I've always had a mild affinity to the stealth genre as a whole. As I've stated more than once on this very blog, I feel like the Assassin's Creed series started off on the right foot to scratch that itch, but ultimately got bogged down by it's own story and cinematics that I never really got to feel like an Assassin stalking my prey.
Now, I was familiar with this series from seeing my old boss at Gamestop play it more than once. It looked cool, but tricky as hell. I was never very good at these games so I never really dove all that deep into them. It wasn't until SquareEnix picked up the property and gave it a new glossy sheen, put in a hand holding mechanic, and pretty good story and suddenly I found myself to be a fan. After watching Funhaus play the new installment a bit, the stealth itch was begging for a scratch.
HITMAN: DEFINITIVE EDITION (PS4)
The prologue to Hitman serves as prequel to the introduction to the series as a whole. Shortly after Agent 47 escapes his initial handlers in the start of Hitman: Codename 47 he is brought into the International Contract Association (ICA) to undergo initiation to work for them as a hired assassin. It is here Agent 47 first meets and befriends his long time handler, Diana Burnwood.
47 makes child's play of the tests laid before him, and with a sketchy untraceable background it makes the head of the ICA Erik Soders very uncomfortable. So to force 47's failure, his final mission was meant to be a recreation of an impossibly done bit of historical espionage. 47 again completes his task and begrudgingly brought officially into the ICA with Burnwood as his official handler. We see a montage of 47's greatest hits (ba dum tss) throughout the Hitman franchise before we catch up with him in 2019 for the first level of this installment.
So despite the Hitman franchise having a continued narrative, this is probably one of the few games that I honestly couldn't care less about a the story when I pick up to play it. It's not to say that the story is bad, or poorly told. But if you come to play Hitman then you really aren't here for the narrative. You are here to find your target and figure out how you can kill them without being noticed or without leaving a shred of evidence behind you.
I will say that compared to the game before this one, Hitman: Absolution the story feels less important for progress. The characters in Absolution were definitely a major focal point, where in Hitman we get some framing cutscene between quests but the story tends to be brief before dumping you right into the next mission. Perhaps because of the new episodic release schedule for this version of the game the story is told it shorter polished chunks.
I will say that compared to the game before this one, Hitman: Absolution the story feels less important for progress. The characters in Absolution were definitely a major focal point, where in Hitman we get some framing cutscene between quests but the story tends to be brief before dumping you right into the next mission. Perhaps because of the new episodic release schedule for this version of the game the story is told it shorter polished chunks.
Now, I distinctly remember the older Hitman titles having some pretty wonky and frustrating controls. I had distinctly remembered having difficulty specifically in Hitman: Blood Money and Hitman: Contracts. Not so much that the controls were difficult, they just never felt very tight. It wasn't till Squenix came in and polished up the series in Hitman: Absolution where I really started to find my groove with the game.
This particular installment feels like the controls of the older Hitman titles with only a few splashes of some of the new mechanics. This is going to be one of those games where every button as a purpose, so you are going to need to get real familiar with the controller. They brought back 47's "heightened senses" mechanic, which is essentially the same kind of sonar hearing they used in the The Last of Us where you can see silhouettes of everyone around to find your target, or intractable pieces of the environment. It's handy to give you an idea of where you should be headed without spoiling the nuance of the surroundings. Just seeing the target 100 yards away doesn't tell you what surrounds them.
What they did take away though, was "point shooting" system from the Absolution. Essentially this was a bullet time sequence (think John Marston's dead eye aim in Red Dead Redemption), which if used at the right moment and with quick enough reflex you could use to quickly dispatch an entire room when things got hairy, or if there were enough spaces completely remove the bodies prior to being noticed. It certainly made Absolution easier and I'd be lying if I said I didn't use it for all its worth to finish that one. But I'm not unhappy to see it gone.
But at its core, Hitman returns to its the roots of its gameplay. From the campaign you select your location and you are treated to a small cinematic of Diana explaining your target(s) from who they are, what they do, and why the contract is out on them. She explains some of the situation you will drop into and what you can try, and then "leaves you to prepare."
And from that point, you are on your own (kind of). As you move around the map to case the area, you will stumble across hints and opportunities that Diana can expound upon to give you a path to try. Many of these help you build level mastery and are used to completely level specific challenges. But really, it's 100% optional. The real fun of Hitman is your first blind run: Just trying to get to your target without being caught, killing them, and bailing without dying.
You start missions with a pretty limited inventory, but you can always pick up items around the locations to provide more options. Some missions have multiple objectives but the majority of them just require taking down your mark. Once you get a feel for a stage it's worth your while to go back to the level and try to complete the specific challenges and opportunities you are presented with. Doing so completes the aforementioned level mastery, and what this does is this allows you to start the missions in different areas with different disguises, and allows you to bring or stash additional weaponry and tools to being with.
Most of the controls are pretty 3rd person shooter standard so there isn't a lot to go on for that front, but like I mentioned before it feels very much like the old ones specifically in regards to the face buttons. These are usually used for the item interaction and the big thing to remember is that they are not just presses, but holds. So say you take down a bystander, if you stand over their body you will be prompted with a few commands, X to change disguise, O to drag body, Triangle to pick up or interact. You need to remember to accommodate for those extra few seconds. It could make or break you getting caught.
Levels are pretty much completely open from the word go. Depending on what you bring with you (based on your level mastery) you might have means to get around locked doors from the start or have the necessary keys to get past locks, or even invited in as a guest. Regardless, it's always a great idea to just spend some time wandering around the level. Get used to what path the target follows, find out who he talks to, learn what situational things might be happening to get you close or provide distraction. Perhaps you might find an errant soldier that looks exactly like the guard that get into the building the mark frequents.
But you need to be careful about how you play dress up, sometimes specific people know who is on their staff, so if you wander into their eye-shot and you don't blend in immediately or get out of sight they will become suspicious and follow you, or alert the guards. If you don't move quickly and quietly, situations can escalate in a hurry. You can always run and gun your way through levels, but it really does you a disservice for what makes this game satisfying. It's funny to create a pile of bodies in a doorway, but not long after you will just restart your save and try again.
Upon completion of the level you are rated by how well you did and given a total mission score. This is essentially just for bragging rights and do nothing towards beating the game or unlocking more mastery items, but it does give you a quantifiable number for how you are doing as an assassin. If you run and gun your way through the level, sure you will probably be able to move on but you'll get slapped with a "dunce cap, zero star, thanks for trying ribbon for idiots" at the end of the level.
But to get an idea of how satisfying being an assassin could be, allow me to go through a scenario I played through that just made the game for me: I'm in Sapienza, and I've currently snuck into the compound of Silva Caruso. He's been working on a viral weapon with Francesca De Santis. I need to kill both of them. After sneaking onto the compound as a gardener, I'm eavesdropping on Caruso during his golf lesson. I learn that his golf instructor has been having an affair with De Santis, but the instructor denies it.
After the lesson I follow the instructor and catch him making a call to De Santis about a date. So I size the opportunity knock him out, steal his clothes, and stash his body. With his phone, I call Francesca back to meet up for our date. I set some mood music and lighting, add some rat poison to the champagne set that was waiting for us, and take a seat in the lounge chair in the shadows. Franscesca comes in, worried about these trists and explains that she's actually been spying on Caruso, and that I risk my life by continuing this with her. She's clearly nervous but wanted to be straight with me about the risks.
I started a empathize a little as she took a nervous drink of her champagne, it didn't take long for her body to start reacting to it. She quickly rushed to the restroom as I slowly rose from my chair to sauntered after her. I opened the door to see her vomiting over the shitter and felt a little bad because this was a horrible way to go, but I have a job to do. I slipped behind her and forcefully held her face in the bowl until kicking and bubbles stopped, dropped her body in the clothes bin, hopped out the window, and was off to find Caruso for his turn.
None of this pontificating of Assassins and Templars, No wiping a feather on their neck bullshit, no 20 minute monologue of a death rattle about how I don't understand shit. Just cold, emotionless execution. It probably says all sorts of fucked up things about me as a person that having things go that smoothly felt so incredibly satisfying to do. But this, THIS is how Hitman is intended to be played. When you can go in and get the job done with nobody being the wiser, it makes all the effort and time spent tracking your mark worth it.
I purchased the definitive edition of the game prior to season 1 going free to PS+ members, and I'm glad that I did because it allotted me two extra campaigns to play. They all use the same maps but the targets are different. There are also a large number of increasingly difficult challenges that you can use to improve your mastery and also just generally get more play out of a level. Which in turn gives you more memorization that you can use to play the main campaigns to get better masteries. I honestly don't think you can get the Silent Assassin rank without a couple higher rank mastery tools.
On top of these missions, there is a whole online contract mechanic that I never even delved into which is basically user made custom levels, so if you for some reason you completely dive into this one 100%, you can still find use created kills to continue to stretch your dollar out on this one.
If I have complaints, they are pretty minimal. First and foremost is the same problem I generally with every installment of this series, and that is that Agent 47 is basically a non-character. Like Master Chief, Agent 47 is basically a blank slate that has no tonal range, no emotional expression, no physical personality to his movements. In some cases he's even worse because he doesn't even string one liners during gameplay. Now, you can argue that this contextually fits in the story since he was essentially a test tube grown clone, so his human interaction was nil.
Two, the story itself to this game kinda sucks. Like I said at the top we get a brief greatest hits prologue explaining how we got to now, but as we play through this game we end up following the actions of a character I don't actually think is ever named. He seems to know who Agent 47 is and seems to be a hand behind a behind-the-curtain war between the ICA and a shadow group called Providence. The ending, without spoiling, basically is a teaser for the upcoming Hitman 2 which is kind of frustrating.
It's most egregious problem is that this load times in this game are just unforgivably long. Especially for a title that will cause you to reload the level or reload your saves regularly, any load time that takes longer than like 15 seconds is pushing itself to be too much of a noticeable wait if you have to constantly do it. It's not as bad as Bloodborne's original 30-60 second load times, but at this point Dev's really should find ways to have the game constantly loading or able to quickload to get you right back into the action.
"Ahem, Don't mind me..."
I'll be the first to admit that the game can be a little samey after a while. Especially when doing challenge missions because it is very easy to get into a rhythm of using the same tools to secure kills in different missions. I can't think of how many times I've used rat poison in a drink to take down a target in this one.
And while the controls are polished to be as responsive as this game needs to them to be, there still feels like a degrees of innate awkwardness to them when trying to change outfits, drag, or pick something up. It doesn't feel as broken as many of the old Hitman games seemed to be, but in the early going there is going to be a curve to pick up the nuance of them before they start to feel natural.
Ultimately though, I like Hitman and I like it a lot. I've said hundreds of times that this is how the Assassin's Creed series should have played. I play it off and on quite a bit still and it scratches the stealth itch for me in all the right ways. Or I can just melt down and try to see how many people I can kill before getting taken out.
Hitman is one of those games I like to play when I want to zone out and focus simultaneously. It's generally low stress to play and I can spend well over an hour just wandering around a locale, taking in the surroundings before plotting my attack. There is just something immensely satisfying about playing this game to me. The adage of "If you liked, then you will like" applies here. If you liked the other Hitman installments then Hitman 2016 is going to satisfy in all the right ways. If you are looking for a fast paced run and gunner, then this is not the game for you.
While proficient in hand to hand, you will be heard doing it.
Best avoid getting into dust ups if you can help it.
Best avoid getting into dust ups if you can help it.
This particular installment feels like the controls of the older Hitman titles with only a few splashes of some of the new mechanics. This is going to be one of those games where every button as a purpose, so you are going to need to get real familiar with the controller. They brought back 47's "heightened senses" mechanic, which is essentially the same kind of sonar hearing they used in the The Last of Us where you can see silhouettes of everyone around to find your target, or intractable pieces of the environment. It's handy to give you an idea of where you should be headed without spoiling the nuance of the surroundings. Just seeing the target 100 yards away doesn't tell you what surrounds them.
What they did take away though, was "point shooting" system from the Absolution. Essentially this was a bullet time sequence (think John Marston's dead eye aim in Red Dead Redemption), which if used at the right moment and with quick enough reflex you could use to quickly dispatch an entire room when things got hairy, or if there were enough spaces completely remove the bodies prior to being noticed. It certainly made Absolution easier and I'd be lying if I said I didn't use it for all its worth to finish that one. But I'm not unhappy to see it gone.
Thats.... Not exactly subtle, 47.....
But at its core, Hitman returns to its the roots of its gameplay. From the campaign you select your location and you are treated to a small cinematic of Diana explaining your target(s) from who they are, what they do, and why the contract is out on them. She explains some of the situation you will drop into and what you can try, and then "leaves you to prepare."
And from that point, you are on your own (kind of). As you move around the map to case the area, you will stumble across hints and opportunities that Diana can expound upon to give you a path to try. Many of these help you build level mastery and are used to completely level specific challenges. But really, it's 100% optional. The real fun of Hitman is your first blind run: Just trying to get to your target without being caught, killing them, and bailing without dying.
That's some pretty pro level blending in.
You start missions with a pretty limited inventory, but you can always pick up items around the locations to provide more options. Some missions have multiple objectives but the majority of them just require taking down your mark. Once you get a feel for a stage it's worth your while to go back to the level and try to complete the specific challenges and opportunities you are presented with. Doing so completes the aforementioned level mastery, and what this does is this allows you to start the missions in different areas with different disguises, and allows you to bring or stash additional weaponry and tools to being with.
Most of the controls are pretty 3rd person shooter standard so there isn't a lot to go on for that front, but like I mentioned before it feels very much like the old ones specifically in regards to the face buttons. These are usually used for the item interaction and the big thing to remember is that they are not just presses, but holds. So say you take down a bystander, if you stand over their body you will be prompted with a few commands, X to change disguise, O to drag body, Triangle to pick up or interact. You need to remember to accommodate for those extra few seconds. It could make or break you getting caught.
Sometimes you don't even need to be near the target
Levels are pretty much completely open from the word go. Depending on what you bring with you (based on your level mastery) you might have means to get around locked doors from the start or have the necessary keys to get past locks, or even invited in as a guest. Regardless, it's always a great idea to just spend some time wandering around the level. Get used to what path the target follows, find out who he talks to, learn what situational things might be happening to get you close or provide distraction. Perhaps you might find an errant soldier that looks exactly like the guard that get into the building the mark frequents.
But you need to be careful about how you play dress up, sometimes specific people know who is on their staff, so if you wander into their eye-shot and you don't blend in immediately or get out of sight they will become suspicious and follow you, or alert the guards. If you don't move quickly and quietly, situations can escalate in a hurry. You can always run and gun your way through levels, but it really does you a disservice for what makes this game satisfying. It's funny to create a pile of bodies in a doorway, but not long after you will just restart your save and try again.
Upon completion of the level you are rated by how well you did and given a total mission score. This is essentially just for bragging rights and do nothing towards beating the game or unlocking more mastery items, but it does give you a quantifiable number for how you are doing as an assassin. If you run and gun your way through the level, sure you will probably be able to move on but you'll get slapped with a "dunce cap, zero star, thanks for trying ribbon for idiots" at the end of the level.
Looks like it's.... Lights out for you... (YEAAAAHHHHH)
But to get an idea of how satisfying being an assassin could be, allow me to go through a scenario I played through that just made the game for me: I'm in Sapienza, and I've currently snuck into the compound of Silva Caruso. He's been working on a viral weapon with Francesca De Santis. I need to kill both of them. After sneaking onto the compound as a gardener, I'm eavesdropping on Caruso during his golf lesson. I learn that his golf instructor has been having an affair with De Santis, but the instructor denies it.
After the lesson I follow the instructor and catch him making a call to De Santis about a date. So I size the opportunity knock him out, steal his clothes, and stash his body. With his phone, I call Francesca back to meet up for our date. I set some mood music and lighting, add some rat poison to the champagne set that was waiting for us, and take a seat in the lounge chair in the shadows. Franscesca comes in, worried about these trists and explains that she's actually been spying on Caruso, and that I risk my life by continuing this with her. She's clearly nervous but wanted to be straight with me about the risks.
I started a empathize a little as she took a nervous drink of her champagne, it didn't take long for her body to start reacting to it. She quickly rushed to the restroom as I slowly rose from my chair to sauntered after her. I opened the door to see her vomiting over the shitter and felt a little bad because this was a horrible way to go, but I have a job to do. I slipped behind her and forcefully held her face in the bowl until kicking and bubbles stopped, dropped her body in the clothes bin, hopped out the window, and was off to find Caruso for his turn.
"Farewell, my love...."
I purchased the definitive edition of the game prior to season 1 going free to PS+ members, and I'm glad that I did because it allotted me two extra campaigns to play. They all use the same maps but the targets are different. There are also a large number of increasingly difficult challenges that you can use to improve your mastery and also just generally get more play out of a level. Which in turn gives you more memorization that you can use to play the main campaigns to get better masteries. I honestly don't think you can get the Silent Assassin rank without a couple higher rank mastery tools.
On top of these missions, there is a whole online contract mechanic that I never even delved into which is basically user made custom levels, so if you for some reason you completely dive into this one 100%, you can still find use created kills to continue to stretch your dollar out on this one.
I guess stealth doesn't always mean quiet....
If I have complaints, they are pretty minimal. First and foremost is the same problem I generally with every installment of this series, and that is that Agent 47 is basically a non-character. Like Master Chief, Agent 47 is basically a blank slate that has no tonal range, no emotional expression, no physical personality to his movements. In some cases he's even worse because he doesn't even string one liners during gameplay. Now, you can argue that this contextually fits in the story since he was essentially a test tube grown clone, so his human interaction was nil.
Two, the story itself to this game kinda sucks. Like I said at the top we get a brief greatest hits prologue explaining how we got to now, but as we play through this game we end up following the actions of a character I don't actually think is ever named. He seems to know who Agent 47 is and seems to be a hand behind a behind-the-curtain war between the ICA and a shadow group called Providence. The ending, without spoiling, basically is a teaser for the upcoming Hitman 2 which is kind of frustrating.
It's most egregious problem is that this load times in this game are just unforgivably long. Especially for a title that will cause you to reload the level or reload your saves regularly, any load time that takes longer than like 15 seconds is pushing itself to be too much of a noticeable wait if you have to constantly do it. It's not as bad as Bloodborne's original 30-60 second load times, but at this point Dev's really should find ways to have the game constantly loading or able to quickload to get you right back into the action.
I'll be the first to admit that the game can be a little samey after a while. Especially when doing challenge missions because it is very easy to get into a rhythm of using the same tools to secure kills in different missions. I can't think of how many times I've used rat poison in a drink to take down a target in this one.
And while the controls are polished to be as responsive as this game needs to them to be, there still feels like a degrees of innate awkwardness to them when trying to change outfits, drag, or pick something up. It doesn't feel as broken as many of the old Hitman games seemed to be, but in the early going there is going to be a curve to pick up the nuance of them before they start to feel natural.
Ultimately though, I like Hitman and I like it a lot. I've said hundreds of times that this is how the Assassin's Creed series should have played. I play it off and on quite a bit still and it scratches the stealth itch for me in all the right ways. Or I can just melt down and try to see how many people I can kill before getting taken out.
Hitman is one of those games I like to play when I want to zone out and focus simultaneously. It's generally low stress to play and I can spend well over an hour just wandering around a locale, taking in the surroundings before plotting my attack. There is just something immensely satisfying about playing this game to me. The adage of "If you liked, then you will like" applies here. If you liked the other Hitman installments then Hitman 2016 is going to satisfy in all the right ways. If you are looking for a fast paced run and gunner, then this is not the game for you.
I had to walk the catwalk in Paris for a mission.
That alone made this game worth it.
