John Edwards

text: On June 15, 2008, Edwards stepped back from his initial outright denial of interest in the position of Vice President, saying, "I'd take anything he asks me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something that I've done and it's not a job I'm seeking." On June 20, 2008, the Associated Press reported that according to a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the names of Edwards and Sam Nunn were on Obama's vice presidential shortlist. Ultimately, then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware was tapped to become Obama's running mate.


title: John Edwards

text: While at UNC, he met Elizabeth Anania. They married in 1977 and had four children (Wade in 1979, Cate in 1982, Emma Claire in 1998, and Jack in 2000). Edwards also has a child out of wedlock, born in 2008, named Frances Quinn Hunter, conceived with his former mistress Rielle Hunter. Edwards denied being the father for over two years before finally admitting to it in 2010.


title: John Edwards

text: Wade was killed in a car accident when strong winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway in 1996. Three weeks before his death, he was honored by First Lady Hillary Clinton at The White House as one of the 10 finalists in an essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Voice of America for an essay he wrote on entering the voting booth with his father. Wade, accompanied by his parents and sister, went on to meet North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who later entered Wade's essay and his obituary into the "Congressional Record". Edwards and his wife began the Wade Edwards Foundation in their son's memory; the purpose of the non-profit organization is "to reward, encourage, and inspire young people in the pursuit of excellence." The Foundation funded the Wade Edwards Learning Lab at Wade's high school, Needham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, along with scholarship competitions and essay awards.


title: John Edwards

text: On November 3, 2004, Elizabeth Edwards revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated by chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and continued to work within the Democratic Party and her husband's One America Committee. On March 22, 2007, during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidency, Edwards and his wife announced that her cancer had returned; she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with newly discovered metastases to the bone and possibly to her lung. They said that the cancer was "no longer curable, but is completely treatable" and that they planned to continue campaigning together with an occasional break when she required treatment. In June 2010, Elizabeth published a book called "Resilience". Her book is about the struggles of her marriage and how she was affected by her husband's affair (see below). In the book, Elizabeth talks about how long she was in the dark about the affair and how many times her husband, John, lied about the details of the affair. She never addresses John's mistress by name but calls her a "parasitic groupie" and claims that she is "pathetic". Elizabeth also opens up about how she tried to forgive her husband after she first learned of the affair but struggled to find forgiveness when he continued to lie. After Edwards's January 21, 2010, admission that he fathered a child with his mistress, Elizabeth obtained a legal separation from him and intended to file for divorce after a mandatory one-year waiting period.


title: John Edwards

text: In Washington. D.C. he lived in Embassy Row, 2215 30th Street. In 2004, he sold his house to the Hungarian Embassy to the United States.


title: John Edwards

text: In October 2007, "The National Enquirer" began a series of reports alleging an adulterous affair between Edwards and former campaign worker Rielle Hunter. By July 2008, several news media outlets speculated that Edwards's chances for the Vice Presidency as well as other positions such as the Attorney General were harmed by the allegations, which now included that he fathered a child with Hunter and had visited her and the baby girl at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. The story was not widely covered by the press for some time, until, after initially denying the allegations, Edwards admitted the affair. On January 21, 2010, John Edwards issued a press release to admit that he fathered Hunter's child.


title: John Edwards

text: In an August 8, 2008, statement, and an interview with Bob Woodruff of ABC News, Edwards admitted the affair with Hunter in 2006, but denied being the father of her child. He acknowledged that he had been dishonest in denying the entire "Enquirer" story, admitting that some of it was true, but said that the affair ended long before the time of the child's conception. He further said he was willing to take a paternity test, but Hunter responded that she would not be party to a DNA test "now or in the future". Initially, campaign aide Andrew Young claimed that he, not Edwards, was the child's father. Young later renounced that statement, instead alleging that Edwards always knew he was the child's father and had pleaded with him to falsely accept responsibility.


title: John Edwards

text: Young further claimed to have set up private meetings between Edwards and Hunter, and that Edwards once calmed an anxious Hunter by promising her that after his wife died he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band. Young also maintains that Edwards asked him to "Get a doctor to fake the DNA results ... and to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child."


title: John Edwards

text: On February 2, 2010, Young released a book detailing the affair. Young also began working with Aaron Sorkin on a movie about the affair based on the book "The Politician". On February 23, 2012, an Orange County, NC, judge ruled that Young and his wife could not publicize the movie. The judge also ruled that an alleged "sex tape" of Edwards and Hunter be destroyed by the court. The judge also allowed only the materials already in the public domain to be used for public purposes. All other photos and materials not yet released can be used for family purposes only.


title: John Edwards

text: In response to the scandal involving Edwards's extramarital affair and attempts to cover it up, he has stated "I am a sinner, but not a criminal."


title: John Edwards

text: In May 2009, newspapers reported that Edwards's campaign was being investigated for conversion of campaign money to personal use related to the affair. Edwards said that the campaign was complying with the inquiry. The relevant US attorney refused to comment. In the same month, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News reported that members of Edwards's staff had told him that they had planned a "doomsday strategy" to derail Edwards's campaign if he got close to the nomination. Joe Trippi, a senior advisor to the campaign, said the report was "complete bullshit". In August 2009, Rielle Hunter appeared before the grand jury investigating this matter. On March 15, 2010, Hunter broke her silence during an interview with "GQ" magazine and provided new details about the affair. In March 2011, voicemail messages allegedly left by John Edwards were obtained, which Young says prove that Edwards arranged the cover-up of his affair with Hunter.


title: John Edwards

text: Reports surfaced in late 2011 in "The National Enquirer" and "RadarOnline.com" that Edwards asked his former mistress to move into his North Carolina home, where he had once lived with his wife. Rielle Hunter announced her breakup with Edwards on the same day she released a book about their relationship in 2012.


title: John Edwards

text: On February 9, 2016, Hunter spoke on "Steve Harvey" in her first televised interview in almost five years. Hunter, then 51, said that the couple were actually still together up until February 2015.


title: John Edwards

text: On May 24, 2011, ABC News and the "New York Times" reported that the U.S Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section had conducted a two-year investigation into whether Edwards had used more than $1 million in political donations to hide his affair and planned to pursue criminal charges for alleged violations of campaign finance laws.


title: John Edwards

text: On June 3, 2011, Edwards was indicted by a federal grand jury in North Carolina on six felony charges, including four counts of collecting illegal campaign contributions, one count of conspiracy, and one count of making false statements.


title: John Edwards

text: After postponing the start of the trial while Edwards was treated for a heart condition in February 2012, Judge Catherine Eagles of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina scheduled jury selection to begin on April 12, 2012. Edwards's trial began on April 23, 2012, as he faced up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine.