HITMAN3FraserBrown:For the site, I wrote a
far-too-revealing feature about really
wanting a game where Agent 47 chases
me. Then I tried to get Andy Kelly to ask Agent 47
voice actor David Bateson to record himself
saying, “I’m coming to get you, Fraser”. He
chickened out and now he is dead (to me). You
could say I really got intoHitman3.
It’s weird to think of it as a stealth game. In one
of the most out-there missions, I spent my first
attempt in-character as a detective in an Agatha
Christie knock-off, right up until the point where I
killed my target. There are more traditionally
sneaky routes through every map, of course, but
Hitman’s all about that social stealth, and 3 has
some of the strongest examples out of the whole
trilogy. Agent 47 gets plenty of chances to show off
his acting chops, even though they still just
amount to putting on a disguise and acting and
sounding just like his regular spooky self.
The murder mystery in Dartmoor and the
elaborate Chongqing mission are where we get to
see IO at its most experimental, but for the purists
there’s Berlin and the sandbox of a nightclub.
You’ve got targets you know nothing about and no
plan so, at least for that first playthrough, it’s all
about reacting and going with your instincts. It
would have probably made for a better climax
than the actual final mission, the game’s only dud.
Phil Savage: Berlin really is
emblematic of what makes
Hitman3 so good. Hitman2’s
levels were bigger, but the
sequel has a playful confidence
to it – exploring the edges of
what makes a great stealth
sandbox to great effect.
Here, in this underground
club, you’re
tasked with
taking out the
ICA agents that
are there to
hunt you.
Rather than a
single target
with a handful
of big, obvious
routes leading to their demise,
you’re instead left to work out a
series of more small-scale
assassinations. Arguably this is
Hitmanat its purest: just
ingenuity and opportunism at
your disposal.
As Fraser mentioned,
Hitman’s stock-in-trade is social
stealth – playing dress-up tohide in plain sight and walk
among your victims. But it’s also
worth celebrating the continued
quality of IO’s level design. Your
first playthroughs will likely be
defined by the showcase
solutions – Dartmoor’s detective
being the most obvious example.
But each level is also designed to
support its
many optional
challenges, the
pinnacle of
which is silently
completing a
mission without
ever donning a
disguise.
Attempt this
and you’ll discover new options- clever ways a level is made to
reveal possibilities that you
missed on your first visit. This
design is what makes Hitman3
not just a great stealth game, but
a near endlessly replayable one
too – that scales to support
whatever challenge you want
to throw at it.
IT’S ALSO WORTHCELEBRATING THEQUALITYOFIO’SLEVELDESIGNGAME OF THE YEAR2021
BESTSTEALTH
2021