Date Posted: 11/03/21

The first part of the following articles is a review of the majority of the rebooted Hitman that has subsequently spawned a Season II and now Season III. I intended to come back to the game to finish off my thoughts on it a lot sooner than I did. I did manage to get back to it a day or so ago and as there were a few additional things that I wanted to talk about I did the rest of the Season review.

Date Posted: 26/08/23

I have done an additional article about the combined trilogy of games called Hitman: World of Assassination. That articles below are now:

[Most of] Hitman Season I

Hitman Season I (the rest of it)

Hitman: World of Assassination

Date Posted: 13/08/17

Released episodically throughout 2016 Hitman sees the return of the bald headed super assassin with a barcode tattooed on the back of his head, known only as 47. I have played a couple of Hitman games before namely Hitman 2 Silent Assassin and Hitman Blood Money. I had seen a few YouTube videos of various levels of this new game and when the full season (why they refer to it as a season I have no idea) popped up on the PSN I purchased it for my PS4.

My experiences with Hitman games have been a little hit and miss, the first game I played: Hitman 2 Silent Assassin (back in 2002) made being sneaky almost impossible. From what I remember I’d be doing a level, change into a different disguise and be walking through one area or another only for other guards to almost immediately spot me. I couldn’t just run past them, as this was suspicious so time and again I’d watch the suspicion meter climb and know there was nothing that I could do about it. If the meter fills all the way the guards realise you are an impostor and immediately open fire with every other guard in the level running to join in the fight. If I remember correctly in that game I ended up using an invincibility cheat just so I could get through it. There were levels in which you’d have to sniper a target but 47 never seemed to grasp the idea of putting his sniper rifle in a suitcase, or guitar case or something, and would just merrily wander around the streets with it naturally drawing attention from anyone who saw him.

Hitman Blood Money (released in 2006) on the other hand was much better because for a start I didn’t need to cheat to get through it, plus the levels were big enough and open-ended enough to give you multiple ways of doing things. I enjoyed that game and found myself returning to it on a fairly regular basis for a while in the hopes of improving my score on different levels. The game naturally had some issues, yes you could still adopt disguises like in previous games but sometimes people would spot you, then run closer to get a better look at your face which would blow your cover. I vaguely remember one level in which I killed some porn-guru (I think he was) and his dog saw me…that dog was then apparently a witness who was working with police to identify who 47 was. At the end of each mission you got a newspaper report of the level, which might read, “Person dead, no witnesses and no leads” Or it might contain a picture of 47 and the details of the deaths and a man authorities were looking for. A security camera once captured a glimpse of my shoe and from this authorities had someone come up with a sketch of what 47 must look like, so some things didn’t make that much sense. On the whole though, the game was good fun and I have pleasant memories of my time with it.

So those were my two experiences of Hitman and they were mixed. This Hitman game was one that I saw being played on YouTube and it looked quite interesting, like Blood Money there were multiple ways to complete the levels and you could be as stealthy or as loud as you desired.

Now, full disclosure, at time of writing I haven’t yet finished the story which is why this review is “Most of” the First Season and have got maybe a couple of missions still to go. But I think I have got enough of an idea to review the game up to the point that I have played it so far.

The game starts with a couple of training missions in which 47 meets and receives training from his handler Diane. These are basic tutorials and teach you the ins and outs of how to play the game. You can use distraction mechanics like turning off lights or generators, turning on TVs, and a number of other things designed to bring someone to investigate that can be subdued or killed. The outfit they were wearing can be put on and 47 will assume their identity with the freedoms they had. A security guard for example might be able to go certain places that a waiter can’t and vice-versa.

Following on from the training missions 47 is tasked to head to Paris and assassinate two targets who use fashion shows to front illegal activities, then he goes to Spain to do a mission there, then Morocco to stop a coup, and that is as far as I have currently got. There is a plot about a mysterious figure working in the background, and an organisation that might be behind a bigger global picture but you don’t need to worry about that and can just crack on with the levels. 47 is not concerned about politics and simply carries out his contracts with a ruthless efficiency (if you are good at stealth) or the mentality of as long as the target is dead it doesn’t matter who gets caught in the crossfire.

The game rewards the stealthy approach and gives you a rating out of 5 Stars at the end of the level. If you are spotted in a disguise this rating goes down, if bodies are found it goes down, if you are recorded by security cameras it goes down, and so on.

Similarly to Minecraft I think describing my play through up to this point will give a good idea of how I got on and game mechanics available to you.

So, first you are in Paris, and must infiltrate a gala fashion show and kill two targets. The level begins inside the grounds of the building with 47 dressed in a formal tuxedo. Now as he is a guest he can go anywhere the normal guests can, but will be stopped by guards or employees if he attempts to go somewhere out of bounds. As I doubted I’d be able to get close to my targets as a simple guest I wandered around for a bit until some Intel appeared regarding an Opportunity. A model at the party looked enough like 47 that if you could get his clothes then you should be able to access numerous areas of the back-stage area and get close to the target. So I decided to track the opportunity…

Opportunities pop up around the level and generally involve eavesdropping on someone’s conversation to get an insight on a means to get close to your intended target or isolate them so they can be assassinated.

I tracked the indicator on the map to the model, and after choking him out (but leaving him alive – killing non-targets affects your score at the end), dumping his unconscious body behind a wall, and taking his outfit I became him. To be honest it was quite good fun walking around as the model, especially when he was called upon to walk down the catwalk and pose for photos. Using this disguise I was also able to get close to one of my targets, assassinate her, and hide her body. One down, one to go. The second target, I snuck into the basement, and disguised myself as a waiter after learning through another Opportunity that the target wanted a particular cocktail made at the bar. I made the cocktail and laced it with rat poison so that when the target drank it, he felt sick, rushed to the toilet to throw up where I snuck in and drowned him, hiding his body, then slipping into the night.

Mission Complete – my rating was pretty good and it had only taken me half an hour to infiltrate the place and bump off both targets.

Spurred on by my success I loaded up the next level…Two targets to kill and a virus to destroy. Things initially seemed to be going quite well, I managed to infiltrate the target’s mansion, killed one without being detected, the other realised I was not the person she thought I was in the moments before I plunged a knife into her stomach, but both targets went down quietly and so I had only one objective to complete, destroy the virus. This is where I started to run into problems, in the levels there are certain people who have a white dot above their heads, these are people who will see through your disguise if you hang around them too long. Also there are security cameras dotted around the level, if you are recorded you need to destroy the recording otherwise your score will suffer at the end. I spent ages wandering around the mansion trying to find where the CCTV was recorded, eventually I came to a room full of audio visual equipment plus camera feed from around the mansion but could not find any security tapes to destroy. So either it was there and I just didn’t spot it, or it was somewhere else in the mansion entirely. Eventually I got bored and abandoned trying to find the footage. My next problem was that there was a spotter in between me and the door leading to the virus, so I thought, I’ll lure him away; knock him out and job done. Unfortunately, whilst I was subduing him another guard heard the scuffle and came to investigate which blew my cover and so I decided to reload a save. The save was from just before I killed the first target, so I killed him again, adopted a different approach to kill the woman, which again resulted in me being spotted but I pressed on anyway, and eventually managed to infiltrate the basement to where the virus was being kept. After investigating the area and finding no other Opportunities I thought I could just turn up the temperature to kill the virus, unfortunately as I tried to distract the guards one realised what I was doing, my disguise was compromised and because I could not be arsed to reload a previous save I basically just ran to the level exit…as a result of my bumbling I got a poor rating.

What I learned from this experience was this: if you are going to play this Hitman game then you need to be patient if you are going to a decent score (the better the score the more unlocks you achieve so there is a reason to be stealthy). I find it irritating that the game will explain certain things but not others, I get recorded on a camera but the game doesn’t then tell me where to go or how to destroy the evidence. I might have been in the right place but as I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for I didn’t know how to destroy the camera footage.

The other thing I learned is that things can go south very, very quickly so basically make friends with the Save option. I didn’t want to start relying on the save too much because one of the things you unlock is a mode in which Opportunities won’t be revealed and you can only save once per mission so doing things in one go is my preferred option, however, some of these levels might take upwards of an hour to complete and one mistake could take you back twenty minutes or longer if you are playing one of the lengthier missions so as you have the option to save, do it, and do it often. Plus load up the auto-saves as the game saves the mission progress quite regularly too.

47 has more of a personality in this game too, when he adopts various disguises he had talk to his intended victims or other people to lure them away so he can get to his target. He can blend in to certain situations depending on his costumes, (like dressing as a waiter and serving at the bar) so you really do feel like you are infiltrating a location with people that might spot you, rather than a bland background with NPCs that will pay you no more attention to you than they would to a passing moth.

I am a little undecided if I actually like Hitman because it can be pretty frustrating if you aren’t sure what you are supposed to do or can’t find the appropriate disguise to complete an Opportunity. Plus, like I said, a mistimed subdue attempt and you start a cascade of failure that only ends when you reload a previous save. But I have to say that the amount of Opportunities within each level are staggering and if you replay the mission you can chose to do a different Opportunity to one you previously chose. The game actively encourages you to play the same levels over and over again, and if I had been downloading the missions one at a time then perhaps I would have become far more skilled at infiltration before cracking straight on with the more complicated later levels. So perhaps that is the key to success, repeat the levels I have done until I become a Hitman legend, and then I’ll recognise recording equipment and other Opportunities without expecting the game to lead me around by the nose.

I think that Hitman is a dip-in game, one that you might play for an hour or so rather than blazing through it as fast as possible. The levels are well designed and the graphics are pretty impressive too. There are so many ways that you can complete your objectives and this game is a massive step up from Blood Money, which is all good.

The thing is I am looking at the game as it is now, and the experiences that I have had with it thus far. So far, I have found the game to be frustrating, and on occasion pretty boring as you wait for a target to be in just the right place at just the right time so you can kill them. Or you risk moving faster and blowing your cover completely. One mistake can throw off everything you’ve been working up towards so you are going to be relying on the auto-save or manual saves, which personally I don’t want to do. Plus having the game sitting over your shoulder with a check-list in front of it ticking off points as you make errors is also pretty annoying.

I guess the question is: am I going to stop playing? And the answer to that question is: no, I’m not. Like I said perhaps it is me and I just need to redo earlier levels until I get my eye in so to speak with how the levels are structured and how to make the best of every Opportunity. For the moment I think I am going to have to leave my Thumb Horizontal (*), because as much fun as I have had, I seem to have spent an equal amount of time with no idea where to go or what to do, or just waiting around for my target to be where I want them to be. I have though put an asterisk next to that Horizontal rating because I will continue to persevere with the game and should my opinion change, as I hopefully get better at it, I will return to do an Update at which time my Thumb rating may change.

6.5/10 (*) – Again this is my rating based on the time I have spent with the game as of time of writing, and like I said I haven’t yet finished it so this score and my Thumb rating may change. However, as of right now, this instant, I find Hitman to be equal parts fun and equal parts pissing about waiting for your target to be isolated or just getting frustrated, making a mistake and cocking up your play through.

Date Posted: 11/03/21

This is not going to be a full review, more of a Part II as the majority of the things I wanted to cover I talked about in the (Most of) Hitman Season One article. This is more of an update as I recently got round to finishing the game after I completed Doom Eternal. 

Full disclosure before I go any further, one of the things that I did not cover in any detail (more glazing over it) in my first part of this review was that the game was released in Episodes around a month apart during 2016. But the version that I got was the entire season in one lump sum. The reason that I think this is now important to mention is because the levels are designed to be replayed over and over again. Each one has numerous challenges and different ways and means of killing your targets. You might be tasked with blowing them up, kicking them into a machine of some sort, crushing them, poisoning them and so on. The levels are designed this way because players are going over them again and again whilst waiting for the next Episode to come out. For me though, I was not bothered about replaying levels because I am playing the game to progress through it, not to psychotically kill the targets 47 has been set upon in as many different ways as possible. I mean it is pretty messed up when you think about it. As long as they are dead then why do we need to drown them in a river or shoot a firework up their ass to they are rocketed into the sky??

I bring this up because I wonder if I may have missed the point of this version of Hitman. I am concerned with getting through the level as stealthily as possible, and moving on to the next one. Yes you unlock more stuff the more challenges you complete, and therefore more XP, but you can find everything you need to kill the targets in the levels anyway so why bother going in with a ceramic pistol tucked in your shorts or a poisonous tie pin when you can stab them in the throat with a screwdriver or use something in the environment to end your target??

Admittedly I did decide to replay a couple of levels but quickly decided to just continue with the game.

It turned out that I only had two levels left to do, one set in Colorado and one in a medical facility in Japan.

What I quickly realised when I returned to the game this time was that the save option is your best friend because almost as soon as I started the Colorado level I tried to choke out a guy and was spotted immediately. I reloaded a save then tried something else. This time I succeeded and moved into the compound, the auto-save kicks in every time you learn a new bit of intelligence or see an opportunity. I started to use the manual save once I made any kind of progress because if you do make a mistake or get spotted or something there is basically nothing you can do to regain your cover. Guards open fire or witnesses run to alert soldiers or whoever so once a mistake is made you are better off just reloading your most recent save, which if you are saving frequently, will only be a minute or so before hand.

I like stealth game and being stealthy. But usually guards have visibility cones so you know when they are likely to spot you. Hitman doesn’t have that which I acknowledge does make it more realistic but 47 also has the ability to use an x-ray like vision to see through walls and his targets glow red. So on the one hand the guards have normal vision ranges yet 47 can see them through walls so realism goes side-by-side with super powers.

Whilst I like stealth games I don’t like the save-scumming tactic that the game expects you to use, as if you don’t manually save, the game will be auto-saving every few minutes. I am going to be able to complete any objective if I have unlimited tries at it. I don’t necessarily think that my skills got better as I played I just learned who was going to be where so I could eliminate them, then went somewhere else to endlessly retry different techniques until I managed to kill the next target without being spotted.

The end of the level then gives me a 3 star rating but I’m not sure if that was because I kept reloading and the game knew I was doing it so my rating was affected. Or if my rating was based on time because I often managed to kill my targets without being spotted or their bodies found, yet I still only got an average rating. The truth is though that I am not really bothered about getting perfect ratings because I don’t feel like I need to do it. I don’t feel underpowered or ill-equipped when I do the levels so what is the point of trying to unlock more stuff I don’t ever use? This isn’t like playing Doom where you need as many weapons to fight off the armies of demons you are going to be facing off against. In Hitman you can easily kill a target by simply snapping their necks so whilst that is not the most creative means of ending them, it can be done using your own two hands.

I did like the game and some of the challenges do describe some ridiculous and hilarious ways of bumping off your targets so I might go back and play it for those reasons more than for things I’d unlock.

I think that I have realised that the game wants you to save and reload on your first few tries to get through its levels until you learn how to hone your skills, be mindful of your surroundings so get those 5 Star ratings. In some games I am a 100% completion nutter and will put in hours of additional playtime to get all of the things available, however, ratings are not something that I am concerned about. I said when I reviewed the first part of the game that I was not about to stop playing it, which technically I didn’t, it simply took me just under 4 years to return to it (and bear in mind the country had a lockdown during that time). I can’t say that I didn’t like playing the game, it was just that the constant saving and reloading just got annoying after a while because there is no way to correct a mistake without restarting or reloading.

I gave the overall game a 6.5/10 on my first review and now that I have finished it I think that marking was a little harsh. Now that I have realised that the game expects me to save and reload constantly until I have learned how to play through with the trained eye of a hitman, sadly I am just not so into the game that I can be bothered to keep replaying the levels over and over now that the game is complete.

Now that I have finished the game and it has been left open for Season Two to continue the story I may replay it if I were to get the next chapter in this reboot franchise just to refresh my memory regarding what is happening. But with other games that I’d rather play in my library I think Hitman may be destined to fall back out of my attention.

That being said I think that I will raise my originally rating from 6.5/10 to 7.5/10 because the sheer effort and variety that has gone into making the levels intricate, detailed with so many different ways and means to kill your target that if I were more into it, I would have loved to replay them over and over again. 

Date Posted 26/08/23

Staring off in 2016 with Hitman followed by Hitman 2 and Hitman 3 in 2018 and 2021, Hitman: World of Assassination is a version I picked up of the game after the first two were released on the Playstaion monthly games and I enjoyed them enough to upgrade to the PS5 versions when the trilogy was released in August 2023. It includes not just the three base game but all of the (then) DLC contents and additional missions. 

I did a review of Hitman 2016 and my response was a bit meh, I liked the game but found the fact that one error could disrupt your whole level play through with save scumming being the intended method to get the top Silent Assassin rating. Plus there was not a huge amount which differed it to the previous games I had played for other consoles. That being said when I did go back to it I discovered that there was much more to the game than I had originally thought. The campaign was what you’d call classic Hitman, enter a mission with a target or targets somewhere in the level, get close to them, kill them and move on. However, whilst that could be done and indeed was what I did when I played Hitman I realised that each mission had various story missions, as well as numerous other challenges for you to complete. Now I assumed these were to keep you interested as the first game was released episodically, but they were also to give you ways and means to increase your level mastery.

One of the strange things to mention before I go on is that if you have Hitman 2 then you can carry your XP and unlocks over to Hitman 3 but strangely it wipes out your Story mission completion so if you are bit OCD then you have to go through them again.

I am going to break things down a little differently in this review because the overall bones of the game hasn’t changed, but the muscle, sinew and flesh all have. This is therefore partially a review of the whole trilogy but also all the things that I wish I’d known when I first started.

So let’s crack on…

Mastery – Most levels have up to Level 20 and on the surface may seem a little pointless because whilst you unlock items for higher mastery or new ways to begin the mission, you enter a level with all the means to kill your targets within the levels themselves. As a result there is no real need to bring your own stuff with you. BUT, as you unlock more modes having an in-depth knowledge of the mini sandbox levels is essential to succeed. The additional items that are unlocked as you progress can also be incredibly useful because you can use them again and again. Emetic poison is a great tool to isolate your target, slip it in their drink, and they will feel sick, almost always going to the nearest toilet to be sick. You can follow them in, drown them, job done. But there is a pistol called the Seiker which fires emetic darts. It only carries two but if your target doesn’t drink or eat from anything it is a great way to poison them and get them on their own. Hiding explosives in suitcases is also a great method for eliminating targets. Don’t underestimate how useful some of these tools could be, a tranquilizer gun may seem useless but if you are going for Silent Assassin ratings (which grant you the most XP) then you cannot kill non-targets so knocking out a guard could be the way to get you target on their own. Plus unlocking shortcuts remain unlocked for every subsequent play through of that map so it is well worth seeking out these additional parts to make replays easier.

Story – The gist of the Story begins with 47 being recruited by the ICA and meeting his handler Diana Burnwood, it then skips ahead of all the previous games to a mission in Paris to assassinate two targets. The other games in the series are (as far as I am aware) canon, this is just a new story about the power behind the ICA and a figure from 47’s past returning. The in-level Story Missions give you more information about what is happening but you don’t have to follow them, if you want you can just focus on the assassinations. Now whilst the story is not going to win any awards it does give the game an excuse to travel to various locations from fashion shows in Paris, to street racing in Miami, film sets in Mumbai and even a Pirate Island in the Caribbean. Each map is a mini-sandbox in which 47 must switch disguises to infiltrate further into secure locations. There is so much detail regarding what you can find, hidden dialogue, and creative ways that you can end your targets. None of your targets are good people so you don’t have to worry about the prospect that you are playing as an international terrorist killing innocent people. The game rewards you more highly when completing Story objectives or the numerous challenges that it sets. Going in guns blazing is one approach but the most skilled hitman can assassinate their target in a well crafted accident or eliminate them without anyone even knowing they were there. There are so many death traps littering the maps and there are even methods through which you can get others to kill your targets for you. Running in, shooting your target, and running out again completes the level. But it will not net you much XP so you are better taking a slower more thoughtful approach to getting the job done. This does involve patience but as you begin to get to grips with the levels more and more, you find ways to do the job quickly and efficiently.

Side Missions – The game has several different side missions including but not limited to Seven Deadly Sins, Elusive Targets, and other missions taking place on previously visited maps. Now some missions set on maps you have already visited do count towards your Mastery level of that map, so don’t ignore them as they can give you new ways to get the job done. Now this is where the side missions do go off on a bit of a tangent. The Seven Deadly Sins: Greed, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Envy and Wrath are kind-of hallucination missions in which 47 is the embodiment of the sin and must complete themed objectives. Passing these missions rewards you with new outfits and weapons but they are very hit and miss. Hitman basically drills into you that infiltration through disguises is the way to progress but often in these missions if you change your outfit you instantly fail. Some of them are far more frustrating than fun, with the Wrath Escalation being one that I haven’t finished because it involves fighting wave after wave of enemies that are armed with guns whilst you might have a combat knife and a screwdriver. The Escalation Missions are a bit of a mixed bag and have been combined into a trilogy of linked missions in which if you fail one, you fail all, and have to wait 12 hours before you can have another try. You cannot save your progress during these missions so if you make a mistake, that’s it. For a game that is built on save-scumming this is an incredibly irritating mode that comes dangerously close to being not worth the effort. The rewards for these side missions are usually new weapons, or outfits, and that is usually enough incentive for me to do them but that is only because I want to get everything I can from the game. There are also Sniper Assassin missions but I have only had a token go at one of them, basically it is snipe a map full of people without them getting away but my sniping skills are decent enough with a stationary target, not to good when a target is running so again I find this mode more annoying than fun. That doesn’t mean I won’t have a go at it at some point.

Freelancer – Now we come to the most interesting parts of the game. In a previous Hitman game (Hitman 2: Silent Assassin if I remember correctly and possibly others) 47 had a safe house which he’d return to between missions to prepare for his next assignment. Any weapons you had left the map with were displayed on the wall and it encouraged you to repeat levels over and over to find all the guns, explosives and so on that they had to offer. In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin I am pretty sure the final level was 47 being attacked and you using all the weapons you’d accumulated to fight off the attackers. I thought it was a shame that this game just had a menu between each mission and all of the items, suits, and weapons you’d unlocked just there for you to scroll through as you picked what to bring with you. However, in Freelancer you have your very own Safe house out in the woods. The Mastery here works differently because there are 100 levels of Mastery which unlock new cosmetics for your safe house. This may seem a bit pointless but you can change the look of your home and give yourself the ability to make your own poisons or craft your own bombs. Any weapons that you leave missions with go onto your display wall which is in a hidden basement beneath the property. The story is broken up into different syndicates that you must take on, there are five syndicates in a campaign and the levels get harder as you progress. At the end of a campaign you unlock a weapon or mercs. Items are divided into Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary. Common ones can be easily found in levels but the higher ones can generally be only purchased with the in-game currency Mercs. When you finish a level you are given two breakdowns the first is the amount of XP you earned and the second is the amount of Mercs. At the end of each mission within the syndicate you open a chest which gives you an option of one of the three Freelancer tools. A mission objective may be kill a target with a silenced Legendary weapons or poison someone with a dart gun so you need to make sure that you bring them with you to get these assignments done.

When you first start Freelancer you are probably going to ignore the additional and Prestige objectives instead just focussing on dealing with the target. However, killing a target might net you 300 mercs and a bit of XP. Considering that you need thousands of XP to level up your Mastery it is going to take you forever to level up this way. You need to do the additional objectives and the prestige objective because if you complete all of them then you get an XP and Merc bonus for doing it. The XP needed for the Mastery also goes up. I am at about level 63 at the time of writing and I generally need about 40,000 XP to get to the next level. I can usually go up a few levels during a campaign but if I just stuck with the target kills I’d probably still be around level 10.

Similarly to the main game there are Challenges to unlock, one of which involves quitting a mission a certain amount of times. I’d advise doing this right at the start because it is better to do when you have no items and mercs rather than later when you have lots of both.

Another key point you need to be aware of in this mode is that there is no saving or reloading. If you begin a map and quit out you lose half of your total Mercs. This fact is especially irritating if you don’t realise that one of the challenges involves leaving before the targets are eliminated. So if you are going for this challenge in the late game then your hard earned mercs are going to disappear pretty quickly. If you are killed during a mission then you don’t die but you lose all of the items that you brought with you as well as your Freelancer tools. Now I can understand why you’d lose items you brought with you, but why you lose Freelancer tools is beyond me. In your safe house you have three suitcases that you slowly fill with different items that are awarded at the end of individual missions or that you have purchased from Suppliers found within the maps. A lot of these items are single use. If you take a bomb into a mission then it is not going to be magically back into your safe house when you return, fair enough, but for some cocking reason if you die in a mission then you lose everything that you had in these suitcases when you return to the safe house. It is sooooo irritating and makes no sense. Thankfully your guns and other items are safe stored in your display cases (assuming they weren’t in your pockets during the mission) but why leave those but take your Freelancer tools???

I was talking about this game and specifically this mode with a friend of my skin sack and he summed it up rather well “Freelancer, I love and hate this mode”. I think that is pretty spot on. I find Freelancer highly enjoyable to play and completing the additional objectives usually adds just enough additional challenge to keep the missions from getting toooo samey. Yet having said that if you make a mistake you are basically screwed. Like I said there is no saving and if you decide that you don’t want to do the current map and leave then you not only lose half your Mercs but you also alert the members of the syndicate making the additional levels much harder. The spawn locations can also be incredibly unfair. Now I know that sounds like I am just whinging but explain how it can possibly be fair to spawn you at the back of a school that has been taken over by the military that will shoot you on sight if they see you. Plus if you have not taken a lock pick into the mission with you then there is no way to get out without being seen. This is not too bad because if you are Trespassing rather than in a Hostile Area then guards who spot you will escort you will out of the area, but if you are trying to do a Silent Assassin objective, then if you get spotted you fail that objective. I have looked at various online forums and so many of them note just how unfair some of the spawn locations can be. The spawn location doesn’t change either so I don’t think quitting so you can return a little better prepared is asking too much.

This is a trick that I discovered basically by accident. I was playing a mission and the game crashed. I was quite annoyed because I figured that would count as me leaving the mission without completing it so I’d lose my Freelancer tools and half my Mercs. But when I reloaded I hadn’t lost anything. I looked this up and it turns out that if you pause a mission and return to the console home screen, then from there close the game down, you can exit a mission without losing anything. Since discovering this, my opinion of Freelancer has improved because I have lost count of the amount of times I have used this exploit. Yes it means restarting the whole game, yes it means starting the mission again, but it also means I don’t lose my stuff or my Mercs because a random civilian has spotted the toes of a target being reflected off a spot of dew on a dandelion disappearing into a box as I hide the body, and running off to alert every guard in the known universe.

Honestly I could go on and on…however I think I should start wrapping this up. As I said the first Hitman game in this new trilogy I reviewed as average, still, taken as a whole with the other games, the side missions, the freelancer mode, the sniper assassin missions, the side missions, the unlocks, the challenges and so on I have sunk probably hundreds of hours into it. There is so much to do. Yes I will admit that I am getting a little bit Hitman-ned out at the moment but only because I have been playing it exclusively for weeks with the only occasional break happening when I play Aliens: Fireteam Elite online. If you get the World of Assassination pack then you definitely get your money’s worth because it is going to take you hours and hours to do everything. The thing is that unlike No Man’s Sky which pads everything mercilessly to extend the game’s life Hitman just has an absolute fuck tonne of stuff you do in it. Missions have taken me less than 30 seconds because I know exactly what I am doing and have the unlocks to do it. Missions have taken much longer because I am trying to do it without changing my starting suit or trying to snipe my targets or I am trying to do both. 

All in all this is a perfect mixture of stealth, action, with creative kills and new tools to unlock. It might be that once I hit 100 on Freelancer my interest will disappear because by then I will not have much else to do but I have said that about games before and kept playing them. I am going to give Hitman: World of Assassination a very strong Thumbs Up. If you are a fan of the previous games or even if you are not then there is so much here and so many different ways to complete your objectives that there is something here for everyone.

9/10 – It takes a bit of time to get to grips with how the game wants you to play it but once you get it then it is a lot of fun. The different outfits and weapons are cool with different features and benefits associated with them. I would say though if you are struggling at any point then my advice is to check out a YouTuber called MrFreeze2244 as his videos helped me do a lot of the tougher challenges earlier on in my play through.