Hitman Review
code : MAKRAM
Agent 47 never takes this long. The 2016 version of Hitman plays like the longest assassination of the chrome-domed killer’s lengthy career, thanks to developer IO Interactive’s decision to issue the game via six chapters released roughly from spring to fall. But I’m certainly not complaining about the marketing, given that the final package showcases some of the most enthralling exploits of gaming’s most infamous murderer-for-hire. Sprawling levels, tremendous attention to detail with both graphics and sound design, and countless assassination options make this an engrossing experience that includes some of the best replay value ever seen in a game.
Having come into this season of Hitman only after it was complete, I can’t render a judgment about how the game was released in an episodic format. I’m glad that I got to play through it as a complete experience, and I can’t imagine having to wait weeks to go on my next assignment. But at the same time, I see the appeal of tackling each of the game’s six separate assignments (plus the opening training missions that flash back to the beginning of Agent 47’s career) one by one, given just how much gameplay is jammed into each of them. The individual missions here send you jetting all over the globe like a bald James Bond with a barcode on the back of his head. Everything is linked via brief cutscenes that focus on a figure from Agent 47’s past. But the levels are so big and so packed with details that they take on lives of their own, much like separate movies in a franchise.
The attention to detail is otherwise superb, though. I typically took a good hour or two wandering around each level, listening in to conversations, and just generally getting the lay of the land before deciding on a course of action. The game offers dozens of ways to kill every target--and even more routes to take to get to them before you shoot them, garrotte them, drown them in toilets, blow them up, poison them, blast them out of an ejector seat in a jet plane, and so on. Every assignment also comes with loads of different people in loads of different professions, which provides even more routes to your victims via the outfits you can remove from their corpses for use as disguises. Want to stay in a secret-agent tux? Or even a snazzy summer suit? Sure thing. But you can also ditch the formal outfits for the garb of a security guard, a male supermodel, a scientist in a hazmat suit, a plague doctor, a chef, and many, many more.
Granted, all of the above makes Hitman more of a funhouse ride than a grim series of contract killings. While it’s fun to encounter switches that drop chandeliers, a hookah that can be poisoned, convenient wire-and-puddle combos that can be turned into electrocution traps, and murderous random accoutrements from bombs to scissors to swords to bricks to fire extinguishers to pretty much everything but the kitchen sink, everything goes well over the top. The game is more of a cartoon than any sort of authentic exploration of the world of contract assassinations--which is certainly a good thing, both for the way this lightens the mood (any game where you can blow up a guy who’s puking into a toilet isn’t one that takes itself too seriously, despite the body count) and also how it provides so much room for murderous creativity.
I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with so many options to reach its goals. The first time through a level is just the beginning. Replay value is spectacular, and maybe even unprecedented for a Hitman game, given the massive size and scope of the levels, the number of NPCs, the number of murderous gadgets and weapons littering every room and corridor, and also because of the added options that open up after an initial run-through. Completing mission challenges unlock frills like new weapons, disguises, and starting locations, which of course offer up new ways to get to and finish off your marks.
And then there is Escalation Mode, a new feature that adds requirements to existing levels. It basically creates new missions that involve you offing multiple new targets in specific ways. Difficulty goes up with each successful assassination assignment. Escalations start with things like murdering a few people in specific ways, say by explosives, and then move on to more complex goals like killing while wearing a specific disguise, finishing off all of your targets in a tight time limit, dumping all the bodies in one location, and so forth.
Elusive Targets is a timed mode that lets you go after special victims (who can’t be seen on the map) with just one chance at success before you lose the contract forever. IO releases these victims into the wild at set times and leaves them up for limited periods of time until they vanish, never to be heard from again. It’s a great added incentive to keep going back to the game, even long after the standard missions and their added challenges wear thin. And Contracts Mode (brought back from 2012’s Hitman: Absolution) allows you to mark random NPCs as targets and set kill requirements, creating missions that can be shared with other players.
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