Hitman 3: game closes trilogy in style
The dramatic conclusion to the World of Assassination trilogy.
Hitman is a series that had its first game released in 2007, but which already drawn attention to the freedom granted to players to complete the missions. After undergoing a reboot, Hitman 3 was released in early 2021 to end the current Agent 47 trilogy.
A well-crafted story, but not so deep
Hitman 3, as you may have noticed by name, is a direct continuation of Hitman 2 (released in 2018). In it, although you only control assassin 47, some allies will fight alongside you to end “Providence”, a secret organization for which everyone worked together.
In general, the game ends up not going so much into the details of the story and ends up showing more why you will invade a place and why those targets are important to your mission. Those who haven’t played the previous two games in the current trilogy may even feel a little lost in the details, but not that it affects the fun.
Something interesting in Hitman 3 is called Mission Stories. Although you can eliminate your targets practically by identifying them, the game brings this feature to be able to know a little more about the story behind each character and this can be seen, in some cases, even as side quests. The change is welcome and even gives a little more diversity to the game with some missions where you don’t even have to eliminate someone .
The campaign time for Htiman 3 is short, but you can extend it
The sentence above may sound a little strange, but the truth is that the time you spend playing Hitman 3 depends a lot on your style. The game has 6 stages or scenarios, each of which takes between 30 to 40 minutes to close, which makes you finish the game in a little over 4 hours. Those who are not used to the series will find it difficult to finish the missions for the first time and will die a lot until they understand how to be stealthy in each place.
Although this campaign time is considered short by current standards, Hitman 3 has the replay factor as its greatest ally. Each stage of the game has numerous methods with which you can finish the mission and discover how to eliminate the targets is a very rewarding task.
Not only that, every time you finish a mission in a different way, Hitman 3 has a progression system so that more items or other elements are at your disposal to play the level again. For example, in the mansion’s mission, you can later start out as a gardener and unlock certain rooms that were locked.
Going beyond the campaign, Hitman 3 also has some other game modes that should increase the “game life” for a long time thanks to its community. So, for example, the “Contracts” mode will put you in familiar scenarios, but with different missions that are created by other players. Even, of course, you can also spend a lot of time creating these types of missions.
Besides them, who is also back is the “Sniper Assassin” mode, in which you, of course, must shoot at specific targets without having to be dependent on their disguises. And last but not least, those who also have “Hitman 1 and 2” will be able to play them on the third game engine with some improvements.
The gameplay remains almost the same
The Hitman series never stood out for having a very refined gameplay, but it always worked well for you to complete your goals. Hitman 3, in turn, follows practically the same pattern seen in the last two games, but refined one detail or another.
So, for this third game, IO interactive chose not to change the gameplay much, but it brought some interesting news. For example, agent 47 now has a “camera”, which is extremely useful when it comes to hacking devices like the door lock.
The movement of the character, on the other hand, even flows well at different times, but sometimes you may be asking why the agent does not pass, for example, small pools of water. Not only that, at certain times, the camera also does not help the player and some simple activities such as “climbing in a certain place” or getting “out of a window” end up being difficult.
Regarding weapons, as always, Hitman 3 does not end up disappointing and each scenario has a real arsenal of them at the player’s disposal. In turn, the points for you to “create accidents” are also very evident and exploring them is not always so difficult.
Even with many weapons at hand, those who like to join the most frantic action will experience some difficulty with the aim of the weapons. However, this part I do not consider a negative point, since this is precisely to force the players to carry out the missions in a more discreet way, after all, this has always been Hitman’s great grace.
In addition to abusing disguises to complete the levels in a “silent” way, the player also needs to be aware of several small details. For example, when disguising yourself as a photographer or a waiter, you should not have a gun or a crowbar in sight. To help with this issue, fortunately, Hitman 3 places an exclamation mark next to items that you should not carry with such disguises.
Not only that, of course, the bodies of people you have killed cannot be exposed either. And for that, Hitman 3 lets you hide them in different places such as in crates or even in small fountains in a garden, a very unusual place.
The graphics are beautiful, but the ambience is even better
Hitman 3 was released for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S / X, Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5. I made this review on the Xbox Series X and, at least on this new generation console, the game’s visuals really surprise at different times.
In addition to having very generous scenarios in relation to size, Hitman’s visuals, at least on new generation consoles, surprise at times. However, who really stand out are the reflexes of the game that give a real show in different moments of the game.
Not only that, as it did in its predecessors, something that surprises in Hitman 3 is the number of NPCs in some scenarios. Even when you see this bunch of NPCs grouped together, at no time does the game have a drop in frame rate or anything like that, something to really praise.
Although everything is very beautiful, some details cannot be beaten either. For example, both in terms of NPCs and objects (cabinets, counters, stairs, etc.), the game abuses identical models, that is, you will see many objects and repeated NPCs.
Regarding the setting, there are really no complaints to be made. In addition to counting stages with very different locations, you realize that IO Interactive really had a job to create each scenario with many shortcuts to be explored and all properly decorated. So, there is nothing empty or that seems to have been forgotten and is there just for being.
There are some minor defects in Hitman 3
Despite so much praise and an extremely fun campaign, Hitman 3 also has some minor flaws. The biggest cons in my opinion is that Hitman 3 is not dubbed or even subtitled.
Although most of the game’s objectives are to eliminate targets, this is a very negative point as some players may be lost in certain missions. Not only that, remember, the previous two games in the franchise included our language.
In addition to this cons, something that bothered me was Hitman 3’s automatic saves system. Personally, I couldn’t understand exactly when it comes into action, since on a certain mission, I had accomplished several main objectives and, by dying, I I lost all my progress on that mission. Even though I played Hitman 3 after its official release, I also admit that I had some problems with the game server and even had to restart it to connect to it despite my connection being normal.
Conclusion
Hitman 3 closes the current series trilogy with a really fun game and the height of its predecessors. Despite having a relatively short campaign, the game rewards players with the replay factor and a very interesting progression system. Not only that, the fact that it allows to play Hitman 1 and 2 in the new engine with some improvements should also be taken as a positive point.
In gameplay, it is true, we did not see as many innovations as we would like, but it is also not possible to criticize it since it works very well in what it proposes. So, the only point that really upset us is the fact that the game is neither dubbed nor subtitled, but that is not enough to overshadow its great quality.
