5/5 ★ – ysobh's review of HITMAN 3.

Did you ever watch a movie that is so good you buy tickets to see it again the moment the credits roll? For me that was Rian Johnson’s 2019 film knives out which coincidentally was an inspiration to the second of the six levels that Hitman III is composed from. There was a lot riding on hitman III. Firstly, it was the closing chapter in IO interactive’s “World of assassination” trilogy and probably the closing chapter on Agent 47’s story (or the last time we will see him in a while). Secondly , and maybe most importantly , it was the last game IO will put out before their much anticipated James Bond game “Project 007”. I was not surprised to see IO interactive deliver with this , they as a studio have not really made a dud in ages but what I was surprised to see was the calibre that IO delivered on. Hitman III is easily going to be one of the best games of 2021 and we might event look back at the end of this generation and call it one of the best stealth games ever. IO masterfully built on everything that worked in their previous two hitman titles and still managed to innovate. The new hitman trilogy’s big selling point is the massive sandbox levels with multiple systems interacting together that leads to emergent gameplay. It is the basterd child of the good old linear stealth games (ala splinter cell) and the immersive sim genre (ala deus ex). The major problem with this approach of game design is the only way to go is bigger and you then run the risk of the game being too bloated but somehow IO avoided that. They did not really add anymore systems (the only new gadget is the camera) but they added more stuff to those systems (more enemies , more targets , more npcs , more weapons) and they gave you more space and freedom to play with these systems. One of my biggest problems with the original hitman (the 2016 one not codename 47) was the assassination opportunities felt like putting the game in easy mode and taking a guided tour through the level , Dubai kind of felt like that but then you get to the third level of the game “Berlin” and the game tasks you with killing an undisclosed number of enemies that are all hidden like you and are hunting you down and you are just thrown into the level to wonder around and find them yourself (they all wear earpieces and check in on there handler at regular intervals). But by far the biggest surprise was how good everything around the gameplay is. The other games were no slouches in terms of graphics, but hitman III is on another level especially in terms of the lighting. The game looks especially good on next gen consoles (I played on a series X). The score is also incredible and the focus on the story this time around came as a nice surprise even if it is nothing too fancy. My only problem with the game came in the final level (NO SPOILERS) is more linear and action packed. It made me kind of wish we gotten more smaller levels in the middle to help even out the pacing. But to go back to the question asked in the beginning hitman III might be one of the most replayable games ever made. There is only 6 levels but you can paly ever single one of them in at least a dozen ways and each on those ways leaves the level feeling like a whole different beast. I have already started doing more runs of the games and I think I will continue playing hitman III all throughout 2021 and hell maybe beyond.