Hitman 3 review: and the bald smiles?

Agent 47, also known as The Hitman, is back for the third and final installment of his "New Adventures". A trilogy that ends in the most beautiful way for a reboot which will have captivated us even more than its announcement had been able to worry the fans of the first hour… players probably in their forties today.

The first Hitman adventures were launched by IO Interactive in November 2000. Twenty years! An eternity in video game language. Think about it: at the time, the lucky ones had just acquired a Pentium III supported by a GeForce 256 card, and Microsoft caused a sensation after mentioning its arrival on the game console market.

IO Interactive therefore allowed us to embody the villain of the story, Agent 47. Three titles followed – Silent Assassins (2002), Contracts (2004) and Blood Money (2006) – without finding there ( too) to complain.

Hitman 3 review: and the bald smiles? See PriceRead ConclusionHitman 3

Level constructions
Wealth of approaches
Perfect sandbox system
“Infinitely” replayable missions

Only six new theaters of operation
Plots apparently less numerous than on Hitman 2
Improvable scripts and AI

Bald who can

IO Interactive has however decided to put an end to the actions of the most famous hitman in video games. Finally, until 2016 and the (episodic) release of Hitman, a reboot with all that was disturbing. Still, whether it was Hitman (2016) or Hitman 2 (2018), the quality was there. IO Interactive has even tended to improve over the years. Thus, never have the levels been so open, dense and fertile in various solutions as with this opus landed during 2018. But perhaps it is important to specify the foundations of the series?

Indeed, an episode of the Hitman always starts a little in the same way and always rests a little on the same bases. A hired killer by trade, Agent 47 is asked to perform a specific task somewhere on the planet. He has some rare information in order to prepare his mission by choosing his equipment and selecting objects that can wait for him on the spot – previously deposited by a sidekick – in various corners. Then, once he arrives at the scene of his next misdeed, Agent 47 is free to plan his action as he sees fit.

This entrepreneurial freedom is the cornerstone of any episode, and Hitman 3 is no exception to the rule. It guarantees great replayability, since you can resume the same mission to perfect your work or relaunch it to consider different approaches. It's that a Hitman – even more so since the reboot of the franchise – does not play like any action game in third-person view. When loading a mission, we actually start with a kind of overview of the game area: we determine the position of the target or targets to be reached.

In a second step, it is a question of constructing a plan. To reach your target, you sometimes have to cross various security cordons or reach an area that is difficult to access. In the case of a mission in Berlin, it is a question of going behind the scenes of an underground party. In Dubai, countless heavily armed bodyguards must be circumvented. Preparing a plan involves understanding how we will access our target, how we will put them out of harm's way, but also how Agent 47 will be able to escape.

Agent content ?

In absolute terms, once these three variables have been established, the plan can unfold…hopefully without a hitch. The mission can then be completed in one to two hours, and since Hitman 3 has six theaters of operation, the "campaign" has a theoretical lifespan of six to twelve hours. You're probably thinking that it's frankly light for 60 euros, and you would be right if the goal of a Hitman player was simply to reach the end credits. This is not the case: in Hitman, we seek excellence, we want to accomplish the perfect murder and, why not, strive for the famous 100%.

All this to say that a Hitman 3 mission – like those of Hitman and Hitman 2 – does not stop once you have eliminated the target or targets and managed to escape. On the contrary, one could even say that it has only just begun. This first run can be seen as a kind of training. We can obviously be very happy with his performance on this first attempt, but the debrief often tells us that we have barely touched on the content of this mission with – roughly speaking – a “completion” percentage of around 10- 15%.

For neophytes, this may surprise: the mission is over and we would have seen only the tenth? Yes, because for a regular, this first run is above all an opportunity to take as much information as possible on the configuration of the premises, on the number of non-player characters present and on their behavior. We listen to their conversations, we discover what the developers call "intrigues" and which constitute so many means of constructing new action plans, new ways of achieving the final objective.

Without saying too much and revealing what makes the charm of the discovery, let us underline the fact that a plot acts as a kind of mini-scenario within the mission. Some are crucial to have a chance of completing the mission, others are more trivial and are more there to give the player original ideas. These intrigues may seem less numerous than on Hitman 2: in reality, it is that IO Interactive has decided to hide some. Moreover, as an experienced assassin, Agent 47 never goes out without his pistol equipped with a silencer or his famous piano wire, two very effective weapons but which have the unfortunate tendency to leave little doubt about fate. of the target.

JVFR

Each shaded square is a challenge © Nerces for Clubic

The Agent does not bring happiness… really not

Most of the missions allow for more fantasy and in some cases it will even be very difficult to suspect even an assassination. Stripping a few well-placed wires can quickly turn an “accidental” electrocution into the perfect crime. The same goes for a very involuntary fire or for an unfortunate fall from a balcony. Take the case of a poisoning: the assassination is hardly in doubt, but the absolute discretion of such a method is perfect for Agent 47 who can then leave the scene without the slightest problem.

All the interest of Hitman 3 - and before him of Hitman / Hitman 2 - is precisely to push the player to seek these diverse and varied solutions through multiple challenges: the developers also take malicious pleasure in titillating us by displaying a large grid listing the challenges completed and those still to be completed on the end of mission screen. They also have fun giving us a score that will be severely reduced if we have fun massacring countless innocent people… You can be an assassin and have a certain ethic.

JVFR

I promise, this time, I have nothing to do with it! © Nerces for Clubic

Joys of the net, this score is immediately compared to those of other players / your friends, just to give yourself additional motivation to relaunch the same mission over and over again. Maybe this time you'll put on the uniform of the new bodyguard who's supposed to start today… but who, luckily, is late? Perhaps you will disguise yourself as a gardener in order to gain access, without arousing the slightest suspicion, to the tropical greenhouse? Perhaps you will become a bartender for a colorful party?

The disguise is clearly the most visible result of the multiple branches of a Hitman 3 mission. It must be said that with his impeccable black suit and bright red tie, Agent 47 does not go unnoticed, basically. The disguise is however not the only adjustment “variable” of a mission. Using a powerful emetic to antagonize the target and assassinating it "quietly" or dropping a gas cylinder through a dumbwaiter are other methods of silencing a opportunist.

JVFR

Cutscenes that are a little too "clean", fortunately not very important © Nerces for Clubic

On the art of carving out a posthumous

If you have already played Hitman or Hitman 2, you will not be disoriented in the least as this third opus takes on board the recipes of the two previous ones. In reality, IO Interactive has not even seen fit to revise its graphical interface a bit or add any real new features. No, Hitman 3 presents itself as a sort of extension of the previous episodes. The idea of the developers is indeed to always give more new missions, new objectives to their community and we cannot blame them.

As fans of the franchise, it's what we expected from Hitman 3 and we weren't disappointed. The six new theaters of operation take us on a journey from Dubai to the heart of Argentina via Berlin, Chongqing or the English countryside with, each time, radically different sets and atmospheres. Special mention for this mission in the Carlisle family mansion: Agent 47 has the opportunity to play detective there and, while developing his action plan, he discovers clues and sheds light on the dark failings of this wealthy family.

JVFR

Clown costume and plastic duck for a hilarious assassin © Nerces for Clubic

The writing of these six missions and the design of their levels are impressive and if the game mechanics have changed very little since Hitman 2, it is impossible to doubt the work of the studio. A studio that has made commendable efforts to make the game smoother and lighter than its ancestor. With an equivalent machine, we will perhaps gain ten images per second, and this, while the reflections are richer than ever. Similarly, all three opuses now hold more or less 100 GB against around 150 GB for the only Hitman 2, full version.

Finally, to end this article, let's talk about the good idea of the studio: to bring together the three opuses, so that all the mission locations appear within a single and unique selection. An option reserved for players who have acquired Hitman / Hitman 2 and, on PC, this is the problem: Hitman 3 is currently exclusive to the Epic Games Store, but Hitman 2 is not there. is not and the integration from Steam does not work. IO Interactive, however, clarified that a solution would be found quickly without players having to go back to checkout. Phew.

JVFR

Hitman 3 : l'avis de Clubic

On a strictly technical level, Hitman 3 is only an evolution of the Hitman of 2016 and its sequel. On the gameplay side, it's “worse”, this third episode being more sparing in new mechanics than Hitman 2. However, it is impossible not to adhere to the formula of the Danish studio. The screenplay is implicit so that we focus on the essential: embodying the “ideal” assassin.

There is nothing wrong with the design of the six missions, and their opening is the guarantee of several tens of hours of play for those who want to discover the countless ways to act. We can always criticize a certain classicism in the course of the missions, point out that the artificial intelligence is imperfect or point out that certain scripts tend to "miss each other".

In reality, we enjoin you not to listen to those curmudgeons: Hitman 3 is simply the best way to experience this incredible simulator of perfect murders. It brings a brilliant conclusion to a trilogy that has gone from strength to strength and, to be completely honest, it's hard to see how IO Interactive could do any better.

Test carried out using code provided by the publisher.

Hitman 3

Two years after Hitman 2 and four years after the first opus, Hitman 3 brilliantly concludes the remarkable Agent 47 trilogy. More than ever, it is possible to approach each situation in its own way and the sandbox / guide side of the little murderer is a real joy. Impossible not to succumb… without a bad pun this time.