Originally published December 2016

Welcome back to my series of reviews on the various Hitman games in the franchise. Earlier this year, I noticed that I owned all of the Hitman games, however, I had never played any of them. With a desire to try to work through my backlog, I was determined to find out what made these games such cult favorites and to see if they would make me a fan too. I started with the original and worked my way up through the sequels. At last, I have caught up to the most recent release here in 2016. And none too soon, it seems. In fact, I don't think I could have timed my fervent desire to try out the series any better than I did, considering the fact that the newest one came out this year. Going into it, I still didn't consider myself a fan, even with all the fun I had with the more recent entries. Until now.

Disclaimer: HITMAN (2016) is different from the rest in how the game is priced and sold. Its structure allows players to pay for the whole package, or individual portions at a time. Each portion is a significant chunk of content that is designed very much like the rest of the game. Therefore, if you are considering purchasing the game, it's important to note: in its format, not every episode is as good as the others, so your experience may vary. I meanwhile bought the whole Season 1 package, so that experience impacted me a lot less. Regardless of what form you may choose to purchase this game because you should purchase it, it's still the best Hitman game yet.

This review is for the version of the game that was released as a full season 1 package in November 2016. User experience may vary as changes and updates are made to the game's performance and interface.

HITMAN

In case you skipped through my disclaimer, as people tend to do when things are italicized, I'll repeat myself to make sure you know upfront what I'm going to be saying about this game: This is the best Hitman game they've ever made. I will gladly say that statement again at the end of this review to drive the point home as well. If you've been tracking these "Killing Time" reviews, you may have noted that it wasn't until Blood Money that I started to feel some appreciation for the series and how it was finally capable of living up to the expectations I had for so long. After Blood Money, I moved on to Hitman: Absolution. Despite it being the black sheep of the franchise for most fans, I still had a lot of fun with Absolution. I knew it wasn't quite the game people wanted, but there were some good mechanics there. I felt fortunate that I was not yet a fan because it allowed me to enjoy the game more for what it was. But that's all changed since this game's release.

I'm a fan now. HITMAN has taken the groundwork and foundation that Blood Money and Absolution have laid and built upon it a mighty platform of massive maps, satisfying and challenging scenarios, a seemingly endless supply of content, and a true sense of creative freedom. With each new update, more content has been added to further extend the value of the package, and it's likely to continue for a long time. This is the best Hitman game they've made for so many reasons, it will be a challenge to keep this review from being anything less than 5000 words of gushing praise.

From Pariah to Paragon

Before we get to the real meat of what makes this game so good, let's first just acknowledge what the developers at IO Interactive managed to do with a brief history lesson on their trajectory for this game leading up to its release. The previous title, Hitman: Absolution, while still a financial success, was a bit of a flop for fans. It was a game that made some money but at the cost of people's expectations for the series going forward. Fans were concerned about the direction of the series, and worried if the next Hitman game was going to be any good. Eventually, the next game was announced and it seemed to be on track for its release, up until about a month before it was scheduled to come out. Suddenly, the publisher, Square-Enix, retracted and refunded all the pre-orders for the game and informed the public that the next Hitman game would be using a different pay model. It would no longer be one single package, but a series of individual episodes players could buy separately, or all together as a season once they were all released.

You don't get everything with the first episode, but this one level is still pretty good. — Image: IO Interactive

This move set off a lot of red flags for players and critics. Changing the pay model for a game, as well as the release date(s), only a month before it was supposed to come out made every fan terrified that the game was just going to fall apart at the seams. This was a huge change to make on short notice and certainly made people question if the developers even knew what they were doing anymore. Not to mention, the episode payment model is still something new when it comes to video games. As such, episodic releases are somewhat reviled or ignored by numerous game consumers. Even I'm not a fan of paying for something piecemeal and would rather just get something all at once. As I mentioned in the disclaimer, I waited until the "first season" was on sale and purchased everything as one inclusive package.

However, after the first episode came out, fears were tempered. Players found that the developers truly took the criticisms of Absolution to heart and even some of the praise. They brought back the Instinct mechanics that allowed Agent 47 to see interactable objects and characters more clearly. They brought back the map-editor mode of Contracts that allowed players to create their own challenges for maps. They also added and improved the challenge system from Absolution which was designed to give players more direction in their murdering methods. What's more, the episodic format seemed to work in the game's favor. The levels they released with each episode were massive maps full of content, intended to allow players to master their layouts and challenges. Once people seemed to be satisfied with their time on that map, a new location was released, breathing new life into the game. In addition to this, the developers included special contracts for those levels that are available for only a limited time, as a method of motivating people to keep coming back.

With the overwhelming praise this game has gotten for defying the odds and low expectations, IO Interactive has already confirmed a second season of episodes for next year. Considering the amount of fun I've had so far, I might buy into the episodic format after all. However, that isn't to say the game is flawless.

Lingering Flaws

Before I get into all the reasons why I like this game so much, I'd like to be up-front about its flaws. That way, if you're on the fence about it and still reading this review to determine whether or not it's worth you, you can know if there are any deal-breakers right away.

Always Online

The game, as it exists at the end of its first season, has an offline mode that was added after the second episode came out, but playing offline in this game is not ideal. For whatever reason, the challenges, opportunities, and other features that add to the experience of experimentation in HITMAN require that you be connected to the internet. If you complete the challenges offline, they are updated the next time you sign it, but it's still not great that to really experience a single-player game properly, you must be logged into their network.

Load Times

While the load times on the PC are not as bad as they seem to be on consoles, it can still take a while to get into a level. I have also had the game stall out completely after asking it to reload an autosave one too many times. It can take especially long to connect with the HITMAN servers when you want to go online as well.

Ported

This game is an obvious port from consoles. While it supports better graphics capabilities on the PC with even DirectX 12 as an option (though not recommended), the interface is clearly designed with a controller in mind. It's then also disappointing that the mouse wheel cannot be mapped like other controls on a keyboard, which means that if you want to change the items that you're carrying, you have to go into a menu each time and select the item individually.

Opacity

An unavoidable issue of a physics-driven game like this is that things are not always obvious in how they will behave and it becomes the job of the player to work around the obvious mistakes and hiccups. While the option to subdue someone quietly as they walk ahead of you up or down the stairs, you simply cannot do so and must use a different method of disabling them if you wish to remain unseen. It's also difficult to always tell when and how things are calculated by the game. Why am I immediately considered trespassing as soon as I walk through an imaginary barrier when there is no one or sign there to notify me? Why can I shoot out a camera and it's unnoticed the first time, but the next few times it sends up a "Crime Noticed" alert? The game is not always clear what is happening and why.

The World is Yours

But let's finally get into the real business of HITMAN and why it's so good: Choice and variety.

Experimentation & Mastery

My biggest gripe I had with the early entries in the franchise was the illusion of choice in the methods available for completing a mission. There were certainly some options, but the games rarely rewarded you for trying to get creative in your methods, let alone providing you with a gameplay format to do so. Blood Money was the first to feel like it was all about the choice of the player, but there were still some limitations simply due to the technology of the time. Absolution was a fun stealth-shooter, but somewhat back-peddled on the part of being creative with how the scoring system seemed to work. The HITMAN of 2016, however, is built all around experimentation.

If you were to only buy the first episode of Season 1, you would get the tutorial levels and the mission that takes place in Paris at a fashion show. This may sound minuscule in terms of content for $15, but if you consider the fact that I've played through that level and the tutorials at least 10 times each, doing so has taken about 13 hours, and I still haven't even done 50% of what they suggest for the Paris level, you might feel a little differently about the time/cost ratio.

HITMAN is a game that gets better as you get better at it. The first time you go through a mission, you're likely going to be spotted trespassing, or your disguise will get compromised, and that's okay. The game expects you to fail and to try again, but to do so having learned the lessons of the level. Eventually, you'll start thinking about guards patrolling paths, character behavior, which people will recognize one disguise versus another, what levels of security each disguise has, etc. For instance, in Paris, there are two different waiter outfits. The red vest gets you clearance to the ground floor and basement, while the teal vest gets you access to all the floors. The guards don't know if you're a waiter or not, but the other waiters and their managers might.

Once you've gotten a grasp on the layout of the level, where the various miscellaneous items are, and what areas are restricted, then you can start watching the paths of your targets. You might notice a speaker system dangling above a doorway they keep passing through that you could send tumbling down upon them. You might notice a glass they keep drinking from that could facilitate a nice drop of poison. You might notice they tend to lean over a certain balcony occasionally and it would be a shame if they took a tumble. You might notice that there is a particular event that takes place during the level, which provides a particular opportunity to eliminate them in dramatic style, such as a chandelier falling atop one during a public speech.

When you've learned enough about the level to see these various opportunities, you may still find that there are dozens of other methods available as well through the "opportunities" that the game provides. As you wander through the level, characters will be chatting with each other. Sometimes, they'll say something benign, such as a person's addiction to cigarettes or a favorite type of drink, but this information can be used to your advantage to set up a scenario. For example, in the Paris level, you can pass by these two people talking about a particular model in the show, who happens to share a resemblance to Agent 47. If you find him, you can knock him out or kill him, take his clothes, get his make-up applied for the show, walk the catwalk, and then get special access to the targets to eliminate as you please. Do you do something poetic as this supermodel, or go with the signature garrotte wire? It's up to you.

Escalating in Value

The other missions in this game are similar in the range of possibilities and creativity available. So what may seem on the surface to be only a few levels of content is actually hours upon hours of experimentation and mastery. If the idea of going through the same environments again and again to try different approaches to the same problem sounds boring to you, don't tune out just yet. There's even more to these levels. HITMAN also provides "escalations" which are more elaborate and advanced challenges for a level designed to change your approach even more. These escalations change around the pass/fail requirements of the mission, such as the disguise you have to use, the weapon you have to use, the opportunity you must use, etc. It also can change around the targets of the level. You may not have to eliminate the story-line targets at all and have to just eliminate a random character you never noticed before. In addition to these escalations is the return of "Contracts" from Hitman: Absolution, the map editor for players to select new targets for a level and the pass/fail requirements. The core levels, escalations, and contracts created by players add hours upon hours of content to a single episode.

As you go through all these escalations, contracts, challenges, and opportunities, you unlock new bonuses to a level. These bonuses include new weapons and items you can smuggle in on your person. You can also unlock items to be smuggled into specific locations of a level. In addition to this, you can unlock new starting positions of the level, making it easier and quicker to gain access to specific areas. With all this content designed to train you in the methods of becoming a master assassin, you might not think there's much the developers could add to this.

The fun does not end when you get a high score — Image: IO Interactive

Elusive Targets

In addition to the wealth of content that HITMAN holds, there is the Elusive Target feature designed to give an extra challenge to people who buy in and play the game while it's new and active. Elusive Targets are specific characters created for a map that are not normally in the level. These characters have their own sets of dialogue as well as character interactions and routines. They also typically come equipped with their own entourage of guards, making it more difficult to eliminate them without being noticed. Each of these targets has its own set of challenges and is truly designed to put the most patient assassin to the test.

What makes them so special beyond simply these little quirks? There's a limited time to do them. When a new Elusive Target is released, players have a week to attempt to take the target out before the mission is no longer available. According to the developers, once it's gone, it's gone forever. In addition to this, players only get one shot at eliminating the target with no quick saves to help mitigate mistakes. I have yet to complete all the escalations for the levels or get a Silent Assassin rank on an Elusive Target, but I can say that these challenges and their inherent difficulty add such an exciting layer of tension to the mission that it is the ultimate rush when completing it. It's a great addition to the core content, and a brilliant method of enticing players to jump on board the game earlier, rather than later.

Oozing Personality

The last main thing I want to touch upon with this review is how much personality HITMAN has. The game looks great, even on my measly computer hardware at medium settings.

The art design is all there. The random people walking through a level don't look like crappy low-resolution NPCs like they did in Hitman: Absolution. The levels themselves sport a lot of different colors and layers of complexity to them. There's just so much detail to everything in the game that further adds to the character of the world.

What made me realize that I wanted HITMAN just for the world alone was the tutorial. The tutorial is presented as the training scenarios that Agent 47 went through when he joined the assassination agency. Since they were supposed to just be training scenarios, and since the facility was located in an undisclosed location in the mountains somewhere, there's some distinct brilliance to how everything is presented.

Training takes place inside missile silos. It's awesome. — Image: IO Interactive

The first mission requires 47 to board a yacht during a house-boat party and assassinate a famous thief; "everything is simulated, of course." Since he's supposed to board a yacht, in the middle of the mountains, that creates some complications, right? If you take the time to actually look at the environment, you'll quickly realize that the yacht is made of cheap plywood, and the palm trees that sprinkle the area around the "port" are in planters on carts to be quickly moved around for another training simulation if necessary. In addition to all these little details, if you just look up, you'll see that your mission is taking place inside a missile silo. This level of detail is applied to the core levels, the things characters say, and how everyone moves and interacts. It's brilliant.

What makes HITMAN so great about how it presents this stuff is that there is a strong sense of self-awareness to everything. This is a game that knows it's a video game. The developers clearly considered when it made more sense to have the world behave realistically, or when it made more sense to have everything just work better for the sake of making it more fun. In these moments when you can see how the structure of a video game won the argument against realism, there are some details that are very tongue-in-cheek with the clever, dark humor of the Hitman franchise.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

There's so much more I'd love to say about this game and why it's so good and even where its flaws lie—minor as they are—but this review has gone on far too long already. HITMAN is the best game in the Hitman franchise. Never before have I felt that such freedom has been given to players for approaching missions. The game provides plenty of challenges and opportunities to guide players down different paths to some creative methods of accomplishing missions. However, the real fun comes in when the training wheels come off and the player is confident enough to turn off the different notifications and really start experimenting. With the amount of challenges, escalations, and player-created contracts in addition to the core missions, each individual episode of Season 1 is guaranteed to entertain the patient players who are willing to play each mission over and over in new ways. I've enjoyed some Hitman games before this one, but HITMAN is the first to make me a die-hard fan.

If you are considering only getting some of the episodes instead of the whole package, and you want an idea of which episodes are the most fun, I've included my ranking, from favorite to least-favorite of the different levels based on their design and the escalations included:

Paris, France (Episode 1)
Sapienza, Italy (Episode 2)
Hokaido, Japan (Episode 6)
Marrakech, Morroco (Episode 3)
Bangkok, Thailand (Episode 4)
Colorodo, USA (Episode 5)

IO Interactive has confirmed Season 2 is on the way, which will add to the current game much like the previous episodes and I will be there to eat it up on day 1.

Do you agree or disagree? Is the Hitman series a special favorite for you? Tell me what you think in the comments here or on Facebook.

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HITMAN (2016) - Review (Killing Time part 6)