The enthusiasm for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 3 New edition is a great reminder that we were once drowning in iconic stealth franchises. Over the years, some series have shrunk or transformed into completely different thingsbut one of them has persevered and has had even greater success recently, and that is the latest Hitman games.
Starting in 2016, IO Interactive released a trilogy of Hitman Title, consisting of the World of Assassinations. The first game, which released new levels in episodes, struggled to gain traction, perhaps in part due to this new experimental delivery model, and eventually publisher Square Enix parted ways with IO Interactive and the series. Hitman2Having learned some lessons from the first part, it was released as a full game and was much more successful, even if it still didn’t wow the world. However, IO finally hit the jackpot with the third and final part of the trilogy, which took the content of the first two parts and polished it up a bit.
Now you can watch the entire celebrated Hitman
I never played the first part of the trilogy, although I have owned it for some time, but I have always heard that the quality of this game is increasing. The first level, set in the middle of a Paris fashion show, sounds like it sets the stage for three games full of wild, immersive and interactive environments that you must manipulate to take out your target. In addition, Sapienza is often cited as one of the best levels of any game this decade, as is Miami in Hitman2,
If you are new here, the fun of Hitman It’s not just about getting a clean kill, but also about how far you can get across the sprawling maps. You can equip and use remarkably different loadouts to approach the game in both chaotic and stealthy ways. If you want to be a sniper, there’s a way forward. If you want to use an explosive golf ball or rubber duck, that’s possible too. Want to get up close and lethal with a garrote wire? Then knock yourself out. Want to go virtually undetected and not even see the target? That’s possible too. probably doable with some well-placed rat poison.
There are even side stories for the player to discover throughout the levels, culminating in striking and hilarious alternate methods of achieving the objective. In one playthrough, I managed to track a target to an underground experimental weapons facility and reprogram the robot they were field testing to shoot at them. My personal favorite occurred in Mumbai, where I saw signs of another assassins in the immediate area and somehow got them to take out some of my targets for me. While these stories are meant to provide you with linear paths to explore the extent of Hitman‘s systems, there really are no limits. If you can imagine it and have the tools, you can get up to some truly absurd shenanigans in these games.
You will want to do as many tricks as possible. I am not the type to repeat games or levels that often, but Hitman2 is one of the few games that has inspired a kind of obsession in me. It doesn’t help that the series’ settings are so vast and delightful to explore. The trilogy spans the globe and takes you to places like the Italian countryside, an English manor house that has a Knife out-style murder mystery dinner, the crowded streets of Mumbai, a skyscraper in Dubai, a suburb in Vermont and a race track in Miami, to name a few. You can even pick up the DLC maps and missions for both Hitman2 And 3 for an additional $21 as part of the Hitman World of Assassination Deluxe Pack on PlayStation.
Miraculously, that’s not all that’s on offer. Hitman3 will continue to be supported as a live service title and will receive special missions called Elusive targets fairly regularly. These are time-limited missions where players must kill the target in one attempt. Unless they restart the mission, a win or failure becomes the permanent status of the mission, although IO has reactivated some of these in the past to give players a second chance.
And that’s not all! Last year, IO added a roguelike mode called Freelancer. In it, you can outfit Agent 47’s safehouse and take on contracts to take out a series of targets in random locations across the series’ 20+ maps. The goal of each run is to lure out the bad guy by effectively taking out his lieutenants. If you die, however, you take your XP gains, invest in more tools, and start a run again.
More or less, Hitman has become an incredible offering over the years, with more than enough replayable content to justify the asking price. Rather than rest on its laurels, the developers have spent the following years making it one of the sharpest and best titles of the generation. I can’t imagine not I’m getting all three games at this ridiculously low price.
