You all knew that I wasn’t just going to stop playing Hitman just because the campaign had come to an end. While I enjoy the story in the World of Assassination trilogy, it wasn’t what brought me here. That was, and remains, the immersive sim gameplay which rewards quick thinking and improvisation.
The most recent patch added in two new escalations for those of us who purchased the Deluxe Edition of the game. What better occasion than that exists to return one of my favorite franchises of all time?
Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.
What I find cool about both of these escalations is how they progress over their stages, forming something of a story over the course of the contract. The Proloff Parable is a good example of this, where we start with a simple task of suiting up as the ninja, finding our sword, and using it on our target before moving on to the next stage.
Rather than expand on what we did in the previous stage, by adding a new objective or mechanic to what we’ve done, we look forward. Having already cleared that section of the train, our katana acquiring a thirst for blood, we now must sate it. It’s a race against time to run as quickly as we can through the bulk of the level, killing everyone in our path, leaving a trail of devastation in our wake.
But once that’s done, we ditch our blade to equip our sniper rifle to take out our next target, clearing the path ahead. Once more, the contact could choose to expand on our bloody conquest by making it even more difficult or introducing some new limitation. Instead, we proceed to the final stretch of our train invasion.
And this time, our aim isn’t to leave a trail of bodies in our wake. Instead, we must act with the stealth, grace, and precious of a shinob… master assassin. We can’t even pacify the guards, and we instantly lose if we’re so much as spotted.
With just this one 3-stage escalation, we’re treated so many styles of Hitman. Further, we get this interesting little mini-story of a ninja who took up a cursed blade with a thirst for blood, learned to control it through death and destruction, before mastering it and using his training to complete the job. There’s so many axes of engagement that most players should find something here to like.
I can only hope we start to get even more of these as the months go on. Next time, we’ll get the chance to take out an Elusive Target. It’s been ages since my last go (and ironically it’s against the same target), and I look forward to it.
Leave a Reply