Arthur Edwards, otherwise known as The Constant, was the top controller and second-in-command of Providence, answering only to the Partners. He takes over Providence after 47 assassinates the Partners.
He is the main antagonist of the World of Assassination trilogy, where he serves as a major character in HITMAN™, the secondary antagonist of HITMAN™ 2, and the main antagonist of HITMAN™ III. He is the target of the HITMAN™ III mission Untouchable.
Background[]
As the top controller and chief strategist of Providence, Edwards was the only person who reported directly to the Partners, and was entrusted with their true identities. He was the architect behind Providence's every machination, and the head of the "Heralds"; Providence's corps of field handlers who communicate the Partners' orders down the ranks of the organization.
For decades, Edwards has ranked among the most powerful individuals in the world. And yet, his smug and patronizing demeanor hides a deep-seated inferiority complex. A middle class meritocrat, Edwards long expected to eventually make Partner. But when he realized that, despite all his diligence and dedication, Stuyvesant, Ingram and Carlisle would never acknowledge him as an equal, he instead plotted their downfall.
Edwards' infatuation with Diana Burnwood appears to be of an entirely cerebral nature. He sees Diana as an intellectual equal, and his ego demands that he not only outmaneuvers Diana, but converts her to his cause. This is his Achilles' heel, allowing him to make an unusual lapse in judgement. By trusting Diana, Edwards has left himself momentarily exposed. It will likely never happen again.Events of HITMAN™[]
After a mysterious Shadow Client assassinated Providence Herald Eugene Cobb and manipulated the ICA into foiling two of Providence's plans (the development of a virus weapon by Ether and a coup to take over Morocco), Edwards and Cobb's successor, Alexander Fanin, visited the Providence archive in New York. Upon discussing the recent events, Edwards deduced that Providence had been compromised; he and Fanin discovered that the Shadow Client had raided the vault and obtained information on all their assets and operatives.
Providence collaborated with former ICA training director Erich Soders to gain control over the ICA's activities and deploy them in their war against the Shadow Client. The ICA learned of Soders' treachery and retaliated by sending Agent 47 to assassinate him and Providence Herald Yuki Yamazaki in Hokkaido, Japan, thwarting a transaction in which Providence was to receive a list of active ICA operatives. In the aftermath of Soders' death, the Constant personally confronted 47's Handler Diana Burnwood on a train. He assured her that there would be no action taken against the ICA for the recent transgressions and proposed a partnership between Providence and the ICA to eliminate the Shadow Client. Though she initially rebuked his offer, Diana capitulated when Edwards presented her a photo of a young 47, implying Providence knew about his past.
Events of HITMAN™ 2[]
One week later, the ICA board accepted Edwards' contract to eliminate the Shadow Client and, after 47 eliminated one of his militia's top lieutenants, Alma Reynard, reported that Edwards gave them carte blanche into dismantling the Client's operations--especially after a recent string of attacks on Providence-backed CEOs. Edwards then approved for the ICA to eliminate two Providence defectors, Robert Knox and his daughter, Sierra, who were seeking to cut a deal with the militia.
Though Partner Marcus Stuyvesant was concerned about "axing their own" as they were already steadily losing operatives, Edwards assured he and the other Partners that the Knoxes were traitors and would have caused significant damage to Providence had they not been eliminated. Continuing a tense discussion with his supervisors, Edwards revealed the identity of the Client as mercenary Lucas Grey; he then informed the ICA, who subsequently sent 47 to neutralize Grey's operations in Santa Fortuna, Colombia, and Mumbai, India.
Later, Edwards meets with the Partners again to discuss the recent assassination of Janus, unaware that they had been manipulated via a falsified ICA report by Diana--now in league with Grey--into believing Janus was the true head of the militia all along. Despite Edwards feeling betrayed at his mentor's apparent deception, the Partners forced him into injecting himself with a poison chip to ensure his loyalty; insulted, Edwards begrudgingly obliged.
As per tradition, Edwards was scheduled to be present at the Ark Society's annual gathering on the Isle of Sgàil, from where he was eventually kidnapped by 47 and Grey and later interrogated regarding the identities of the Partners. Realizing he's been compromised, and feeling humiliated by his employers, he divulges their real names--only for Grey's hacker Olivia Hall to find that they've faked their deaths and are transitioning between identities. To this end, Edwards advises the team to "follow the money" in order to seek them out.
Even though the team eventually pinpoints the location of the Partners, Diana discovers that Edwards had escaped his captivity on their freighter and absconded with the controlling shares of the Providence empire.
Events of HITMAN™ III[]
Diana reveals to the team that Edwards had escaped after bribing a sailor to set him free and has since been usurping Providence assets and resources. Their attack against the Partners, however, would remain unchanged; following the assassination of both Carl Ingram and Marcus Stuyvesant in Dubai, Edwards calls Burnwood at her office. After she accuses him of planning the Partners' deaths, he states that he was only playing the hand he was dealt, believing that the Partners were complacent. He then tells her that she will soon understand that Providence can be an agent of change.
Soon after 47 and Grey eliminate the sole surviving Partner, Alexa Carlisle, in England, Edwards sends in a team of CICADA mercenaries to capture Grey alive--forcing Grey to commit suicide in order to protect 47 and Olivia--before confronting Burnwood in her office. Believing she would be invaluable to Providence, he hands her a record of 47's 1989 contract on her parents, Nancy and Peter, telling her that she owes 47 nothing.
Edwards later hires the ICA to hunt down 47 and Olivia in Berlin, but handler Jiao's hit squad fails his request when 47 manages to fight back.
Meanwhile, Burnwood, having now retreated to a cabin in the woods, receives a call from Edwards at his private office. Believing that the Partners' assassinations did nothing to undermine Providence's power, he offers her a role as a Herald, something she accepts after the ICA is later exposed by 47 and Olivia.
After Burnwood lures 47 to Argentina to eliminate Edwards' aides Don Archibald Yates and Tamara Vidal, she then activates a sedative poison to incapacitate him. On board a train to a private CICADA base in Mongolia, Edwards plans to personally administer an advanced version of the memory-erasing serum to 47, believing that he would be a powerful tool for his newly-reformed Providence. However, before he is able to do so, 47 regains consciousness as the train passes through the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. Making his way through the train, 47 then confronts Edwards at the front carriage after disconnecting it from the rest of the cars. Realizing that Burnwood had manipulated him into trusting her, he refuses to believe that she would be able to resist Providence's power. He calmly offers 47 another dose of the memory-erasing serum, asking him to embrace who he was always meant to be. After 47 refuses, Edwards calmly expresses his defeat and stands up without any resistance. He looks at a mirror and 47 is free to kill him in any way he’d like. 47 then either kills him or injects him with the serum, stops the train, and leaves.
Trivia[]
- At the end of Untouchable, a hidden, non-canonical easter egg ending becomes available if, rather than killing or injecting Edwards, 47 does nothing and waits for 47 seconds. Edwards eventually asks if 47 has had a change of heart. The player is then offered the option to take the serum, in which case 47 collapses, with Arthur thanking him and promising to 'take care of him'. 47 then finds himself in a room identical to the Asylum from the beginning of Hitman: Codename 47, with Edwards adressing him the same way Dr. Ort-Meier did decades before.
- In Another Life, Janus tells 47 (undercover as his nurse) that he left Providence during the initial decline of Ort-Meyer's laboratory, and explicitly mentions the memory wipe the clones (and therefore 47) went through, and never found out what became of the project. Therefore, both Janus and Edwards are seen in Birth of the Hitman where Edwards assumed the role of Constant sometime after the memory wipe in 1989 and before 47's escape in 1999.
- Janus recalls the day he passed the torch to Edwards during a private concert in Vienna, Austria.
- Edwards is first seen in-game in the cutscene Providence is Under Attack, while his title of "The Constant" is first mentioned during Ezra Berg's interrogation of the captured Herald, Bronson, in Freedom Fighters. The name Arthur Edwards is first revealed in The Ark Society, found in the Constant's Intel inside his private safe.
- He is the only VIP in the trilogy that later becomes a target.
- Edwards will converse with several of his Heralds across the two games:
- During Situs Inversus, Yuki Yamazaki will have a phone conversation with him regarding Soders' surgery and Hajun's death.
- During The Ark Society, he will call Mikhail Kadir regarding the ICA's involvement in Janus and Nolan Cassidy's mysterious deaths, as well as a robbery in Belgium perpetuated by Orson Mills, now ex-militia.
- He appears as a VIP during The Ark Society mission, in which his death will cause the mission to fail.
- There have been fan theories that Edwards and the Mystery Man from Hitman 2: Silent Assassin are the same person. However, Nick Price of IO Interactive denied on Twitter in January 2021 that they are connected.
- The Constant is the first and only main antagonist to have an undetermined status. He is one of several targets to have this distinction, alongside Lenny Dexter and the targets of Flatline, Murder at the Bazaar, Temple City Ambush, Invitation to a Party and Apex Predator.
- Edwards is one of only six targets in the World of Assassination trilogy to physically appear in more than one mission, along with Andrea Martinez, Janus and the judges in the Dartmoor Garden Show (Lucy Philips, Sebastian Sato and Cornelia Stuyvesant)
- According to two Heralds in The Farewell, Edwards' master plan as new leader of Providence entails transforming the secret shadow cabal into a fully legal, entirely official supra-national corporate entity called "Destiny Group" by merging its corporations under a single roof, beyond any state jurisdiction--in effect, creating the world's first sovereign corporate state, its headquarters based at the Ark Society's Hyperborea site in Greenland.
- Carl Ingram's monologue into the recorder during On Top of the World hints that Edwards may have had an idealistically-motivated role in the public sector before being steadily groomed and recruited into Providence by Carl Ingram, perhaps beginning during Ingram's years as a White House foreign policy advisor in the late 1980s.
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