I spent about 35 hours in Hitman World of Assassination this past weekend—interrupted mostly by the non-optional need to sleep and occasional concerns over the health of my GPU running for so long in a non-air conditioned apartment room in New York City in the summer. But I was determined to find out if the Agent 47 experience could really satisfy the stealth nerd in me. As it turns out, I’ve been so, so wrong to neglect modern Hitman’s potential as a third-person stealth game; I thought it fell drastically short in that regard, but in fact it’s quite capable of delivering the hide-and-seek thrills I came to love in games like Metal Gear Solid.
I blame my failure to recognize the freedom to go off-script and sneak around like Sam Fisher on the way the game foregrounds certain specific approaches you can take to each hit, which come with defined objectives that had me waiting around for the right costume to reveal itself, or for some waiter to leave an unattended glass nearby so I could slip some poison into it at just the right time. As I milled around waiting on these narrowly defined opportunities, I found myself wanting to just obsessively crouch-walk around every map, rarely changing outfits, slipping in and out of rooms never to be seen, but always lethally focused on my target. But can Hitman actually be played like this? Yes, I hear the diehard fans screaming right now, you always could just go off-script and do your own thing.
In my defense, Hitman’s default settings and game modes make it tough to ignore those narrative opportunities at first. These sub-quests are usually triggered by snippets of overheard NPC dialogue, followed by your handler narrating a bit of what’s going on. You’re then treated to a bright bluish-green lightbulb icon you can follow to victory through the whole map. Play the scenario right, and you probably never even have to crouch or stay out of sight. Hell, you could probably just play the game using the mini-map alone at that point. Straying from these narrative moments also results in a serious difficulty spike; guards are quite perceptive on higher difficulties, and there are more enforcers who can see through your disguises. So it’s easy to get discouraged and come to the conclusion that, yes, the easiest way to take out your hit is to wait for that perfect disguise, or that quick turn of a wrench on some piece of machinery that will crush your target.
The comically macabre story scenarios are an undeniable part of the theater of Hitman. But once I shut the guides off via Master difficulty, I found a very similar experience to the kinds of stealth games I grew up playing—and, dare I say, Hitman might even offer more interesting stealth opportunities? Before I knew it, I was clearing levels while going almost entirely unseen, rarely changing outfits, and waiting for my opportunity to land the killing shot. While some maps feel very familiar to ones I’ve played in other stealth games, Hitman also excels at providing types of maps that few dedicated stealth games seem willing to experiment with.
When was the last time Solid Snake had to infiltrate a suburban residential neighborhood? When did Sam Fisher ever have to break into a bank vault in the middle of the day while also assassinating the greedy, evil CEO? Yet here I was, using techniques and instincts baked during my many years spent playing as one of the many Snakes. I was surprised by just how organically it felt to crouch-walk everywhere while timing my takedowns with split-second urgency, instead of waiting for them to line up at just the right moment for me to deliver a low-effort execution by flipping a switch or turning a wrench on faulty equipment.
To be clear, some Hitman levels are easier to play in the style of Metal Gear or Splinter Cell than others. But the variety of environments, from a militia compound to a bougie high-tech hospital in Japan, makes for a nice mix of the familiar with unexpected scenarios that I’d never come across in the standard milsim milieu in which many stealth games operate. And even if I largely opted to ignore the narrative approaches the game offers to its various scenarios, they still exist on the periphery of my playstyle, making the maps feel more alive, sometimes presenting opportunities to get out of a sticky situation. I feel like I’m trespassing into spaces occupied by real people, not just mindless drones endlessly repeating a watch shift. And even when you don’t interact with them, turning a corner to find two NPCs flirting with each other, for example, makes these places feel occupied. You get the sense that you’re intruding not just because the HUD tells you that you’re trespassing, but because you’re clearly spying on or are within earshot of something you’re not supposed to be.
The narrative moments also helped me survive some failure burnout. As I consider getting spotted a fail state, I have a decades-learned habit of hitting “Restart Mission” every time a wrong move ruins my perfect stealth run. It’s not unusual for me to drill the same part of a mission over and over again until I can slip through, preferably without even firing a shot or taking down a guard. I aim for ghostly runs as often as I can.
But stumbling upon a possible narrative opportunity during my stealthy trips around the map can be something of a release valve, helping me let go of the frustration of getting spotted. Or sometimes I’ll give in and disguise myself as a security guard. The fact that the game allows for this versatility is what helped me rack up 35 hours of play this weekend, and it’ll continue to call me back for future missions as well.
If you, too, have found that Hitman hasn’t been as stealthy as you wish it was, start changing the HUD settings and ramping up the difficulty; you’ll find a sneaking experience that might even make Big Boss sweat a little.
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