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‘Hitman 3 Review’: The Best Levels In The Series (And The Worst)

This article is more than 3 years old.

You could go ahead and call it Hitman 2.5 if you want. Hitman 3 is less of a full new idea, more of a continuation, expansion and refinement of the ideas present in Hitman 2. But then, you run into another problem with nomenclature, which is that Hitman 2 was already basically Hitman 1.5, a continuation, expansion, and refinement of Hitman. So if we’re going by decimals, that would make Hitman 3 into Hitman 2, I guess? Hitman 1.75, perhaps, asymptotically approaching something like a numbered sequel. Of course, it’s all nonsense: this was always only ever one game, released in 3 parts over 4 years: Hitman: World of Assassination.

Thankfully, it is one of the best games ever made.

Fans of the series—or the game, if we’re going to stick with that—will be right at home from the first moments of Hitman 3. Despite all the plot machinations ticking behind the curtain, the opening level is as familiar as the Paris level from back in 2016. We are set to infiltrate a fancy party at the top of the world, a Dubai skyscraper the inside of which lowly peasants will only ever see if they are working there, or, in particular but hardly unique circumstances, trying to kill someone there. We have two targets: one that mills around in plain view, inviting poison and accidents, and one that sits above in a secure location, requiring tricky stealth or elaborate disguises to access.

From there, we play, donning and shedding disguises at will, moving through this lethal version of Upstairs/Downstairs as we engineer poetic accidents or outright brutality to bring our targets down. We play and play again, this time engineering our targets into the same room to be killed at once, this other time pretending to be a new bodyguard to get one of them alone, or a chef with access to lethal poison and an accelerated egg timer. Repetition is the name of the game, turning this playground of unhappy accidents and class conflict inside and out until you can play it blindfolded. A nice little addition this time around is shortcuts: persistent ladders and the like you can unlock in one playthrough and use in the next, opening the door to more efficient sneaking every time.

This is the basic formula of this game, one that remains essentially untouched until the last level, but not without interesting experimentation. One such moment comes in the next level, offering a one target, more constrained experience with a singular, involved “mission story” that’s clearly meant to dominate your first playthrough. It’s a Knives Out-style murder mystery where you play the detective (so long as you knock him out and take his clothes as he stops to catch his breath in front of the conveniently-placed, totally unobserved closet). You spend your time talking to each family member in turn and gathering clues before presenting your finding to the target, who will celebrate your success by...taking an unguarded break on a third-floor balcony.

From there, it’s back to experimentation. The detective might be the star, but the undertaker and photographer can get up to some shenanigans as well.

The standout here is undoubtedly the level “Apex Predator”, featuring not only one of the game’s best environments in the form of an underground Berlin rave but its best setup, as well. Instead of 1-3 targets there are 10, all of them blended in with the crowd, hunting 47. He turns the tables on them, listening into their conversations to eliminate each in turn with a little more improvisation than those other levels, taking out 5 before their handler calls the operation off. There is room for near-infinite experimentation with none of the formula in some of the other levels: taking out one target might be as simple as distracting his friend before shoving him over the railing, or maybe the classic “broken extension cord in a puddle” trick. I threw a sniper of the roof before making handy use of the weapon he left behind: it goes on. And, as always, you can always engineer every target into the same location at once, though this time they’re ready for you.

That’s three levels: there are only 6 here, which might seem slim if you haven’t played the game before and don’t know just how deep these go. Two more are straightforward: a gorgeous, rain-drenched neon noir with a touch of Cyberpunk, the other a fancy party at a vineyard, as traditional and expansive as a Hitman level can be. Would you like to electrocute an aristocrat in a huge puddle of his own spilled wine? Nah, I’d rather crush him along with the year’s harvest. 47 is dead serious, whether he’s wearing a tailored suit or a chicken costume, but the game deploys humor better than nearly any other AAA title.

It’s the last level where the game stumbles, and it points out the biggest weakness along the way: this game is meant to be the conclusion to the convoluted story of the previous two games, and that means that there is, necessarily, a lot more story poking its way into these levels. I have never been interested in this and I’m still not, and it can’t be ignored in the last level, which is literally a train, forcing you from one car to the next as you get to to the single, inevitable end. It even allows you to kill enemies besides the target, anathema to the series as it stands.

The game falls prey to this particular problem again in an earlier level, where no matter how you go about it it always ends in a specific, scripted manhunt. Hitman can abide scripting, but only so much. I get it: the developers had an idea, and executed it fine. It’s just that the idea runs counter to what makes the game great.

So it’s 5 levels really, but they are excellent levels, masterful executions of a brilliant concept by a team at the top of their game. And, on top of that, we’ve already got the other two games—which are available for dirt cheap, now—to make a single, expansive, globetrotting experience that sees our familiar, baldheaded puppetmaster accessing the world’s ultra-wealthy just when they thought they were invincible, dancing through the class divides like the nameless angel of death that he is, and then blowing someone up with an exploding golf ball or something.

If I were reviewing Hitman: World of Assassination (a game which does not yet exist but will almost certainly be released by this time next year), I would give it a 10: more than the sum of its parts, a triumph of world-building and design unlike anything else in the industry. But it’s just Hitman 3, and so I’ve got to dock it for allowing its convoluted story to interfere with what it does best.

I do not think it is a spoiler to say that the game ends with 47 triumphant, ready to continue assassinating wealthy monsters with none of the baggage of the story so far. Which is all I’ve ever wanted to do. I hope that either the upcoming James Bond game channels this energy, or that IO continues making more Hitman either concurrently or afterwards, because I will never have enough.

  • Platforms: PlayStation, Xbox Series, PC, Stadia, Switch(via streaming)
  • Developer: IO Interactive
  • Publisher: IO Interactive
  • Released: January 20, 2021
  • Price: $59.99
  • Review Score: 9.5 out of 10

IO provided a review code for the Xbox version of this game.