Today is the Ides of March, the day when Brutus and a bunch of other Romans stood around bragging after they stabbed Caesar to death in front of a big crowd. You know who would never do that? Agent 47.
Hitman gives you all the tools you need to be the ultimate stealth assassin: disguises, sniper rifles, accident-prone set pieces, and plenty of places to hide some bodies. You can pull off some clever, stylish, or downright hilarious kills. But while itâs satisfying to be a slick, silent murder machine, my favorite part of any Hitman mission is having to walk out again.
Sure, I could shoot my target in the head while heâs having a drink on the patio, but thereâs no way Iâll make it out of the panicking crowd before I get taken down. If I choke that woman out in the one empty stretch of hallway Iâd better not leave her there, because Iâll never make it past the guards at the bottom of the stairs before that lighting guy comes back and finds her. Every possible solution brings a host of new problems, ones that can only be solved by thinking ahead and keeping my cool.
Iâm not that great at either of these. In games, I can almost never resist poking something to see what happens, or running into a forbidden area to find out whatâs inside. In Hitman I have to curb these impulses; I have to think like 47 would. I have to ignore that little voice in my ear that whispers, Yeah I know everybodyâs staring at you but look at this highlighted lever, how much would it rule to pull it?.. I have to lure a target to a secluded bathroom or an unobserved closet so I can hide them right away. Dropping a speaker on a targetâs headâ like I did last night in Contracts modeâ involves wearing not just the crew outfit that let me get near the speaker in the first place but having my waiterâs outfit stashed nearby to slip back into the basement once the deed is done.
Luckily, if youâve ever made a quick exit from an awkward party, you already know how to pull this off. There are stealth games that fill their levels with person-sized air ducts and convenient corridors of boxes, regardless of whether they make a lot of logical sense. But Hitmanâs Paris is a palace, just like any other palace youâd find if your⊠neighbor invited you to their palace, I guess. It has a basement with stairs that go up and down from it, service doors and grand staircases that are locked or guarded. When there are boxes and barriers to hide behind, theyâre there for a reasonâ theyâre storage boxes and traffic barriers, jumbled realistically where youâd expect to find them while still providing the cover necessary to make the game playable. Paris has a logic that makes it legible at a glance as long as you take the time to familiarize yourself with the area. It fits well with Hitmanâs signature demand for patience, and it adds an additional challenge to what I already find to be a challenging game.
Several of my other favorite stealth games ask me to get out againâ most notably Dishonored and Invisible Incâ but Hitman does it differently. Itâs not a stealth game in the traditional sense; I canât make a break for it by scurrying along ledges like Corvo or turning invisible like Adam Jensen. I escape in the simplest, most badass way of all: walking out the door like nothingâs wrong. Even if no oneâs found the bodies Iâve stashed, it takes every ounce of my will to avoid breaking into a run. I canât count the number of times Iâve taken down a target only to panic, trespass, and have my success snatched away. Itâs the hardest part of any Hitman mission for me, and I love it.
Do you have any tales of close calls and daring escapes? Whatâs your best âwalking away from the explosionâ moment? Iâd love to hear it.
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