Hitman 3 Hands-on - Fans of Agent 47 in For a Treat!

With 2016's Hitman , IO Interactive managed to strike near-perfect balance between sandbox and stealth. It was a game that could be played for dozens of hours without getting bored, learning the secrets of the detailed maps and finding new, clever ways to eliminate the targets. The formula turned out not only addictive, but also truly unique – no one has managed to copy it in the following years, so it remains remarkably fresh even today.

For the Danish team, which gained independence from Square Enix in 2017, this is a very good position. It allows them to polish the formula instead of thinking about how to get ahead of the competition again. 2018'sHitman 2 was just as successful a game as its predecessor, though it made minimal changes to gameplay and focused more on the setting – ditching the controversial split into episodes and experimenting with multiplayer and Sniper Assassin modes. Hitman 3 follows a similar pattern, serving up mostly more of the same thing in terms of mechanics. After a solid playthrough of the first two of the six upcoming missions, I have no doubt that this is the right approach, and the third season will delight fans of Agent 47's adventures.

Rerady for the final encounter with that bald dude?

An explosive finale

The latest installment of the series is slated to be the grand finale of a trilogy started in 2016 called World of Assassination. This applies not only to the story, but also to the gameplay – Hitman 3 will be the culmination of the new formula, and as such, in addition to six new maps (plus the two-part tutorial set in an ICA facility, which fans are already familiar with) it will also offer the ability to import all 14 locations from previous games.

This will be free for owners of the first and second season of Hitman, and in the case of newcommers will likely require purchasing a DLC – as was the case with Hitman 2, which also allowed the import of maps from its predecessor. The good news is that this time around, we will also transfer our progress. Veterans will be able to do without championing Paris or Whittleton Creek levels from the start to gain access to items and starting locations anew. Newcomers, on the other hand, will get one giant game with hundreds of hours of activities – if they want to explore everything the trilogy has to offer by opting for the full package.

I can see all the locations from previous Hitmans!

But putting the past aside and focusing on what's new – Hitman 3 leaves no doubt from the very first moments of the story campaign that we're in for a grand finale. While the first season was rather lengthy and focused more on introducing the pawns and setting them up on the chessboard rather than telling an engaging story, events accelerated in the second season, and 47 found himself at the center of a war between an organization secretly ruling the world, called Providence, and a mysterious client.

In the latest installment of the series, the war continues, the lines of conflict are clearly marked (with one more added) and from the very beginning we find ourselves in the heat of action. Although I only got to know a third of the story, a lot has happened over the course of that fragment, in fact much more than I had expected. The intrigue spun over the course of several years has developed into a truly compelling action movie, and if the rest of the script maintains the pace and quality of what I saw in the first two missions of the campaign, we could be talking about one of the best – if not the best – Agent 47 story ever.

Waiter disguise and a poisoned cocktail – classic.

Keep calm and...

Traditionally, the game takes us to locations scattered around the globe. This time, 47 will visit a modern skyscraper in Dubai, a mansion in Dartmoor, England; Berlin, neon-lit Chinese city of Chongqing, and two more maps still to be revealed.

The crux of gameplay remains unchanged. Each map has an open structure and apart from the target (or targets) to be eliminated, we'll find civilians going about their business, guards, restricted areas, and various objects and situations that we can take advantage of. Some of them are scenarios planned by the creators, allowing to get to the victim and eliminate them in a spectacular way – it's things like disguising as a person with whom the target was supposed to meet, or sabotaging the scene on which they were giving a speech.

The way the maps are constructed allows for creativeassassinations – pretending to be a waiter and serving poisoned food or tampering with electrical installations in order to cause short circuits are the simplest of available ideas. The system of challenges and levels unlocking new tools and starting points additionally encourage repetition and maxing out the maps – while a single completion of a contract lasts from several minutes to two hours, discovering everything a location has to offer requires even a dozen or so approaches, which, remarkably, don't become boring at all.

Novelty for connoisseurs

The changes that Hitman 3 makes to the proven gameplay formula are so slim that if you don't point the finger at them, only the most ardent fans will notice the difference. The first is the addition of a portable camera to Agent 47's inventory. Although the device is mainly used, as you might expect, to capture special moments, IO Interactive has made sure that it is also used in gameplay and, for example, in Dubai, scanning designated locks allows the supporting agent to open them remotely. In Dartmoor, however, the gadget comes in handy during the investigation – but more on that in a moment. Despite these strenuous attempts to make the camera as useful as possible, it still remained barely a curiosity during gameplay, the absence of which would not affect the game in any significant way.

Sometimes, achieving a goal requires tinkering with computer systems.

The second new feature is the inclusion of shortcuts on fresh maps, which become available in subsequent approaches once unlocked – for example, a ladder that can only be opened from the top to easily bypass security. This new feature is a sort of homage to players who squeeze everything they can out of maps, but again, it doesn't affect gameplay in a major way. That's the end of the list of changes I've seen and noted – it's clear that IO Interactive didn't want to excessively mess with a successful and popular formula. And I was absolutely fine with that.

PSYCHO KILLER

The PlayStation 4 version of Hitman 3 will also offer full support for virtual reality goggles – with their help, we'll be able to explore every map (including those from previous installments, if we get access to them, of course) and complete every mission, this time looking our targets straight in the eye. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test this variant of the game in practice, because the pre-release version was made available to me on a PC – and this platform doesn't offer VR mode.

This ladder will save us lots of time in the next approaches to Dubai location.

From the top of the world to six feet under

The preview included the first two missions of Hitman 3, set in Dubai and Dartmoor. Contrasting locations let you see the different facets of the game. The Dubai skyscraper is filled with crowds and every step we take, we are treated to impressive views, while the English residence focuses on intimacy and grayish style, building a gloomy atmosphere straight out of a crime novel. Nice.

Though the mechanics and gameplay assumptions have not changed, the developers decided to make the missions a bit more cinematic this time, which is obvious from the first moments in Dubai. Before we get to the actual skyscraper, we first have to make a linear climb up the outer beams of the steel structure, during which we not only learn the basics of the controls – the camera peels off the protagonist in order to better present the scale of the building. Similar tricks occur later on as well – accentuating the transition to the actual interior part of the structure with music, or another camera angle to show the scale of one of the larger halls actually make the task much more cinematic. Such bells and whistles are, fortunately used in moderation and thus achieve the intended effect, emphasizing the feel of an exclusive skyscraper. It's a detail that makes exploring the locations more enjoyable.

Warm-up before killing – cloud walk.

The Dubai map is somewhat reminiscent of a blend of Paris from season one and Miami from season two of Hitman. 47 commits the assassinations in the midst of a large, public event, where the lavish main hall is filled with crowds of civilians, the servants trying to control the organizational chaos in the much less luxurious back rooms, and on the restricted floors, the VIPs do what they do best – plot intrigues. During the infiltration, however, I didn't feel I was being served the same thing yet again, as the skyscraper differs from the aforementioned locations in its strong verticality, as skyscrapers do. The game takes place over the space of as many as six floors, but at the first attempt, we start on the lowest one and gradually have to climb up, facing increased security.

A slight disappointment was the number of feature assassination opportunities – the map in Dubai offers barely three. Admittedly, they all maintain good quality, and one is even overly complex and lengthy, but that's still fewer than usual. It's a pity that IO Interactive didn't try to include a bit more scenarios, since the map could definitely accommodate them. Fortunately, the number of possible assassinations hidden in Dubai, which we have to figure out on our own, is very satisfying and fans of the series will spend a lot of memorable moments here.

Sherlock 47

The mission in Dartmoor also offers just three story assassinations prepared by the creators, but in this case, I wasn't complaining, as one of them allows the player to guise as private investigator. The writers of the series have outclassed themselves, allowing us to carry out a full-fledged investigation from beginning to end, just like in an Agatha Christie novel – interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence, drawing conclusions, deducing who is guilty. Not only is this the most substantial scenario within the World of Assassination trilogy, it's also the best – even my favorite moment so far, the patient waiting for transplant in the first season's finale, pales in comparison.

By playing detective, Dartmoor has instantly become one of my favorite – if not the favorite – map in the entire series. Especially since the other two stories prepared by the developers, although not as elaborate, also perfectly fit the atmosphere of a gloomy mansion inhabited by a family with dark secrets. The unique atmosphere is also built by the location itself, which, while not the largest one, is filled with flavors and small details – it's hard not to appreciate the family cemetery around the corner, the servants who are always gossiping about the family's affairs or the numerous secret passages and secret rooms found in the building.

Agent 47 pretending to be a detective – brilliant!

The glee of Dubai

I can definitely praise the technical quality of the build made available to us – although it's a pre-release version, it already worked much better than even the 1.0 release of Hitman 2. The game never once crashed, even when switching between active windows; the framerate remained at an even, stable level, during the play I also rarely experienced errors and they were rather small, such as NPC clipping through the door or disconnecting me from the server when trying to select a specific cache with a smuggled item. After what I've seen, I'm confident about the refinement of the final release.

Hitman 3 runs on the same, proprietary Glacier engine as previous installments in the series. Although the overall quality and detail of the setting seemed a bit higher than in the second season, I wasn't sure it was a matter of actual improvement, and not of the fact that, contrary to previous installments, I was playing on a PC. However, even if there are improvements, they are not significant – visually it's still the same game, not far from modern standards, but definitely not setting any trends either.

The Glacier engine isn't going anywhere yet.

47 ways to feast

In addition to the main story campaign, Hitman 3 will also offer additional modes familiar from its predecessors – time-limited Elusive Targets, Escalations, which gradually increase difficulty-level, community-created Contracts, and a sniper mode played out on specially designed maps. It looks like the latter won't get any new content and will only offer the maps known from Hitman 2, plus it will be devoid of co-op.

Other modes will return in the traditional style – we can expect them to be added as part of free support after the game's release. The preview version didn't yet offer Elusive Targets and Contracts, but it did allow you to try out two new Escalations – and they weren't much worse than what the series has accustomed us to. The Ghost Mode multiplayer mode introduced in the last previous entry was completely removed, but it wasn't very popular anyway and hardly anyone will miss it.

Rather than playing a virtuosso assassin, we can opt for much simpler solutions.

So as you can see, Hitman 3 will be many things, but certainly not a revolution. This doesn't bother me in any way, as I had a fantastic time with the previous two installments and the formula is still not exhausted. The new maps, which I've already had a chance to try, are great, the released fragment of the story campaign left me with a huge appetite for more, the technical layer is already very good – all seems to indicate that on January 20, fans of the series and stealth games in general are in for a real treat. However, people who didn't like the formula of the World of Assassination trilogy and are looking for a major change or hoping for a return to the roots of the series will be unsatisfied. They will have to wait further.