HITMAN 2 (2018) - Review
Originally published December 2018Back in 2016, I did a quick journey through all the Hitman video games, starting with the original Hitman: Agent 47 and making my way one by one through the sequels up until I finally hit one that I really enjoyed. It was a rough start, as I didn't really like the first 3 games of the franchise. However, as the games grew in complexity and as the mechanics became more refined, I definitely started to see what made them special. While I certainly wouldn't say I agree with the general Hitman fanbase about which games are the "best" or the "worst," I will say that by the time I was done with 2016's HITMAN, I was ravenous for more. Two years later, HITMAN 2 is finally out, and it's just what I wanted.
It almost didn't happen, however. Due to some poor management from the original publisher of HITMAN, the developer, IO Interactive, was almost sold off into obscurity, along with its notorious IP. It was through some miraculous efforts and unfortunate sacrifices that the company was able to buy itself out of the situation and remain intact and in control of its intellectual properties. Thus, the project was continued from where it had left off. Since the original HITMAN was an episodic game, meant to have multiple seasons of different places for Agent 47 to murder, there was a good chance that some of the work for HITMAN 2 was already done. However, with a smaller team and smaller budget, it would be another two years before Agent 47 would return in full force.
Image: IO Interactive
The Short of It
What I've played
PC version of the game
Story from the beginning of season 1 to completion of season 2
1 Elusive Target
Sniper Challenge mode
Ghost Mode
Pros
Everything that was good about the last game is still here
If you own the first game, you can download the levels of the first into HITMAN 2 and play them as one big game
New mechanics involving challenges, mission stories, tall grasses, security cameras, mirrors, and gadgets add a lot to the new and old levels
Tongue & cheek humor is still there and is funny
Environments are bright and colorful, in addition to being well-designed
A ton of content that is bound to grow over time
Game looks good even on low settings
Cons
Some levels are not optimized and cause significant performance issues in certain spots
If you add on the older levels to your installation of HITMAN 2, you need at least 100 GB of free space
Escalations from the first game's levels are not all there yet
Not enough new weird gadgets
Some buggy spots with repeating voice clips, scripting errors, or NPCs clipping through environments
Still requires an online connection for a chunk of its content
The Rest of It
Story
HITMAN 2 picks up from where the previous game left off. Agent 47 and his handler, Diana, have discovered that their agency was assassinating people on behalf of a mysterious Shadow Client who has his own agenda of tracking down and exposing people in the secret organization known as Providence. What he intends to do once his goal is completed is unclear, but 47 and Diana are not about to let him use them for his own personal gains without reciprocation. At the behest of members in Providence, the two of them are on the hunt for the Shadow Client, following any leads that might guide them to him.
Just like last time, the tone and presentation of the story in HITMAN 2 is a serious espionage tale that has dramatic orchestral music behind it to really sell the intensity of the story. Some would call it cheesy, but I think the first game was able to convey its seriousness in a way that kept it intriguing and fun. HITMAN 2 succeeds in doing more of the same with a smaller budget. The dramatic pre-rendered CGI scenes that told the story before have been replaced by high-def images that move slightly as the characters talk. It's still effective and still has that same tone, but when you go from the original levels to the new ones, there's a striking difference in quality. Nonetheless, they do the job just as well and make the second game feel almost like a graphic novel in some regards.
Image: IO Interactive
Of course, what made the story great last time around was how it intentionally clashed with the comedy and atmosphere of the actual video game. As serious as the plot was, you were still throwing fire extinguishers at people's heads while they talked mindlessly about the latest cat videos they watched on the internet. While operating in the levels and committing the heinous acts of an assassin, the inherent dark humor of the series is still just as great as it ever was. Yeah, you're hunting the Shadow Client around the world, but why not dress up as a flamingo on a race track and throw an explosive propane tank in front of an F1 car to assassinate a target? The methods of murder are as creative as ever, and the dialogue around it all is still written in a way that is both good and bad in all the right ways. Agent 47 seems more talkative, with a strong sense of dark humor in his words, using phrases like "They're to die for" when referring to some poisoned treats he's serving or "It will all be over soon" when providing "medication" to a target.
As you progress through the story, you learn more about 47 and the Shadow Client as characters. However, it's still just a backdrop to the maps themselves. I'm certainly interested in how it all will play out in the end if there is a follow-up game, but after getting the story beats to justify the reason why I'm killing a few people in a suburban town, the necessity of the story falls away and I become much more interested in the stories hidden in the maps and gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay of HITMAN 2 is largely the same as it was last time around, with only a few minor changes here and there. The core gameplay of HITMAN still revolves around wandering through a map. You learn the schedules and paths of the different NPCs or targets. You learn the placement of useful tools, items, and disguises that can help you gain access to areas or complete the mission. Then, once you've accumulated all the necessary knowledge of an environment, you can plan out your assassination and execute it. Of course, if you make any mistakes along the way, or if there are any random variables that occur, like bugs or escalation challenges, your execution can be met with a challenge that changes everything, forcing you to think on your feet to accomplish your goal. HITMAN isn't the only game that allows players to do this. It just has the right amount of tools and enough dark, self-aware humor to make it all work at an exquisite level, so that even when things get out of hand, it's still fun to scramble it together. The nature of what makes the mayhem in this volatile sandbox of toys was already present in the previous game, and what HITMAN 2 does to the formula is not necessarily revolutionary. It just has more of it with a few new toys and tools to mess around.
Perhaps the most important feature of HITMAN, the maps, are what stand out. If you already own the game from 2016, you have the option of playing those levels in HITMAN 2, using the new mechanics with the updated engine. This is both convenient and inconvenient. It's nice that you can just load one platform to play the same levels that are just as good as before. It's also cool that you're able to play the levels again using some of the new mechanics of the new game. However, they also consume a large amount of hard drive space. They are also not quite optimized for the new engine, so performance may diminish on some of the older levels in the busiest spots while the new levels perform just fine with the same amount of activity.
Image: IO Interactive
So what about the new levels? HITMAN 2 adds 6 new maps to the 6 (+2 tutorials) of the previous game. Apart from the smaller opening mission, each level feels massive in its scale and breadth, with a wide array of environments and murder methods available to utilize. While some of the maps of the previous game felt a little less interesting or creative, like Colorado, each new map in this game feels fresh and different in its tone, style, and tools. They also seem a lot more colorful. Most of the levels of the previous game had a thematic color to them. For example, Paris was a light blue, Sapienza was a saturated sunny, Marrakesh was a sandy brown, etc. The maps in HITMAN 2 don't quite go with just one tone per level and instead just use a wide array of saturated colors. Miami is the perfect introduction to all the colors that they're using in the environments, as it immediately bombards you with a bright style and attitude.
In addition to the new maps are the additional mechanics. Cameras are a much bigger threat on the standard difficulty than they were before. Previously, you just had to make sure to hack the camera system and destroy evidence if you were ever captured on camera. Now, you still have to do that, but if a camera spots you while you're in an area wearing an outfit that does not grant you admittance, you are instantly marked suspicious, and a guard will run to confront you, immediately eliminating your chances at exiting the level with a Silent Assassin rank. This dramatically changes how you might approach a map. Cameras were more of an afterthought in the previous game, but they've become a significant obstacle that requires sufficient planning and awareness. You have to learn where the cameras are and eliminate them one by one, avoid them at all costs, or just make sure to find the place where the recordings are stored and disable the security system before anything else if you want to make sure you can get through a level with the coveted Silent Assassin rank.
Image: IO Interactive
Not all the new mechanics make things harder for Agent 47. He also has a few new tools at his disposal. Tallgrass has been introduced to the game, allowing 47 to crouch in tall grass on a level and become hidden from sight from any NPC that is out of range. It's a useful, though, somewhat goofy mechanic that leads to some funny moments of throwing objects from the bushes to watch people react in wonder as to where a random hammer that narrowly missed their head came from. It's definitely useful in some hot moments when you need to find someplace to quickly hide when guards are on the alert or you're trying to sneak past everyone in a well-guarded area.
You also have access to the briefcase, a miracle bag that allows 47 to hide any weapon or object in a Mary Poppins-style suitcase and carry it throughout the level without arousing suspicions. This makes things significantly less complicated when it comes to attempting sniper challenges. Previously, to bring a sniper rifle anywhere without making everyone freak out that you had a huge gun on your back, you either had to make sure it was already placed somewhere at the start that would be easy to transport it, or you needed to disguise yourself as a character who could justify walking around with a gun. Now, you can stuff the massive anti-tank gun inside the tiny briefcase and carry it across the map without worry. Not to mention, the briefcase also acts as a blunt weapon that 47 can use to disarm and disable NPCs.
Image: IO Interactive
Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other modes of gameplay available. Contracts mode makes a return, allowing players to come up with their own kill conditions and challenges that other players can access and play, adding to the endless amount of fun one may have playing HITMAN 2. The temporary and single-chance elusive targets are still an integral part of the experience, with Sean Bean participating as the first of the season.
In addition to the returning modes, there are also a couple of new ones: Sniper mode and Ghost mode. The sniper mode is a bonus mode for purchases, so it may not come with every copy of the game, but it's mostly a bare-bones experience for now. It just involves 47 sitting atop a mountain with a huge gun, waiting for the right opportunity to eliminate specific targets and security guards without alerting anyone to his presence. There's only one level available for now, with its own set of challenges. It's fun but a relatively minor experience that will hopefully get more content later.
Ghost Mode, meanwhile, is the new multiplayer mode that is still currently in beta as of the writing of this review. In this mode, you are competing against another player to kill specific targets within a short amount of time and without being spotted. Each successful kill without being seen earns you a point. Each time you kill the target, your opponent has about 15 seconds to do the same before they miss their chance to score a point. Once a target has been eliminated, a random new one is selected on the map, and it's a race to find and kill them. Kill someone other than the target, you lose a point. If you die, you respawn somewhere on the map and can still obtain the point, but guards continue to recognize your outfit if you've become too suspicious. Since each player has the same target and can kill him or her on the same turn, the mode doesn't allow for players to affect their opponents' worlds. You can only see the other player as a ghost, running around and doing things.
Image: IO Interactive
The experience I had was fun and a bit chaotic as the two of us were running around, racing to the newest target and grabbing whatever tools we could along the way. Due to the fact that NPC hostility can pile up over time, the chaos can increase and make the whole thing more intense and difficult. This may add to the fun and drama of the mode, but I have a feeling it will add more frustration than anything else. I'm not sure it's a mode that really works for what I would want out of a HITMAN game. It focuses on the "think on your feet" side of gameplay and eliminates the planning part that I enjoy so much. The randomization makes the experience more balanced so that no player is executing the one perfect strategy every time to win, but it just turns it into a mode that doesn't quite have the lasting appeal of the standard game. It's an interesting mode worth trying, but I'm not sure it's quite enough to keep people coming back for more. It might need more balancing or just a little more depth before it becomes what it needs to be.
Presentation
I've already mentioned some of the various qualities of the presentation in the previous sections, so I'll be relatively brief here. The voice acting is as good as it was last time. The dark humor is just as funny. The huge maps with a ton of activity and color all pop. Overall, it's a good-looking, good-sounding game.
There are, however, some points where the performance of the game dips pretty hard when all the wandering people, the swaying tall grass, and the draw distance onscreen combine together, especially in the older maps that are not as well optimized. If you have a beefy computer or are playing on a console, you might be able to avoid this slowdown. Nonetheless, even on the low settings, the game still looks great with some colorful maps and slick style. The style and tone of the previous game are just as present as ever, with the same dramatic music that swells as you finish a level to make you feel like a badass assassin. If you liked the way the previous game looked and sounded, you won't be disappointed here.
Image: IO Interactive
As I write this review, HITMAN 2 is also still a pretty new game. Since I tend not to buy games until they've been out for a number of months, I often forget how buggy they can be. I have not experienced any hard crashes yet, and I'm assuming that the game's bugs will be resolved down the road, but for now, the presentation has not been perfect. I've had characters go through walls, walk off the map, see-through doors, etc. It's all relatively minor, but if your target manages to walk off the map to a place you can't follow, that's a bit of a problem. It's a funny problem, but it's still a problem. I want people to buy this game so it does well enough to keep the franchise alive and well, but even HITMAN 2 justifies my philosophy that video games are better if you let them age for a few months before buying.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
HITMAN 2 doesn't do too much to the formula that wasn't already established in 2016. If you had any serious qualms with the game from two years ago, I doubt you'll change your mind about it this year, even with the new multiplayer and sniper modes. However, if you are like me, and all you wanted was more of the previous game, then this is perfect for you. There are more maps to explore, more items to use, more murder methods to employ, and more hidden bits of dark and funny dialogue to discover. The story and the missions go in some interesting directions with some unique twists to the familiar format. It is a ton of content, and if you have the previous game already, you can install the previous maps into HITMAN 2 to make the game even bigger. It's a convenient way of having all the maps in one place, and it allows you to re-experience everything with some slightly updated mechanics and graphics. Just be aware that you might need 100+ GB of space on your hard drive.
I haven't been a fan of the franchise since the beginning, but I'm definitely one now, and I cannot overstate how much fun I am continuing to have with HITMAN 2.
You can read my other Hitman reviews and see where my appreciation for the series began:
Killing Time Part 1; My Journey Through the Hitman Franchise
Killing Time Part 4; Hitman: Blood Money Initial Impressions
Do you agree or disagree? Tell me what you think in the comments below!
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