Hitman 2
Publisher: Warner Brothers
Release Date: November 13, 2018
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Rating: Mature
Genre: Stealth
The Hits Keep Coming
Written by Jesse Seilhan
2016 was a great year for video games. Beyond the big-budget sequels and flashy sports titles for the new consoles, IO Interactive rebooted with stealth-action power fantasy game Hitman. In it, bald protagonist Agent 47 poisoned, stabbed, electrocuted, shot, and strangled the world’s elite assholes across some luxurious locales. The pure imagination that users could take into each scenario was unparalleled in gaming, creating some truly unique, bizarre, and fantastically memorable sequences. The episodic nature of its release was pulled off flawlessly, giving fans plenty to do month after month. But with the sequel, you get everything up front from the get-go with a few content drips coming after the release. So how does this new model stack up to the original and is this worn territory still fun two years after release?
The setup is nearly the same: you’re charged with taking down the world’s biggest monsters, some plotting massive catastrophes and others’ misfortune simply looking to make billions off of others misfortune. Either way, Agent 47 is there, in a variety of costumes, to ensure they never eat another meal or take another breath. How he does that is completely up to you. Want to dress up as a security guard and strike when no one is looking? Rudimentary, but you can do it. Want to don a Flamingo mascot suit and snipe a Formula 1 driver as they race toward a checkered flag? Definitely more creative than the first option! Or maybe you want to ritually sacrifice a socialite daughter in front of her billionaire friends on a remote island, built for private parties the public will never hear about. Almost anything you can imagine is possible in the world of assassination that IO Interactive has built and that has only gotten richer and more entertaining in this sequel.
Stories and narratives in the Hitman universe are generally straightforward and boilerplate, but the sequel attempts to mix things up. In this game, you’re partnering with the villain from the first one, as he is the only one that can unlock some secrets from your unknown past. He’s hiring you and your trusty aide Diana to take down these global baddies, all while dripping information about your upbringing in between missions. Sadly, those content drops are no longer gorgeously animated cutscenes, as they were in the first. Instead, comic-book-esque still-panel sequences get the story going, leaving much of the emotion out of the information. Still, the ending pays off and the baddies are still bad enough to kill, while the bulk of the “storytelling” spawns from your insane and sometimes hilarious path from mission opening to hurried escape, with all of the unconscious witnesses and strewn-about weapons left in your path.
One of the big perks in this game is that if you own the first or if you buy the more expensive edition, you get all of the missions, levels, and items from the first game unlocked within the Hitman 2 game. That means you can stomp around Sapienza with the new gameplay upgrades found in the sequel, which are numerous. First off, the game does a much better job telling you about your surroundings. From the status of downed enemies to picture-in-picture looks at cameras that have detected you, your situational awareness has improved tenfold this time around. Helpful text like what weapons will pass a pat down or not also enhance your planning sessions, as do the more obvious rules of detection and stealth kills. One of the biggest improvements is the ring of stealth you get when crouched in tall grass, something the first game missed but now gets when played from the sequel’s launcher.
While not perfect, Hitman 2 gets a lot of things right. The small gameplay improvements go a long way with its quality-of-life, as do the unlock methods and challenge systems. This is fundamentally more Hitman, which is not a problem, seeing as how it was our Game of the Year in 2016. Still, the lack of level parity (this has one fewer map than the original), the lack of episodic releases, and a lack of presentation between missions knocks it down a notch. For those that love the franchise, you will love this. And if you’ve never dabbled, this package is amazing and will keep you busy for 100+ hours. There is nothing in gaming quite like Hitman and Hitman 2 shows that IO knows how to get better with time and experience. Here’s hoping they get it right a third time with the next one!