It’s been slightly more than 2 years since I’ve played and thoroughly enjoyed HITMAN (2016) in its GOTY version and since the updates for HITMAN 2 are finally quieting down I decided that it was time to give it a go as well. Originally intended to be a “Season 2” of a grand always updating title, Hitman 2 (I’ll stop using the intended all caps, but I’m not talking about the Silent Assassin from 2002) is a standalone game. Yet, it retained most of what was originally intended since you can add all of the mission content from the 2016 game to it, with some omissions (like Elusive Targets). And in its fullest form, with expansions and the content from the previous title, Hitman 2 is easily the best game in the series to date. But with the same issues as the previous game that need mentioning.
If you’ve not played Hitman before, and what luck for you since Hitman 2 would be a perfect place to start, the series are known for their free form stealth gameplay, emphasizing “social stealth” over the typical sneaking around stealth. What that means is that instead of avoiding enemies or people that can force you into conflict when performing your tasks (main goal tends to be killing one or more targets), you disguise yourself to be able to move among the enemies, bluff your way in, find an opening and then strike when no one is looking. Over the years, the art of social stealth in the series evolved, apart from the weird detour in Absolution, and by this game it’s working absolutely brilliantly. It’s very easy to guess and tell what disguise might work in which situation, the concept of “enforcers” who can call your bluff is a far cry from the dreadful suspicion meter from the Hitman 2 from 2002 where people shot you in the face for making one wrong move, and the levels themselves are now extremely open and sandbox-y, full of ways to experiment with the social stealth aspects and get surprising results.
All of that was already fantastic in the previous game, so Hitman 2 feels like a simple, but welcome, enhancement of everything we had. There are minor but meaningful additions, like the ability to conceal yourself in the crowd or dense foliage. There’s a return of the concept of briefcases where you can stash bulkier items to carry with you (or use as bizarre thrown bomb cases). There’re lots of tweaks to AI, making their cones of vision more centered on the body direction, yet still retaining the head direction from the previous title. Cameras and mirrors have a bigger gameplay impact, both helping the AI to notice you doing illegal things. The difficulty levels are perfectly selected this time around, giving you a very easy mode, a mode that’s close to the normal mode from the previous title and a harder mode, all available from the start unlike Hitman (2016). The system of unlocks and leveling up your profile, if you’re into that whole thing, is now more unified across the entire experience, since the game is not episodic at all this time around. And best of all, all of the improvements are also added to the missions that you can import from the previous game (or buy as a DLC if you don’t own it).
What was already great was mostly tweaked, the “opportunities” are now “mission stories”, still giving you a more guided way through each level – a huge recommendation for the first playthrough, as long as you realize that it’s far from the only or even “one of the few” ways to achieve your objective. As before, you can have them just give you the general hints as to where you can do things and what things, without holding your hand all the way through, or you can make turn them into a completely guided experience with map markers and the like, something that I would not recommend even for the first ever time players. Additionally, I love that more often than not, these give you an opening, but not hand over the entire solution, feeling even closer to the more scripted parts of the original titles that you had to guess your way through, except done in a much better presented way. And while some might still lament the absence of keyhole peeking, I’d honestly take the see-through-wall instinct mode for a game as Hitman over the way it used to work in the early titles – leave that for purer stealth games like Splinter Cell or Thief where it would fit the pace so much better. Besides, instinct usage now doesn’t even seem to slow down time, just serves the same as the maps used to do since Hitman 2, except without the need to open a map.
Unfortunately, some of the big problems I’ve had with the previous title are also here unchanged. The game remains online-only if you want to have the intended experience and I’m calling whatever excuses IOI says complete bollocks. A game as wonderful as Hitman 2 should be easily preservable and not have any online requirements for anything but the online modes. Elusive targets still seem to me going against the fail-restart core gameplay loop of the game and also hurt the possibility of ever being preserved.
On the more mediocre side of things, the story is still garbage even by Hitman standards since even Absolution was at least bizarre and stupid enough to be entertaining while the one going on here is just boring and leads to the game having far less outlandish targets than what you could get in some of the earliest Hitman games. And the soundtrack, while definitely serviceable and with memorable leitmotifs, still pales in comparison with what Jesper Kyd was doing in the original titles. The menu in the game is still a confusing mess. And due to the fact that this time IOI partnered with Warner Brothers for publishing the game, WB went full stupid with SKUs of the game and selecting the edition you need required complex tables. Not Ubisoft level of stupid, but close. Nowadays, you essentially need to have the Gold Edition (adds 2 story missions in new locations and with new story cutscenes continuing the story) to get everything Hitman 2 and the Legacy pack to get the remastered maps from the 2016 game and it’s little remixed expansion, something that you get for free if you own that game in GOTY format (but only after launching both at least once, because of course that’s how it works). Here’s hoping they don’t live service the hell out of the game in a few months and add more confusion.
But the new maps are some of the best and most inventive in the series, the ability to play the maps from the 2016 game with new abilities is, in my opinion, superior to playing them in the game they are from and there’s just so much fun experimentation you can do if you have time and desire. Hitman 2 is amazing. Online requirement needs to go, two expansion missions aren’t as exciting as they could be, scripted moments still often happen if you’re in the vicinity or actively participating, annoyingly and there are other minor and major things of note. But it doesn’t detract from that fact, that Hitman 2 is amazing. If you’ve never played a Hitman game, start here. If you’ve played the previous one and loved it, you’ll love this even more. If you’ve played the previous one and had some reservations, give this one a go, you might like it more. I wish whatever next Hitman title finally addresses the online requirement and perhaps even tells a good story for a change. But even if it doesn’t, even if it’s just more fantastic missions like the ones in this game, it would probably be totally worth it.