Annihilation is a very good movie and my bullshit detector did not ding a single time when watching it. I'm prepared to not at all relate to or agree with whatever the argument here is. I swear to god if it's "this one character was scared and confused and didn't behave in the optimal way that would have guaranteed survival" i'm going to skip that segment outright.
EDIT: don't wanna be too negative cause i've been overall enjoying the podcast during my commute, but Woolie's thing about Hitman was really weird.
#1: it's almost all about social stealth.
#2: what you can do is not determined by the basic verbs you have, but by the level design. It's so incredibly intricate and well-made and his description of it made it clear he only understood the game on the lowest possible level, not what it's like when all that clockwork design comes together. The idea that you could make the game feel "fresh" by putting in a character with a wall-jump or some shit is ridiculous. 47 can already do anything a character in that game would need to be able to do. (Which doesn't exclude there being different character SKINS, but that's another story.)
#3: 47 is interesting in that he's this hyper-serious guy who's both incredibly inconspicuous and the embodiment of suspicion, and then he dresses up in wacky outfits and has to play along with the people he's trying to subvert or kill. Tobias Rieper (47's hillarious default alias whenever he has to give his name) is the character, 47 is just the driving force. Woolie doesn't really know anything about these last two hitman games so i get why he doesn't know, but the way they've leaned into the absurdity and menace of 47 is the absolute perfect fit for the kind of sense of humor the games have always had in stuff like guard conversations and whatnot.
#4: also pat you can totally complete challenges like the assault rifle one "silently", as long as you isolate your target and hide the body before anyone investigating the shots can find it + you. "silent assassin" doesn't mean "nobody heard a loud bang", it just means nobody had knowledge of an intentional murder or physical assault happening, and only the target was killed.