Hitman (2016)

Though the Hitman franchise has existed since 2000, I didn’t actually play any of the games until 2012’s Hitman: Absolution, which, while flawed, got me interested in playing the World of Assassination Trilogy, starting with Hitman in 2016. Due to the game’s episodic release, however, I waited until the Steelbook Edition, which collected all six episodes onto one disc, before I actually played it. However, I never reviewed any of the Hitman games, so with the release of Hitman 3, I’m going to rectify that starting with Hitman, a highly enjoyable, if flawed, start to the World of Assassination Trilogy.

During the Prologue, the player controls Agent 47 during his initiation into the ICA, who are baffled by the lack of any information or background from him. His handler, Diana Burnwood, helps him complete a field test that was rigged against him by Erich Sodors, the ICA’s Training Director. Twenty years later, 47 is tasked with contracts given to him by Diana, who has risen to senior position in the ICA. At first, the contracts seem unrelated, but they gradually reveal the existence of a Shadow Client, as well as a secret organization called Providence, each with their own agenda.

The Prologue acts as a prequel to the entire series.

The Shadow Client storyline is actually pretty engaging, with a major late-game twist that recontextualizes 47’s targets in a meaningful way and ties back into the events of the Prologue. Though there are cutscenes, they’re short, but effective and the story is delivered in a way that if you really wanted to, you could ignore it in favor of the gameplay. During the Briefing portion of a mission, you can also view a short cutscene that gives the Target context, mainly who they are, who ordered the hit and why the Target should die. Targets are usually pretty despicable people in their own right, like developing an advanced virus or literally getting away with murder, which helps the idea that 47 is an assassin who’s just following his orders. As a small touch, 47’s alias during missions is Tobias Rieper. Though the actual context comes from a completely optional event in the first level, the name is very fitting for his trade.

After the Prologue in the ICA Facility, where the player goes through a very effective tutorial, Agent 47 is assigned six assassination Targets across six highly-detailed sandbox-style levels: Paris, France; Sapienza, Italy; Marrakesh, Morocco; Bangkok, Thailand; Colorado, USA; and Hokkaido, Japan. Each level is pretty manageable in size and the approach to each mission stretches your creativity by giving you the Target and the tools to help take them out, but leaving the approach to each Target and elimination method up to you. For instance, in the Paris level, you can reach the Target on the top floor of the main building by disguising yourself as someone who could easily get past security or by finding and showing off an invitation meant for someone named Tobias Rieper.

Before going into the field, you’re given the opportunity to prepare and go in with the loadout you think will best help you eliminate the Target or give yourself a challenge. Loadouts usually consist of a disguise, weapon and two pieces of Gear, like the default Fiber Wire and Coins, though you can also set the starting location and smuggle in an extra item to a chosen location on the map. When choosing an item, it’s best to know their strengths and weaknesses and the differences between different versions within the same group. For instance, Emetic poisons will make whoever ingests them look for a place to throw up while Lethal poisons will kill the Target on the spot. As another example, distraction items are good for sneaking past NPCs or getting your Target into position, but you have to keep in mind that only the closest NPC will go to where the item was thrown and may pick up whatever they find, like the Coins. Explosives can also come in handy, but most will draw attention to you if you’re discovered carrying them. The Pale Duck, my personal favorite explosive item, won’t attract attention or get spotted during a frisk, so I often smuggled it into the level as a useful last resort item.

The Pale Duck is the best and you can't convince me otherwise
(screenshot from the PC version).

The one exception while playing normally is Hokkaido, Japan, a level set in a highly secure area where you must procure everything on site. Though you can still choose your starting point and smuggle in an item, Agent 47 is on his own with everything else. This restriction makes completing missions more challenging through testing all of the skills you’ve learned, but can lead to some very memorable moments and uniquely satisfying assassinations.

While in the field, your disguise can affect what parts of the level you can access or what actions you can perform, including otherwise illegal ones. Wearing a guard disguise, for instance, lets you openly carry a weapon or enter more heavily armed areas while kitchen staff disguises let you access staff areas and openly poison food and drink. Disguises aren’t infallible, however, as some NPCs can easily see through you, forcing a more creative workaround. From my playthrough, however, I observed that some disguises almost break a level in half. For example, if you can dress up as Helmut Kruger in the Paris level, NPCs will let you access almost any area you want without question simply because Agent 47 bears a striking resemblance to him. Similarly, the Point Man disguise in Colorado will arouse the least amount of suspicion because it conceals 47’s face, but it’s balanced by barring you from entry into the farmhouse and the fact that entering certain areas still counts as trespassing.

The right disguise can change everything.

If you’re stuck or need a good starting point, you’re given a set of challenges you can complete, which the game encourages using as a way of sparking ideas for assassinations. You can also explore the levels and discover information from listening to NPCs or reading certain documents. Some of these Discoveries can lead to Opportunities, which suggest an elimination method and even give you steps that will achieve it. Should you lose track of your Target or need some way of gauging distances outside of the mini-map, Agent 47 can use his Instinct to highlight the Target in red. Instinct also slows down time even while 47 is moving, though this ability is disabled while sprinting as a form of game balance.

While players can choose to go into a mission guns blazing or taking the encouraged stealth route, you’re scored at the end of your mission based on your performance and quick stealth tactics usually result in a higher score, with penalties for any collateral damage. If you’re a bit too obvious, like firing with a non-silenced weapon, you can also trigger a Target Lockdown, which can make the mission last longer or make escape that much more difficult. When you’re just learning the level layouts and the different methods available to you, a level can take as long as forty-five minutes, but some missions can last as little as five depending on your strategy.

Although Hitman has only six maps outside of the ICA Facility, Challenges offer a ton of replay value, increasing your Mastery rank for each unique one completed. As your Mastery rank improves, Agent 47 gains access to additional Gear, weapons and starting locations, each with their own unique advantages. As you play through levels multiple times, you may discover more efficient methods of reaching certain goals or completing different Challenges. If you get tired of the campaign missions, you can also try Escalation Contracts, a series of three to five Targets with increasingly tight restrictions on how you can approach each one, including specific elimination methods or wearing certain disguises. While you’re connected online, you can also create or play Custom Contracts, where players can select their own parameters and challenge others.

You can even give yourself an extra challenge and use a sniper rifle.

For an additional challenge, there are official bonus missions released by IO Interactive that add additional content and replay value. PlayStation owners have access to an exclusive campaign called The Sarajevo Six, where Agent 47 is tasked with killing six Targets who have ties with those from the main campaign. While it sounds exciting on paper, this campaign is pretty underwhelming, as it recycles the campaign missions with no changes except who the new Target is and they only have one or two unique Challenges each. The biggest annoyance is that you can’t save your game during a Sarajevo Six mission, which leads to a lot of trial and error if you mess up, especially against The Controller in Hokkaido, which includes an additional mission that causes immediate failure if Agent 47 gets spotted even once.

By comparison, the other bonus missions were far more entertaining. Holiday Hoarders reuses the Paris map in full, but really goes all out with the Christmas theme, down to decorations and ambient Santa noises, plus a pretty cheesy concept for Targets and the opportunity to disguise Agent 47 as Santa. Three other missions, The Icon, Landslide and A House Built On Sand, each change up the Sapienza and Marrakesh maps so they feel fresh while adding their own interesting mini-stories. In The Icon, for instance, Agent 47 as hired by a film studio to kill a director whose film has gone way overbudget and could bankrupt them. There’s one more bonus campaign called Patient Zero, but I didn’t end up playing it because it was locked behind the Game of the Year release of the game and the paid Game of the Year upgrade pack for the base version. As such, I can’t comment on it.

As much as I loved the gameplay, some annoyances do hold it back a little. From my understanding, you can play the entire game offline, but Hitman practically insists that you play online and create an IOI account, though you can skip this option and even set it to never ask you again. If you play offline, however, you lose access to Custom Contracts and can’t connect to the PlayStation Store through the game to buy or download DLC. During the game’s first year, and in one other window of time afterwards, the player could track and assassinate Elusive Targets, who showed up for a specific window of real-life time and you could only kill them once. Considering this game as created with single-player in mind, this decision always rubbed me the wrong way, especially since the game forever tracks whether or not you’ve missed them.

Some rewards were also locked behind Elusive Targets.

There’s also the issue of inconsistent AI. At least once when I got caught in the act, an NPC reported me to a guard while I stood there and they went through the whole routine of describing Agent 47’s appearance at that moment, but didn’t try killing him until after going through the whole routine. If something interrupts a Target’s normal pattern, like spotting a gun on the ground, they’ll prioritize taking care of the problem and then complete their pattern like nothing happened. While this doesn’t sound like much of an issue, it can mess up the timing for assassination at the wrong moment if you’re not careful about when it happens. You can even exploit the AI pretty easily, since the Emetic Poison route of elimination isn’t that hard once you know exactly which items to poison and when. Targets won’t even stop going for a toilet when they feel like vomiting, so you can poison them and then wait in the nearest bathroom for a quick and easy drowning.

If you follow a unique Opportunity to kill the Target, you may notice quickly that the game practically holds your hand, guiding you through each and every step through a series of waypoints. While there are shortcuts for some steps, like finding a disguise without subduing the one NPC it highlights, the waypoints are still there. Fortunately, if you don’t like this or want to figure it out on your own, you can always downplay the waypoints or disable them entirely.

Years later, Hitman is still a visually impressive game, featuring a realistic amount of detail without noticeably dropping the framerate even once throughout an entire playthrough. There’s some occasional clipping, but not enough that it breaks the game or takes away from the experience. Each level also features some great ambient audio and the dynamic music really adds to the experience and sound design. The track that plays during the main menu, “A World of Assassination” also does a great job setting the tone and pairs well with preparing for a high-stakes operation.

If you ignore the handholding and can deal with the online aspect of Hitman, it’s a great game with plenty of memorable moments and level design that lets players experiment with the best method of accomplishing their goal. Whether or not you’re already a fan of the Hitman series, this stealth game is worth playing.