Agent 47 has once more come back into the limelight. Picking up from where we left off, the trail to Providence grows ever more visible. At long last, we’ve uncovered enough hidden truths to locate our quarry.
Welcome back to the World of Assassination. This is Hitman 3, and we’re going in blind.
Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.
As per usual, this is also an Improvisation Run. What that means is that while I’m not doing an Ironman playthrough, save scumming is heavily discouraged. The idea is basically to live with the consequences of my actions until doing so is no longer worth it.
It’s certainly a bold decision to open with no tutorial, delving right into the action. For me, there couldn’t be a better way to get started, except I’m also an enfranchised player who had the basics instilled in me from my combined over 200 hours with Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 (2018). I wonder what that mission might feel like for someone who didn’t play either of the other games in this trilogy. There probably should have been a prompt to check to see if I wanted to play the ICA Facility tutorial before I got started, but that’s admittedly a minor criticism. I can’t deny that starting out with that view from the tallest building in the world is a statement.
As for the other map, it’s exactly the kind of gimmick that I adore. Those of you who know me personally might know that I’m a sucker for murder-mysteries. So when I heard that I had a chance to solve one while committing my own assassination, you better believe that I jumped at the chance.
Admittedly, it’s not a terribly difficult mystery. We figured out who the killer was in a matter of minutes, but still needed to obtain the proof to present our case. It’s not perfect, but to be honest it was more than I expected. I appreciate that they retooled the intel screen for the map to accommodate the need to know what people we’ve yet to interview and what places still need to be explored. When one considers that this is just part of a larger Hitman mission, rather than a fully-fleshed out detective game, they have to commend IO from trying.
What I won’t commend them on is the rollout for Hitman 3, particularly when it comes to enfranchised players, and among those, the ones of PC, like me, got the worst of it. Considering that all progress from Hitman 2 was connected to an IO account, I am shocked that all of us returning players needed to use a utility to manually schedule a transfer, instead of just having to link our accounts to synchronize progress between the two games.
Additionally, I still don’t have access to the Hitman 2 maps that I was promised would transfer over when I pre-ordered the game. They’ve stated that they’re working on it, but I need to see results before I trust that will happen. I might have to take advantage of that sale if it takes much longer.
A shame, because where IO should be celebrating, they’re instead having to deal with the fallout for not quite living up to their promises.
Update: Before this goes live, but after I wrote what I wrote above, I spent time achieving map mastery in both maps. While completing the challenges for Dartmoor, the mystery turns out to be significantly more interesting than first impressions might seem. Emma is certainly the killer, but given that our ultimate goal is to see Alexa dead, there are several intriguing interactions that spring from the facts we uncover (some of which I didn’t find in the run above). I can say no more without spoiling it for you all, but trust me there’s so much more to it.
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