After four years and a lot of criticism, Square Enix and IO Interactive are bringing the world’s deadliest assassin back to shelves, both digital and physical. This latest version of Hitman is supposed to be both a continuation of Agent 47’s story and an evolution in gameplay and level building. Looking back, Hitman: Absolution and Hitman: Blood Money were both quite impressive on the last generation of consoles, and it’s staggering to think what the new technology could do for the next game.
Hitman isn’t due out until March 11, but those who preordered the game or procured codes by doing God-knows-what were able to participate in a beta over the weekend. I was among those with codes, and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to pull off the perfect kill. Here are my impressions from that blissful weekend.
The Hitman beta drops you off at a training facility on a snowy mountain—probably Belukha Mountain—because that’s how secret organizations pick their lairs. It’s 20 years in the past, before Agent 47 becomes a legend. At this moment, you are nothing more than a bald initiate; not even the group’s leaders know your name. Your goal? Complete three training missions, multiple times if necessary, and prove that you belong. This premise is straightforward, and it finally gives some backstory on Agent 47.
He’s So Young
The first training mission, which was also a tutorial, was set aboard a yacht owned by a world-famous thief named Kalvin Ritter. Apparently, Ritter was using a massive party as a cover to sell something illegal without drawing too much attention. 47 needed to take out Ritter before he could complete the transaction.
Being guided, this first mission was more of that straight-ahead assassination style. I knocked out a mechanic and took his outfit to gain access to the yacht. After avoiding the other mechanics, I sneaked into the kitchen and took out a waiter, making sure to hide his body in a freezer. The benefit of the waiter outfit was that it gave me unrestricted access to the rest of the boat, except for Ritter’s personal office. So, I went and eavesdropped at the bar until Ritter met his contact, Mr. Norfolk, and then I followed them to the office. Once they were inside, I sneaked around to an open window, climbed inside and shot Ritter in the head when his back was turned. Escaping was a simple matter of retracing my steps to the loading dock, and the mission was done.
Dropping Some Eaves.
The second training mission was a repeat the yacht, but there were no guides. This was the first crack at trying to play the level like a proper hitman. During my second attempt of the yacht mission, I tried avoiding the mechanic outfit and instead opted for that of a police officer. This worked fairly well as I was able to waltz past the main guard and deck crew, but Ritter’s security was still very suspicious.
Unfortunately, my repeated attempts to sneak past the security guards upset them, so I had to run before I could get arrested. Luckily, my escape route took me past Ritter’s open window, so I climbed inside and found a hiding spot. This actually worked out fairly well because both Ritter and Mr. Norfolk came into the office at that moment. I waited until Norfolk was turned away, and then I strangled Ritter and hid his body in a dresser. The best part was that Norfolk turned around, saw something was amiss, and decided to simply stroll out instead of being caught in a bad situation. Mission accomplished.
I could go on and on about my various attempts at this mission, but I won’t. Instead, I will show a video of my best method. There are a couple moments that could have been better, but I think this style worked out quite well. Please enjoy.
The third and final mission of the beta was set in Cuba during the 1970’s. A world-famous chess master was illegally selling secrets to the Russian government and was hiding on a military base. I needed to infiltrate this base and take out Jasper Knight before he could escape to Russia. This mission was make-or-break for Agent 47, and it played out just like a classic Hitman level. A ton of different assassination methods paired with a multitude of outfits and even more enemies.
Look, I played this level about 30 times and only pulled it off successfully three of those times. There are so many ways that this mission can go right or wrong depending on how you complete certain tasks and walk past each person. The best luck I had was by dressing up as a security guard and infiltrating the base through a bathroom. After that, I avoided the other security guards until I found a soldier that didn’t need his uniform anymore. I could have choked out or shot Jasper Knight, but he had a constant security detail watching for threats. Instead, I poisoned a bottle of vodka and waited for Knight to take a drink and become violently ill. Once he was in the bathroom, I climbed in through the window, drowned him in the toilet, and threw his body in a box. Nice and simple. Escaping was the hardest part because I had to climb down a drain pipe and avoid confrontation all the way to the front gate.
Vodka Swirly
The poisoned vodka may have been the cleanest method, but it was far from the funniest. I won’t go too far into details in case these levels end up in the final game—IO hasn’t said whether or not they would—but I will say that pairing a mechanic outfit with safety procedures and a jet brought about hilarious results. This Cuba mission had so many recipes for humorous death, but some were much harder to complete. In case you were wondering, pulling a fire alarm before throwing a pool ball at the victim was too noisy.
The Hitman beta was the perfect dose to get me excited for the new game. As the video shows, there were some graphical and audio issues present, but I didn’t run into anything game-breaking. Plus, IO did say that this was the quintessential beta. Anyone who played was basically looking for new ways to break the game. I know that some other people had issues with subtitles breaking or characters not going to the right places, but I didn’t deal with those. My main issues were characters clipping through each other during animations.
So what changes were made for Hitman? Well, I went back and played some missions in both Blood Money and Absolution, and the first thing I noticed is that the Instinct mode was different. In Absolution, you could only use Instinct for a limited time, and it only regenerated while playing on Easy. The Instinct didn’t burn away during the Hitman beta, and I also didn’t use it to sneak past guards. Instinct served as more of a general awareness of my surroundings. I like this method more because using Instinct in Absolution felt like cheating.
The other main difference I noticed was that enemies were sitting at a nice balance between Blood Money and Absolution. In Blood Money, you had to basically murder someone to draw attention, but in Absolution you only needed to be within 20 feet of them. These two games seemed to be at the extreme ends of the spectrum, but Hitman sits in a sweet spot. Unlike Blood Money, the enemies noticed me more quickly, but nowhere near as fast as in Absolution. I could actually wander past similarly dressed enemies without all of them becoming suspicious. In fact, IO even added a nice little system where enemies with dots above their heads noticed me and became suspicious, but other enemies didn’t really pay attention. This change made choosing outfits infinitely more engaging as I tried to find that “catch all” to avoid confrontation.
Dots Are Bad
On a side note, Hitman uses the control scheme from Absolution that completely fixed the series. Look, I understand that Absolution wasn’t the perfect game that fans were looking for, especially after “Shaving Lenny” ended, but that control scheme transformed IO’s games from clunky playgrounds into something beautiful.
Beyond those minor changes, Hitman played like a Hitman game, so I’m happy. There is something innately fascinating about tinkering with the systems and characters, even in the beta, and I never seemed to get tired of trying different methods. The openness of the worlds and the ability to mess with everything are what make Hitman fun.
I love Hitman games, and this beta just made me even more excited for March. Sure, those technical glitches are worrisome, but IO has a chance to fix those issues in the next few weeks. If Hitman plays to its potential—and the hardware’s capabilities—this game could be an immediate classic.
Do you think IO will hide a Hiro outfit from Mini Ninjas in Hitman? Man, I hope so.
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