It also has the same sorts of silly costumes you would expect and unexpected ways to kill people. Agent 47 has access to his sniper briefcase again, which makes it possible for him to slip weapons he couldn’t normally hide past people that would otherwise be suspicious of someone carrying a very large gun. Marrakesh felt less detailed and fun for me than, say, Sapienza.Īnother way Hitman 2 does foster connections is by how it ties back to past games in terms of mechanics, costumes, and equipment.
When I tried bits and pieces, thanks to IO Interactive’s various free packs, I noticed some disparity. I especially appreciated the cover options, as being able to walk into a crowd of people without crouching is a fantastic way to hide Agent 47 in places like Miami or Mumbai. If you take the time to learn about them, you can find new starting locations, people of interest, places to hide, spots with good vantage points or tools, and places to hide bodies (yours or your victims). There are lots of rooms and places to discover and explore. Hawke’s Bay is an outlier, since it is a tutorial level, but the Miami, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai, Whittleton Creek, and Isle of Sgàil campaign locations and Himmelstein Sniper Assassin locations are well realized. Its overall location structure is better, with areas being of similar levels of quality. While I have been going on about how things can feel disconnected, there is one area in which Hitman 2 does offer a strong sense of consistency. What we learn about Diana, Agent 47, and the groups they are following do add a lot to the series’ lore, but I sometimes found them less interesting due to the execution. These pieces can sometimes feel like they might not connect as well to the on-location assignments you just worked your way through. It uses static images with dialogue and narration over them. But the cutscenes are a stark contrast to its immediate predecessor. When I headed out on a mission, Diana’s commentary about the assignment was interesting and some of the motivations and behaviors of people genuinely made me want to investigate further as I prepared to eliminate targets. Really, the only way I felt its disjointed nature hurt Hitman 2 was when it came to the campaign’s story segments. It is just with the story segments, it can make things feel like things are separate parts of the whole. Having a Hitman tab in campaign for the 2016 release’s episodes is a constant reminder that this is a second part of something and you are probably missing out if you did not see the previous lore. It just makes it all feel very obvious that things were planned to follow a different course.
After all, one of the best things about a Hitman game is the freedom to enjoy what is essentially an assassination sandbox, attempting to complete challenges or explore destinations. (I would not recommend this, but tested to see if it would allow me to flit between modes. While this is efficient, it is a little jarring to head to the Campaign page and see all of the story cutscenes and major missions laid out there in their little cubes, with someone able to jump through them in any order. Going into the other spaces similarly divides things up.
It retains the structure of the episodic release, from locations each being downloaded separately, When you load up the game, you start with a Featured screen that doles things like Story, Ghost Mode, the current Elusive Target, Sniper Assassin, Contracts Mode, Patch Notes, and Load Game, as though you were at a Windows 10 PC with various buttons to press.
However, this does not mean it is like Hitman: Codename 47 or Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Everything is available together at launch. Unlike 2016’s Hitman, 2018’s Hitman 2 is not episodic.
It is something evident when you first download and look through Hitman 2. This isn’t bad, especially if you come to a Hitman game to pick at various locations and take on specific contracts, but it might throw some people off. It does what it is supposed to do well and builds off of 2016’s episodic Hitman, but some design decisions can leave things feeling off. When you go through an adventure that doesn’t have a same sense of consistency and connection, it can leave an experience feeling “off” even when everything else works. Games and stories need proper transitions, leading from one scenario to the next and making everything you are doing in this virtual world feel plausible in the moment.