Nothing I’ve played when I was younger gave me quite the same feeling as the first Hitman games. I loved going around the levels coming up with different ways to fulfil my assassination contracts, and I was always impressed by the freedom you got when playing them in terms of what was possible. To this day I have very fond memories of Contracts, Blood Money and especially Silent Assassin.

Fast forward to 2022 and I find myself playing the reboot for the first time and loving it even more than the originals. 2016’s Hitman is a fantastic return of a standout franchise, and to me its greatest achievement so far. It’s one of those rare cases in which nostalgia actually takes a back seat in favour of something new, because of how well executed that something new is. There isn’t much I’d change about the reboot, even though as a patient gamer, it’s hard to separate what was originally released with the game and what came as part of the confusing Hitman 3 integration.

The amount of freedom in approach every single mission affords you is the stuff of legends. This is easily one of the most deliberately repayable games I’ve ever experienced, in that it doesn’t only encourage you to try different approaches to missions, it is literally designed to make you replay them. The game boasts fantastic level design, with big open sandboxes on every single mission and lots of agency and interconnected goodness in its systems. I would absolutely consider Hitman an immersive sim because of this, even if 2 of the genre’s main aspects (that you don’t have a 1st person mode and can’t complete a mission without killing) aren’t present. The AI is, for the most part, incredibly competent, which makes those few moments where you can see the cracks in the illusion the game is trying to sell even more jarring. The stylish, cinematic presentation hits another high note. I went in kind of blind and didn’t expect much in this sense, but I loved how the surprisingly engaging story was weaved into the masterfully animated and voiced cutscenes, and I also really enjoyed the feel you got from every single mission briefing and ending. The whole thing just gave out vibes of a refined espionage tale of epic proportions that sticks with you for a while. To top it all off, the game is visually impressive, with all scenarios looking and feeling different. Sapienza was my personal favourite form an aesthetic point of view.

Hitman still has issues, of course. One thing that easily clashes with the sense of realism the game is trying to invoke is that, until you get the hang of it, its systems and ruleset, there’s quite a bit of trial and error involved, which of course breaks the pace and flow of your missions (this logically gets mitigated as you go on). I would’ve also liked to have seen the target profiles that you get before each mission play a bigger role in them: it’s great to have insight into their personality but there was never an actual use for that information in any of the missions, which seemed like a missed opportunity. Having everyone, on every single map, speak perfect English was also a bit off-putting, though I can understand this limitation. What I can’t understand, however, is the always online crap in order for the game to track your achievements. Here I’m not talking about where you rank in relation to other players (I don’t care about that), but the need to be online to access your challenges, unlocked gear or start locations for example. It’s a terrible design for everyone who either likes to play offline or has poor internet - and even with a solid connection I experienced some server hiccups which is ridiculous.

When all is said and done though, 2016’s Hitman still stands as one of the most accomplished simulations I have ever played, and my personal highlight in the entire franchise. If none of the issues above are deal breaking to you, there is definitely a lot to love here and a ton of hours of fun to be had with all the replayability the game offers. As someone who barely ever replays games these days, I could easily recommend Hitman based on that alone. 8.5/10

Hitman was never really about giving players the freedom to play missions the way they wanted to, despite what some old fans might say, it's in fact about following a specific path of events and properly timing everything perfectly or else blunder your way out with an awkward gunfight. So at least in that context, the old and new share those traits to some degree. In Hitman 2016's case, the enemies will continue to spawn near where they think you are if you are locked into "combat" status, but they will also eventually stop if you say, change into a disguise without being seen, or run past them before being flagged as "suspicious" again.

There is clearly more of a catharsis and dark comedy angle that these newer games are going for, and it's certainly an enjoyable display, but it's only because the devs are unable to create convincing enough behaviors or stealth mechanics. Worse even, they bloat the levels with too many NPC's in an attempt to make it more lively and in the end the experience is completely lacking in the kind of intelligence you'd realistically expect from actual humans. Hitman is such an obviously creepy, suspicious, and conspicuous character that it would be impossible not to notice him to be honest. It's kind of the humor behind his character, but it's also a perplexing tone when a lot of the violence is portrayed as fairly realistic, borderline gruesome at times.

Overall, the freedom to accomplish missions in any which way you want are very important to this franchise, but in shedding some that stiff linearity of the original games, the devs have perhaps pigeon-holed themselves a bit. Ultimately, I couldn't take the game seriously. A lot of the missions were incredibly easy, until they start actively taking away weapons to start off with. The kills were far too easy, the enemy A.I. had so many exploits that could be capitalized on, and a lot of times it was just easier to shoot the target from behind a corner with sight blockers so that no one could figure out where the shot came from. Then I'd sit around for a few minutes for the guards to all reset and move on to the next target. Certainly funny, but I wouldn't say challenging or fun beyond the first playthrough.

I've been a fan of the Hitman franchise since Hitman 2 (i.e. since 2002), and it's a series that I've always enjoyed but has generally seemed to fly under the radar of the gaming community in the US. That all seemed to change with the start of the episodic run of the newest entry in the series, Hitman Season 1, which dominated the conversation of many gaming podcasts, YouTube channels, and gaming awards in 2016. I received the complete first season from my wife as a birthday present after all the episodes had been released, and found myself very curious to find out what had changed with this new game to bring Hitman into the spotlight.

I quickly found that this Hitman game has all the traditional trappings of the series:

• intricate non-linear level design
• multiple paths to completing mission objectives
• the use of disguises, stealth, and rigging accidents to cover your tracks
• the sort of globe-spanning political conspiracy theory-based plot that every stealth game seems to have

It turns out that what sets Hitman Season 1 apart from its predecessors all boils down to one thing: accessibility. While the on-ramp for the Hitman series has generally gotten less steep with each entry, Hitman Season 1 offers an unprecedented level of guidance to the new player. In addition to a fairly thorough tutorial stage, every mission in Season 1 features a new hint system called "Opportunities". Once discovered within a stage, each opportunity provides step-by-step instructions through one possible route to assassinating a target. These opportunities come complete with explicit on-screen text instructions and map markers. Further hints are provided by the game's challenge list which calls out specific assassination methodologies (e.g. drown the target, kill him with the antique canon, etc). Also, the level design language of Hitman has never been more codified: places to hide bodies are very obvious and objects that can be sabotaged are clearly marked. As a result of all these new player-friendly features, a completely inexperienced Hitman player will be up to speed and earning Silent Assassin ratings in no time. It should also be said that most of these hint systems can be tweaked or disabled in the options menu, but are fully activated if using the default settings.

As a result of all the accessibility upgrades, it was pretty clear that Season 1 is a great game for new players, but what about for Hitman veterans such as myself? In a nutshell, experienced Hitman players will find that Season 1 plays very much like Hitman Blood Money, but with the control scheme and UI of Hitman Absolution. Before I realized that the hint systems could be toggled, I found that the combination of opportunities and challenges had transformed the gameplay. Traditionally, a Hitman mission was a process of discovery and figuring things out, but this new guided experience started to feel like a matter of simply checking items off a to-do list. Once I disabled these features, however, I was able to get back into the enjoyable classic Hitman groove. That being said, seasoned hitmen and hitwomen may find that Season 1 doesn't offer much new in terms of gameplay innovation, mission structure, etc, but that every facet of the core gameplay is very smooth and well-executed.

Overall, Hitman Season 1 is a fantastic game for new players, and reliable comfort food for series veterans. I did come to realize that I probably would have enjoyed my time with the game a little more if I would have disabled the hints sooner and played through the episodes as they were released rather than blasting through the whole game in succession, but that's my fault, not the game's. It is my hope that Season 1 is simply laying the foundation for more innovation and varied gameplay to be introduced in Season 2. Only time will tell where this new episodic format will go, but for me, I found enough to like in Season 1 to be more than willing to sign up for Season 2 once it's formally announced.

For more content like this, check out my blog Tales from the Backlog.

I never played the Hitman games, but when the whole trilogy was ported to VR with the release of Hitman 3, I finally tried them out.

I do admit that I am running on a high-end gaming machine, but I have not yet played any other VR game that has the graphical fidelity as Hitman. I genuinely felt like I was there in the little Italian village. I just wandered around, taking screenshots of the beautiful little flower shops, the vespa parked in front of the cafe, the gorgeous cathedral towering above me.

The gameplay in the VR version is totally unchanged -- everything you can do in the regular game is accessible in the VR version. That's not to say that the VR stuff doesn't feel a little janky -- the controls are definitely "tacked on" and don't always feel very intuitive, and sometimes it feels like your hands will just fire off into the sunset before snapping back, when you're trying to do things like strangle your assassination target or whatever.

But, honestly, I don't care about the jank. I just put the game on the easiest difficulty setting, and treated it more like a sight-seeing trip with a side of assassination rather than an assassination game. And it was truly one of the best experiences I've had in VR. I'm working my way through the 2nd and 3rd games in the same way, enjoying inhabiting the VR environments of the Hitman trilogy.

When it comes to stealth games, my experience comes in games that rely on small doses. Take, for example, “Splinter Cell” or “Metal Gear Solid,” both of which are mostly comprised of levels that are split into small challenges. These games act almost as puzzles games, with each new room and its enemies acting like a riddle that has a specific solution that must be figured out to move on to the next room.

Not so with “Hitman,” in which IO Interactive makes fully-realized worlds packed with possibilities and answers. There is a mission that you have to solve and almost limitless ways to solve it. The solution is whatever you want it to be. You can stealthily infiltrate a region, take your time learning the patterns and processes of the characters, make a murder look like an accident, then leave completely undetected. Or you can run into a mission shooting anyone that gets in your way. But even this description of possibilities oversimplifies the insane amounts of options that “Hitman” gives the player.

There is an entire ecosystem to this game that is fascinating, with tools and characters exactly where you’d expect them to be. If I needed a knife, I simply looked for a kitchen. If I needed a pack of cigarettes, I checked a smoker’s room. But there’s also layers to this as well, so that a player can only get so far with one outfit and can only blend in so far. Being a waiter will get you access to a kitchen, while pretending to be security will understandably get you further in a specific area. Everything is so ingeniously thought out, I was constantly impressed with what “Hitman” was doing.

“Hitman” also does just the right amount of hand-holding. It will lead you to the path of elements that will help you solve a mission, but it won’t directly tell you how to use this path. When I played the DLC, I found myself mostly infiltrating an area, using my gun, then running away before it was too late. While that’s a viable option, I preferred the game’s help in showing me all the insane possibility on how to complete a mission. Seeing what this game offers is such a rewarding and fascinating experience and an example of how much great level design can do.

My only disappointment with this game comes from myself. This first season of “Hitman” was released episodically, and I do think that’s the key way to play this game. I can imagine playing one level of this a month, pouring over the possibilities, exploring the cities and weapons at my disposal, trying to beat missions through various means. There are so many possibilities, I do think splitting these levels up, rather than presenting them as all part of one continuous narrative would make me love this game even more.

But what I love about “Hitman” is that it’s stealth that oddly feels natural. In each situation, I felt like I was doing exactly what I would do if I were in a particular situation. I used the logic of the real world, rather than the logic of the game. This is such a smart game that it allows for that type of mentality and way of play, but also to allow for those who just want to go ridiculous in how they complete a mission.

I’ve always been overwhelmed by the idea of playing a “Hitman” game, because they always seemed to me like there were too many possibilities and not enough guidance. But this first season of “Hitman” is a fantastic realization of this idea done at well as possible. A brilliant experience that I can’t wait to continue exploring.