HITMAN 3 - final chapter of the nu-Hitman trilogy - now available on Steam

[Infinitron]

 

[Alphons]

hiking preorder price at EGS (solved after community manager at HMF was notified)

Pre-order price is currently still double what I paid for it initially. So it's not like I'm going to re-order, no matter what they do.

Thanks for correcting me.

 

[DalekFlay]

Looking forward to playing next year when it hits Steam @ 75% off (because that's the price point I'll be getting it at). Have fun with the EGS shenanigans IO, and relish those epic + console monies. Guess I'll have to miss out on the 1675th timed elusive target (in Paris, naturally) for a while, oh no...

I love how you guys type this shit out in such an "I'll show them!!!" kinda way. This has been going on for years now, and companies know numbers. They know the situation and chose what they think is best for them financially. They don't give two fucks about your internet tough guy routine.

 

[kangaxx]

Looking forward to playing next year when it hits Steam @ 75% off (because that's the price point I'll be getting it at). Have fun with the EGS shenanigans IO, and relish those epic + console monies. Guess I'll have to miss out on the 1675th timed elusive target (in Paris, naturally) for a while, oh no...

I love how you guys type this shit out in such an "I'll show them!!!" kinda way. This has been going on for years now, and companies know numbers. They know the situation and chose what they think is best for them financially. They don't give two fucks about your internet tough guy routine.

They obviously give something of a fuck, even if not much. If not they wouldn't have backpeddled so furiously.

 

[Ivan]

kakarot - tldr: 2 amazing, rest top notch levels, credits story. cons: 1 year epic exclusivity, teething issues w/importing

 

[kangaxx]

Looks as expected, more of the same and pretty good fun. Roll on 2022!

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...satisfying-end-to-a-beautiful-stealth-trilogy

Hitman 3 review - a satisfying end to a beautiful stealth trilogy
Providential.

IO's final World of Assassination game is closer to a seasonal content update than a sequel, but it's a thrilling endeavour all the same.


Hitman 3 is the final act in Agent 47's struggle against his nemeses at Providence, the illuminati-style collective of crooked politicians, crimelords and corpos introduced at the start of the World of Assassination trilogy back in 2016. I don't care much about that story, with its paint-by-numbers betrayals and toneless briefing sequences: its only virtue is to keep you moving around the globe, from one extravagant playground to another. But much to my surprise, I do care rather a lot about Agent 47, about the strange figure he cuts against the contents of his own world and the wider landscape of videogames.

The big joke of 47, of course, is that you can't miss him. He stands out like, well, a menacing, chalk-white man with a barcode on his head. In the reboot trilogy, you can mingle with NPCs to throw off suspicious guards, and the impression is always of a fridge trying to blend into a flock of sheep - even the Terminator looks more natural in a crowd. And yet somehow, 47 is the ultimate shape-shifter, able to disguise himself as anyone from a noodle chef to a celebrity DJ. IO has wisely refrained from making this ability to fit in more plausible, even as it has pumped up the splendour of Hitman's locations, and the result is an assassination game that is secretly a comedy long before you start dressing up as a butler and whacking people with fish.

The joke extends to the fact that Agent 47 is somewhat unconvincing as an avatar, or at least, an avatar in a game that occupies the same commercial plateau as Assassin's Creed. He's an old school anomaly carried forward from an era when ledge-mantling was an exotic practice. When he puts on a disguise, the clothes simply teleport from the victim's body to his own. When he stows a corpse, there's a slightly awkward little cutscene. I'm not convinced 47 even obeys the same laws of physics as anybody else in the game. When he's shot, it makes no impression beyond a bit of controller rumble.

All which might sound like I'm having a go at the animation team. Not at all - Agent 47's blunt economy of gesture and reaction are painstakingly crafted, and there's something endearing about this early-noughties stiffness, this lack of flourish in an age when AC protagonists slink through the geometry trailing a boutique's worth of cloth and harness. Questions of development budget aside, Agent 47 doesn't need "seamless" transitions or grounding naturalistic touches any more than he needs a sniper drone or a holographic decoy. What he needs, mostly, is the ability to stand still and an eye for details like poorly secured chandeliers.

Playing as 47 fosters a sense of eerily laidback contemplation that remains unique among stealth sims and as such, makes the absence of new features in Hitman 3 easier to swallow (though not, perhaps, the loss of features like the last game's entertaining Ghosts competitive mode). This is a sturdy third act that creeps along firmly in the footsteps of its predecessors.

Whether you're trying for a main story target, or tackling one of the tougher Escalation hits with additional restrictions, the basic rhythms of the game are the same: choose a starting location and a couple of tools, then try to find your way from public areas through layers of security to your quarry's vicinity, scooping up other tools enroute, and looking out for things you can sabotage. The less noticeable you are, and the more poetic and/or ridiculous your methods, the higher your score. Costumes found or taken from NPCs make you undetectable to many onlookers providing you're where you're expected to be and not doing anything odd, like slipping rat poison into somebody's cocktail or meddling with a giant mechanical sun. Agent 47's invisibility is a flexible social metaphor, revealing the presumptions of those nearby. When he poses as an executive on a factory tour, his invisibility is the armour of privilege. When he dresses as a waiter at a sky-high soiree, it's the invisibility of little people in the presence of their betters.

Maps follow a complex running order, with targets moving from spot to spot: the key is working out where they'll be when, or uncovering ways of changing the pattern. The estate owner is well-defended, but perhaps if you cause havoc in the winery downstairs you can lure him into the open. The wandering programmer has a bodyguard, but perhaps you can find a way of tying the latter up while his client gets herself into hot water. Hitman 3 is most rewarding when you disable the handholds and parts of the HUD, attempting to make it through via in-world observation alone, but you'll likely follow proximity-activated Intel prompts and waypoints during your first try. These give you more of a narrative flavour and gently walk you through some fancier ways of nobbling your targets. After three WOA instalments, IO has refined the art of using story missions to introduce the areas and tantalise you with their possibilities. The meat of the game still lies in replaying with different targets and more challenging criteria, but it feels like the studio is having a bit more fun with these opening guided forays.

Spoiler

The game's Dartmoor map, for instance, gives you the option of posing as a detective investigating a suspicious suicide, which effectively allows you to stop playing Hitman and experience the whole thing as an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit - asking for alibis, cross-referencing testimonies and tracking down clues, all of it elegantly folded into the existing intel menu system. The map itself is a nice balance of big and intimate, with a core cast of blue-bloods and hard-pressed servants, wandering the endless carpets of a gloomy mansion. Play it without disguising yourself as the detective - which, unlike most outfits, makes you completely undetectable - and it's a lot more challenging: guards everywhere, no public access as such, and lots of cavernous hallways with little to hide behind.

The six new maps - all set in and around the sanctums of the wealthy - are on par quality-wise with those of Hitman and Hitman 2. The two standouts are probably Berlin and Argentina. The former sees you trying to expose and bump off enemy agents in a huge club built inside a decommissioned power station. There are lots of backstage areas, elevations and "unfortunate accidents" to choose from, and the ambience is intoxicating - you get a main dancefloor with pyrotechnics-heavy DJ set, scattered chillout cafes and invitation-only drug dens. Argentina, meanwhile, is a sprawling and well-attended retirement party at a sunny estate with its own vineyard and a high-tech winery. It's a sumptuous layer cake: take the main road in and you'll reach a plaza where socialites dance and swap stories about the host. Further in and above, you'll find plush roof gardens and a fortified villa. It's a lot of fun for snipers, once you've reached the summit, but you'll find you can be just as effective with a pair of shears.

The Dubai skyscraper map has some cool assassination possibilities involving skydiving, and is a stunning assemblage of gold and glass floating against a murky cloudscape. I was less taken by the China map - it's redolent of Sapienza in the first game, with a town environment concealing a huge underground data centre, but there's a little too much emphasis here on sneaking through conveniently man-sized air vents. Hitman is simply more interesting as a social stealth game than when you're lurking in crawlspaces.

Carpathian Mountains is also a slight disappointment as a final map - it starts you off at the back of a speeding laboratory train and asks you to make your way to the front. The result is undeniably atmospheric but it's obviously rather linear - you're climbing onto the roof or around the outside of cars to get behind guards, and the environmental setups are more pedestrian, almost like optional tactical takedowns in a corridor shooter. That said, I have yet to replay it with different starting locations and targets - I suspect the level is more complex if you begin further up and travel backwards. The linearity is, of course, a thrown gauntlet: how creative can you be in what appears to be a very confined space?

All the maps are worth revisiting as much for certain deft human moments as the satisfaction of a kill. On Dartmoor, for instance, there's a security guard and a maid who keep trying to chat each other up, breaking off in embarrassment when you appear. You now have a camera which, aside from allowing you to wirelessly hack doorlocks, lets you preserve these moments, some of which are tethered to Challenges. As before, finishing a hit earns you XP towards your map mastery, unlocking new starting locations and tools. If you want to up the ante still further there's the returning Contracts mode, in which you tailor-make a hit for other players by first carrying it out yourself.

The great provocative unfulfilled possibility of the World of Assassination trilogy is that maps don't really respond once you've killed somebody. Guard patrol patterns tighten up, bodies are bagged and removed, and certain bigwigs might flee to saferooms, but the mood and fundamental workings of the space carry on unaltered. I finished off my first Argentina playthrough by shooting a woman with a sniper rifle in full view of a hundred people - when I drifted through the area as a waiter a moment later it was like it had never happened. The nearest you get in Hitman 3 to a kind of map-wide "second act" is in China, where one of the more elaborate killing methods results in a full lockdown that drives half the workforce outside to stand gossiping in the rain.

There are more down-to-earth reasons for this inflexibility - it's hard to implement that kind of change on maps this large, carefully organised and animate without breaking things and adding years to development time. But it also speaks to the plot's rather forlorn theme of a world in which you can punish individuals but never bring down the systems that facilitate their wickedness. "There will always be people like them, so there must also be people like us," is one of Hitman 3's concluding lines. It's meant to sound like a victory. (It certainly leaves room for another sequel.)

All the same, there is something very hopeful about Hitman, an optimism that somehow coexists with its air of absurdity. If these worlds are depraved and ridiculous, full of evil people wallowing in their own crapulence, they are always wobbling around the rim of their own undoing. Behind Agent 47's myriad disguises I sense a faith in the self-defeating logic of the universe, a conviction that if he is patient and watchful, if he only allows himself to move with the flow, the planets will align, the walls will disappear, and for a second or so, the heart of the machine will be exposed for all to see. Just long enough for him to reach out and insert a screwdriver.

https://www.pcgamer.com/hitman-3-review/

HITMAN 3 REVIEW
IO's most creative and surprising assassination sim yet.

And so we've come to the end of IO Interactive's so-called World of Assassination trilogy, which began with the Danish developer's first Hitman reboot back in 2016. These are some of the best systems-driven stealth games on PC, and Hitman 3 tops the series off with a superb collection of levels—some of which are among the best in the entire Hitman series. This is a spiritual and mechanical continuation of the previous two games, but IO still has a few surprises up its sleeve. And one level in particular might just be the studio's masterpiece.

I'm in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Berlin. Spindly lasers and spotlights sweep across a shadowy dancefloor, revealing a sea of bobbing heads hypnotised by throbbing techno music. The music is so loud, and the bass so deep, it makes my headphones vibrate. But I'm not here because Agent 47 has given up contract killing and joined the German rave scene, even though that would be a pretty funny way to end the story. I'm here to murder a team of deadly assassins who are also trying to murder me.

Ten hitmen are patrolling the warehouse and a scrubby industrial wasteland surrounding it. And here's the kicker: they know what I look like, even if I'm wearing a disguise. I can still change clothes to stroll past lowly security guards, but these trained killers aren't so easily fooled. If they catch sight of me they'll open fire, which means I have to rely on those swarms of pill-popping ravers, and the maze-like architecture of the building, to conceal myself.

Most Hitman targets are cowards hidden away in a fortress behind a wall of armed guards, which makes these guys so thrilling to go up against. It's a totally different dynamic, and one of the challenging missions in the trilogy as a result. There aren't even any Mission Stories in this level, the in-game hint system that usually suggests entertaining ways to kill your targets. This encourages you to experiment with the sandbox and dream up your own methods.

To complicate matters, the assassins are also disguised. To identify them I have to steal an earpiece and listen in on their conversations. When I catch one talking to their handler in instinct mode—which highlights targets, points of interest, weapons, and so on—their cover is blown and they're marked permanently on the map. Now all I have to do is figure out how to kill them without anyone noticing, in front of thousands of witnesses, in the middle of a rave. I could just shoot them and run away, of course, but that's no way to play Hitman.

It seems impossible at first. Some of the targets follow routines where they're constantly surrounded by people. One of them, the leader, even has a bodyguard who never leaves his side. But the beauty of Hitman is carefully studying these big, intricate levels, making a mental map, and finding holes in the security to exploit. When you do finally manage to kill five of these assassins—enough to send the others fleeing—it feels incredible.

Although Hitman 3 builds on the solid foundations laid by the first two parts of the trilogy, sharing the same AI, stealth systems, and user interface, IO has also taken this opportunity to experiment a little with its tried and tested formula. The complex, open-ended Berlin level is the most the studio has ever trusted a Hitman player to take the lead and figure things out for themselves. And in the other levels there are, surprisingly, only three Mission Stories per map, compared to an average of about ten in the previous two games' levels.

The opportunities are still there: elaborate traps to set up, people to pose as, shortcuts to take, keys to swipe. They just aren't as clearly signposted this time around, forcing you to engage more with the environment around you. At its core this is still very much a classic Hitman game, but in many ways a more playful, experimental one. One level set in a dusty old mansion in Dartmoor, England sees Agent 47 posing as a private detective and solving a murder mystery straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. It's a gimmick, but a fun, unique spin on what is otherwise a fairly typical assassination mission.

The mansion itself is brilliantly constructed. Long, dark corridors lined with oil paintings open up into bright, lavishly decorated drawing rooms. And behind the walls there's a labyrinth of secret passages to discover with peepholes for spying on people. There's also a wonderful feeling of isolation, with the house standing alone in an expanse of barren, overcast moorland that stretches infinitely into the distance. No one makes places quite like IO Interactive, and in Hitman 3 you'll find some of the developer's finest creations to date.

Chongqing is another standout. It's a pretty straightforward mission compared to Berlin and Dartmoor, but an incredible piece of level design. Above, rain-soaked streets buzzing with fluorescent neon signs, noodle bars, apartment blocks, and winding, trash-stuffed alleyways. Below, a gleaming futuristic facility with multiple layers of security, heavily armed guards, and vent systems to slip through. This impossibly intricate double-stacked level is one of the most impressive things IO has ever created; both in terms of atmosphere and aesthetic, and in how many interesting ways there are to navigate it.

As for the other levels, Hitman 3 opens with Agent 47 taking a trip to Dubai and infiltrating a glamorous soirée at the top of its tallest building. He enters the level by parachute, crawls through a window, slips into a tuxedo, and blends into the crowd—as if we needed any more proof that IO loves James Bond. It's a real visual treat too, with immense gilded palm trees, reflecting pools, and dramatic views over the cloud-covered city. But for all its glamour it's a rather simple, reserved level, feeling more like a tutorial to ease new players in.

Dubai introduces the digital camera, a largely forgettable new gadget that 47 always has in his inventory, regardless of what you selected at the mission planning phase. With it you can scan things for extra intel or hack electronic panels to trigger certain things—for instance, activating a futuristic window's frosted glass to cover you, or remotely opening a vent cover. It's a frivolous addition, really, and feels slightly out of place in a Hitman game. But the levels are almost never designed around it, so thankfully it's not too intrusive. And in its favour, I do like how you can use the zoom function to scout ahead.

Later, 47 travels to Mendoza, Argentina and sneaks into yet another high-class party: this time at a winery. With golden early evening sun falling over the vineyards, it's gorgeous to look at, and a Mission Story involving a sniper is especially devilish. The level is split between the winery, where the party is being held, a scattering of rocky foothills patrolled by gaucho guards, and a colonial villa where one of your targets lives. It's another level that plays things relatively safe, but it's much more detailed and involved than Dubai.

The sixth and final map, set among Romania's rugged Carpathian Mountains, isn't a typical Hitman level at all. It's more like an action set-piece, designed to finish Agent 47's story in spectacular fashion. It's a tightly choreographed, visually impressive finale, but it is, essentially, scripted. Without spoiling anything, the nature of the level means there's no room for exploration. You do get a few opportunities to flex your creativity, but mostly you're just doing what you're told. This makes it the weakest by default, even though it's crafted with the same level of care and polish that defines all of IO's levels.

Over the years, IO has gotten really good at designing the many small stealth challenges that litter its levels. The placement of guards, improvised weapons, blind corners, security cameras, and places to hide bodies is often pitch perfect. There are countless tiny, satisfying moments in these levels where you're given just enough to cleverly outfox the AI and use the environment to your advantage. You rarely feel backed into a corner, or in a situation you can't find a way out of, which speaks to the quality of the game's design. And as you unlock additional tools and gadgets, the sandbox only gets deeper and more varied.

Despite a couple of weaker levels, Hitman 3 is a sensational stealth game. Berlin, Chongqing, and Dartmoor represent the series at its best, which is a fine way to end the trilogy. And if you own the first two games you can—once Epic figures out how—access all of those levels here, with improved visuals and the ability to use the new game's gadgets and weapons in them. Do that, and this is easily one of the best games on PC. If this was a review of the trilogy as a whole, I'd stick a couple more points on the review score. But even on its own, Hitman 3 is a magnificent videogame and a perfect swansong for Agent 47.

THE VERDICT
90

HITMAN 3
A beautiful, deep, and endlessly replayable murder sandbox, featuring some of the best levels in the series.

 

[IDtenT]

Reordered.

I'm weak lads.

 

[PowerTorment]

Yay! I worked on this. I am so pleased the reviewers so far like it.

 

[DalekFlay]

They obviously give something of a fuck, even if not much. If not they wouldn't have backpeddled so furiously.

Was talking about Epic exclusivity, not the Hitman 2 thing.

 

[ADL]

It's a damn shame that such a cool looking Virtual Reality mode is locked behind the worst "mainstream" VR headset and doesn't even support motion controls. Manhunt 2 Wii style executions in VR would be fun. Using the Dualshock 4 while in VR sounds ridiculous.

 

[Mikeal]

 

[DalekFlay]

Wonder if other models/textures in Hitman 1 and 2 will be upgraded, or just 47 himself. Pretty sure in Hitman 2 the improvements were limited to lighting and such.

 

[Ghulgothas]

I did it.. I went and bought it...
I've maintained Epic Abstinence since this all started and now, this is the game that's broke me.
God forgive me...

 

[Cyberarmy]

Man, why it's Epic exclusive ...

 

[HoboForEternity]

just wait a year bro, just don't die in 2021

 

[AwesomeButton]

Man, why it's Epic exclusive ...

I don't care. As a consoomer I am cheering for every thrust which a company makes while it's fucking me in the ass. What brings more revenue to them is certainly good for me.

 

[Volrath]

Even here, blood money is peak 47.

 

[DemonKing]

Finished the first level – it was pretty good but would have liked more skyscraper climbing ala MI4 as I said previously. Graphics look very impressive on PS5 (I'm assuming ray traced reflections) although I did notice some foliage pop in at the start of the second level which annoyed me.

Not sure what the point is of solving the murder mystery in Mission 2 – I could have killed the target repeatedly during my investigations and it doesn't seem particularly compelling despite the hype. Guess I'll keep on plodding and see if there's a decent payoff.

 

[Doktor Best]

It's a damn shame that such a cool looking Virtual Reality mode is locked behind the worst "mainstream" VR headset and doesn't even support motion controls. Manhunt 2 Wii style executions in VR would be fun. Using the Dualshock 4 while in VR sounds ridiculous.

Yeah its seriously puzzling to me. They could have landed an HL Alyx type landmark success just with proper motion control implementation and a SteamVR release, but no, they decide to butcher it with a shit control scheme and restricting it to PSVR. Whoever brought up this brilliant idea has no fucking clue about VR or industry trends. Probably the same people who do shit like this then go ahead and proclaim VR "dead" because nobody plays this abortion.

A shame, really...

 

[Kalin]

SHITMAN

 

[LESS T_T]

Whoever brought up this brilliant idea has no fucking clue about VR or industry trends.

Well, they chose Epic exclusive on PC, so they can't do much with SteamVR or Oculus at least for a year. And being PSVR exclusive means they get payment from Sony.

All these deals were probably for reducing the cost of self-financed, self-publishing.

 

[Spectacle]

Of course the "progress transfer" website is overloaded

 

[DalekFlay]

Am I the only weirdo not transferring progress because A) it gives me a reason to replay older levels in the new game, and B) I don't want to use powerful unlocks my first time through?

 

[ADL]

Whoever brought up this brilliant idea has no fucking clue about VR or industry trends.

Well, they chose Epic exclusive on PC, so they can't do much with SteamVR or Oculus at least for a year. And being PSVR exclusive means they get payment from Sony.

All these deals were probably for reducing the cost of self-financed, self-publishing.

A handful of EGS exclusives actually used SteamVR meaning you had to not only install Steam and SteamVR but also have Steam running in the background. Really hoping that VR compatibility comes with the Steam release once these exclusivity contracts expire.