Hitman 3 Review

"The Ultimate World of Assassination"

Campaign

January 24, 2021 at 7:36pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the third and apparently final entry in the latest take on the Hitman franchise. It’s been a great journey, for both the series and myself having covered it since that first episodic release. With that, when it comes to the narrative we see the loose ends get wrapped up while also leaving things a bit free for smaller things to come later on if they’d like to do more.

I would personally like to see some smaller expansion levels, as is the typical tradition for this iteration of Hitman. That aside, it’s once again a hunt as Agent 47 works with Lucas Grey to take down the remaining leaders of Providence.

There are some twists along the way, as the story progresses and shocking moments come to play during the brief cinematic moments between levels. It’s not the longest of campaigns one might note, but that’s really not the point since the replayability here is essentially endless. That’s the case in replaying a level multiple times in order to try out different situations such as entrances or exits.

Even better yet, playing the Contracts mode where anyone can create any type of target or setup, leading to further replaying options. It’s quite wild, and very expansive. If you also have certain versions of the experience, you can enjoy the entirety of this trilogy within just Hitman 3. I was able to jump into levels from the first and second games easily within this one, with refinements to those on top of that offering.

It’s quite wonderful, and a very well put together package. It might seem minimal in terms of content, but you can spend countless hours trying out new things and will actively want to explore these vast levels to see what sort of weird situations can arise. It was also very satisfying from a narrative perspective, tying things up well and keeping you guessing along the way.

It did some slightly different things with the character, and wrapped it up about how I expected it to go. It was the journey towards that end which was full of surprises and delightful moments of assassination. They even went further in adding some cinematic type elements to the levels and mixing up what you’re doing on a couple of them which were engaging to work within.

Gameplay

If you’re coming from the last two games it should feel very similar in terms of the movement and mechanics at play. They have made some changes such as having a camera as a tool for light hacking and also safes throughout levels with special items that you may need to solve a puzzle or listen in to figure out. If you’ve never played the games prior, I think you could hop into this one easily and understand the core mechanics without too many problems.

With that, you’ll likely find the story to be decently easy to understand as well if you’ve missed the prior two. You’re basically given free movement with a number of tactical options to interact with the environment. You can be stealthy, or go in guns blazing. The choice is up to you, and is reliant on the handle you have on the game’s core mechanics. There are of course a ton of tools at your disposal with more becoming available as you level up. You’re also able to import a save with progress from Hitman 2 if you’ve played that game making more content available to you quicker.

I did want to also note that the game was having some awful server issues on the first day when it came to importing saves, but it seems to have been cleaned up since which is great. I definitely felt it was something to mention though, as it took hours before I was able to play it which was disappointing. Anyways, you can be very creative within this title. Using weapons you’ve brought in, or finding ones within the environment. Maybe you’ll bring a gun into the level, or perhaps some wire for strangling.

You could find a knife of a kitchen table, or find poison to tamper glasses with. A big part of this is taking people out and swapping disguises, if you weren’t aware of that. You might also smuggle weapons onto the level in various spots for you to collect later, or maybe you’ll be hilarious and use a fish as a weapon. It has many layers of choice to it, and that makes every single play incredibly dynamic. The crowds within these worlds are heavily populated, and very dynamic as well. They’re doing different tasks and have routes or well also reactions to what you do.

It’s amazing to take in, particularly during Apex Predator where you find yourself in the middle of an absolutely massive club scene. It’s crazy that you can be going up three levels above that fighting folks, while parties and even outdoor meetings rage on. It’s hard to truly describe just how big of an experience this is, and how every level is just filled to the brim with realistic details and tons of characters roaming.

On top of that, you can find weird characters to take the role of such as a drug dealer to lure folks in or even a club owner to maybe trick the head of security. It’s just wild the level of choice, and the things you can do on a level. Each of these places is also incredibly different whether you’re roaming gorgeously lit streets in a Chinese locale named Chongqing or taking in one dreary mansion castle based landscape in Dartmoor. They’re quite amazing, and again very detailed. I particularly loved the Dubai skyscraper which had an intense use of reflections.

These all look simply stunning on Xbox Series X being showcased with a native 4k resolution at 60fps with HDR support. It played very smoothly, and delivered one excellent experience. The music of the world also helps carry the atmosphere too, since some directions incorporate that well but in general the main theme is a good one to carry the experience forward with.

The Conclusion

Hitman 3 is a near perfect conclusion to this exciting, and richly filled trilogy that has been created. It provides almost unlimited replayability, and the entirety of the trilogy if you have the right access content. It’s great to see improvements to those older games as well, making this the ultimate way to engage with this Hitman series.

There are just too many options for replaying the experience multiple times to try out new challenges and to perform different moves. You’re also constantly gaining access to new tools, which further increases the ways you tackle situations.

It was excellent to carry my progress forward as well, since that made it even easier to get into. If you’re coming here fresh it’s going to be great, and if you’re a fan you’ll find this conclusion very satisfying. They’ve produced some wonderful locations to visit, again with high levels of replayability to them.

The challenge of figuring things out is exciting, and it’s neat to see such an increase in scale for this entry. It feels big, it’s got the right improvements and it’s a blast to play. It was so fun figuring out what exactly to do, in order to get things done right. Whether that was in a messy, clean or stealthy sort of way.

Read our Mafia Definitive Edition Review
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Hitman 3 Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Taro Bruno PR

Rating Overall: 9.2