HITMAN 3 review: The first must-play game of 2021
The reboot of the HITMAN franchise was one of the best success stories of the previous generation, and developer IO Interactive’s highly anticipated closing chapter in the “World of Assassination” trilogy is the first major video game release of 2021.
It’s also the first must-play title of the year, and will certainly be in Game of the Year conversations months from now. HITMAN 3 raises the bar on its unique sandbox gameplay experiences to a new level, and also gives new life to earlier games in the saga.
You play as Agent 47, an assassin working to take down Providence, and international cabal of the super wealthy and powerful. We’ll touch on the story later, but HITMAN is a series that’s about the gameplay, first and foremost, and it’s never been better. If you’re new to the series, you can think of HITMAN 3 levels as giant, excellently designed interactive puzzles. You enter a map with a set of targets to assassinate, a small handful of tools, and little other direction. It’s up to you to explore, acquire different disguises that allow you access to different areas, learn more about the surrounding world and its rules, and figure out the best – or most entertaining – way to complete your mission.
In Berlin, one of HITMAN 3’s new locations, I found one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had with the series to date. You’re tasked with eliminating five targets any way you like – but the game doesn’t immediately identify who those five targets are. Instead, you have to sleuth around a multi-level warehouse dance club – which looks stunning on next-gen consoles – and identify the targets yourself, then pick them off one by one. The location offers an incredible diversity of options, and I spent hours familiarizing myself with the layout, plotting my assassinations and carrying them out.
There are six stunning locations in Hitman 3 – Dubai, Dartmoor, Berlin, Chongqing, Mendoza and the Carpathian Mountains – each with their own distinct feel and atmosphere, and each chock full of creative and often hilarious methods of assassination. IO Interactive takes a few interesting chances with the narratives within certain levels to offer new gameplay experiences and break up the usual formula. Dartmoor, which has you infiltrating the grounds of a posh, historic family estate in England, offers an extensive Knives Out-style murder mystery, with Agent 47 serving as the detective. You can, of course, eliminate the targets any number of different ways, skipping entire storylines within levels should you choose. That’s the beauty of the HITMAN sandbox.
The storyline plays a more central role in HITMAN 3 compared to each of the previous two installments, and guides your experience in some levels. Instead of simply being dropped into the world at the front gate of a level, there are often extended cutscenes or linear paths that set the stage for your next mission, which can fortunately be skipped in a subsequent playthrough. Without giving away any spoilers, which nicely wraps up the trilogy and also features an in-mission appearance from Agent 47’s handler Diana Burnwood. Rest assured that if you’re new to the trilogy, HITMAN 3 is still a great place to start, even if you aren’t familiar with groups like the ICA or Providence.
In fact, HITMAN 3 allows you to import every location from the previous two titles, provided that you own them on your platform of choice, and play through the entire trilogy. IO Interactive has visually upgraded all of the locations from HITMAN 1 and 2, and the rapid loading times on next-gen consoles make going back to your old haunts a very enjoyable experience. Even veterans of the series may want to consider starting over before diving into HITMAN 3, if only to refresh yourself on the storyline. You can read a guide on how to import older content and carryover progress here.
All of this content – the six new maps from HITMAN 3, along with the classic locations from the first two games – give HITMAN 3 incredible replayability, which is enhanced by the game’s Contracts Mode, a series staple. Contracts mode allows players to create their own missions with various parameters, choosing the targets, method of assassinations, necessary disguises and so on, and share the challenge online. Friends and strangers can then play through your mission and compete to achieve the top spot on the leaderboard. Given just how dense and impressive the new locations are in HITMAN 3, the community is sure to come up with hundreds of interesting contracts to play through, ensuring that you’ll have plenty of things left to do even when you wrap up the campaign. There’s also a VR mode for PSVR owners, which I wasn’t able to test.
HITMAN 3 isn’t a giant leap forward for the franchise, but a welcome evolution of a series that had already set the bar incredibly high. HITMAN has never looked better, and many of the new locations are undoubtedly among the best in the trilogy. If you weren’t a fan of the HITMAN formula last generation, there’s likely little here that would change your mind – but for veterans of the series, HITMAN 3 is a masterpiece.
FTW reviewed HITMAN 3 on Xbox Series X.