What's the Greatest Video Game: Hitman World of Assassination

This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

To set the scene, I have been playing this series since the beginning, and by beginning I mean the very beginning. We had a PC CD of Hitman 1 and I remember that I actually truly enjoyed the game. It became a game that I loved as a sandbox; could I snipe everyone in the first level including the helicopter? How many people could I take out in the hotel before being caught? I know it is a game that has not aged particularly well, but I feel like that can be said about any of the games before this collection came out. We are of course talking about the Hitman: World of Assassination collection and we are grouping these all into one game.

Why are we not tackling these individually? There are a couple reasons, such as the mechanics being the same throughout all 3 games, all of the games existing in the same hopper once you download the levels, and because if you were to buy it now, you would almost certainly get all of the levels combined instead of just the levels from game 2 or game 1. It might be a loose thread to tie this together and rank them, but I can’t imagine trying to separate these into individual entries, without just discussing the difference in levels, which are almost all personal preferences. I will still tell you which section I think has the best levels out of the three, but this is all going to get coded once on the report.

So, starting from the top.. This week we are discussing Hitman: World of Assassination, where you play as Agent 47 whom is tasked with executing a hit on different clientele. You work closely with your handler Diana who briefs you before each mission as to who your target(s) are and why they are bad news bears. You are then dropped off in a fairly big sandbox level where you plan and then try to put in place the perfect hit. Whether that is following one of the set story missions, or whether you want to do it your own way, there are always lots of opportunities for how to proceed. Will you disguise yourself as a chef or waiter and poison someone’s food, or will you find a sniping position and try to take out your target from afar? Perhaps neither of those are fun for you, and instead you want to create a gas leak in a shed and watch as the target blows themselves up when they go to light a cigarette. The true joy of this game is that there is not only lots of replay-ability for these levels to test out other methods, but also an incentive to do so.

At the end of every level, you will get scored and a list of objectives will get checked off as little exercises you can accomplish during a mission. These side objectives might vary from; gathering intel during the level, to wearing every disguise available, to simply exploring the space fully. Regardless of what you check off, you start to unlock bonuses for doing and more and more in a given mission. Perhaps with enough unlocks you can already start a level in a disguise, or new weapons or gadgets that can be carried through to other missions in the game. None of these additional objectives are required to be completed, and nothing that you unlock is essentially for you to complete the level, game, etc. but they add something to the game that make the game have legs.

I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t think these games are particularly difficult to accomplish your goals. No matter if it was the first time or the 20^th time I have played a level, taking care of the target and escaping the level are really not that difficult from a base level. For one there is never a hard time limit that locks you out of the mission. If you are just walking around and exploring every area, you could do that for 10 in game hours, and the target is still going to be doing their same loop in the level. You might miss some very specific timed events or opportunities for the hit, but in no means will you lose. Also, if you so choose, following one of the story missions to set up the hit, walk you through all the steps you need to do in order to put you in perfect position to make the kill. So with a little bit of patience and know-how of the stealth mechanic you should have no trouble completing those missions on a first or second run through of a level. Now enter those bonus objectives you can check off and the game offers a little more challenge to those that want to take that on. Maybe a challenge is shooting a plane out of the sky with a cannonball, which you would only be able to accomplish if you know the level intimately enough to set up that domino chain ahead of time. And if you don’t care about any of that stuff, you can treat it like a 3^rd person shooter, and try to kill everyone on the map. That tactic probably won’t beat every level in the game, but you can probably make progress doing it that way too. Some of the best fun you will have in this game is when something goes wrong, (you get compromised, a body is found, etc.) and figuring out how you get out of this mess that doesn’t involve just loading a previous saved game to do so. I mean this is Giant Bomb, and I would encourage people checkout Hitsmas with Vinny to just see what he accomplishes.

There is a story to this game, which is more than I can say for about any of the previous Hitman games. You start off working for the ICA, who is essentially being duped into eliminating a very specific group of people that you probably wouldn’t normally go after. Eventually you come across the person who has been organizing these hits, you find out the ICA isn’t as great as you initially thought they were (even though that should be apparent based on the work you do), and eventually plot to overthrow and dismantle the organizations that have done you wrong. That is me, doing a poor summary of 3 games, and the story isn’t going to win some award for best narrative but it certainly allows you to connect the dots between the missions a whole lot better than in previous games. I will fully admit that I didn’t get fully on board until we were partway through Hitman III, but towards the end of the game I was actually looking forward to watching the story cut scenes instead of just wanting to skip to the mission. I do appreciate that despite this being a game where you are a contracted killer, all the people you are going after are terrible people. We could argue that you don’t get to be on the target list by powerful brokers without probably being a terrible person in the first place, but I appreciate that you aren’t tasked with killing someone’s spouse so that they can get a life insurance policy.

Chances are, everyone knows all about this game at this point. If you have been watching Giant Bomb for any amount of time, you have seen dozens of videos of people playing this game so there really isn’t a lot that hasn’t been shown or said about this game, so instead I am going to wade into something controversial. I think that the freelance mode is bad. I started my playthrough with the freelance mode, because it was the most recent thing, and it almost made me want to stop playing the game. Here’s the thing, I was incredibly bored going through it and while I can appreciate it on paper, I think the execution is weak. Now some of my complaints with this mode are expected, since the targets are ‘randomized’ (not really, but let’s pretend) there aren’t going to be cool story kills that allow you to take care of your target after exploring the level, and that is fine, but because of that, most of your kills are fairly basic for each enemy. I know people would say, “you aren’t being creative,” or “there are so many ways to kill if you put the time in,” something to that extent, but for every enemy who has a walk path over a potentially exposed wire, or drinks a drink that can be poisoned, or walks near an edge that can be pushed off, a large majority of them are just on a normal patrol route and will need to be killed via melee (knives, fiber wire, etc.) or shot. And if you are actually trying to make it through the entire freelance campaign, then you have to really limit your risk so that you can make a clean getaway after each hit.

I should explain that the freelance mode, is Hitman taking a more system generated rogue-like game. You select a main target you want to go after, and you will do small missions first before you get to go after the boss of the area. These are missions that will take you through different campaign missions, but your target will be essentially a random person in the map that needs to be taken down. Since these are not story characters originally, you will have to get creative as to how you can kill them without being caught. There are no save states, reloads, and if you die in the mission then you start at the beginning of the freelance mode all over. Complete extra objectives in a mission such as; pacify three guards, poison someone’s drink, or kill the target with a fireaxe, and you will get currency that can then be used at an in level store that sometimes appears to buy gear or weapons. After you kill your targets escape the mission and go on to the next one. One big difference in this mode is that weapons you carry out of the level, go into your cellar (between levels hub) and then you can take those out on the following missions. For the boss levels, you will have to identify your target before you commit the hit, by looking at their appearance for clues as to if they are the person you need to kill. The penalty is minor for killing the wrong target, but obvious an extra body can alert guards and cause you more stress later. Beat enough levels (I think its close to 20) and you can complete freelance mode, which grants you like a golden weapon, and the ability to make freelance mode harder. However, you could technically pay it endlessly if you wanted.

Perhaps I “played it wrong,” but I was able to get through an entire freelance campaign on my first attempt. As I said, I find the hitman games relatively easy if you are patient, but I was also bored to tears playing the game, and I barely did any extra objectives in the freelance mode. After I visited the first few sellers in the early levels, I realized that have currency doesn’t really benefit me. I won’t need to buy a shotgun or a baseball in levels if that isn’t really jiving with my original plan of attack. Also since this is a hitman game, there are plenty of bricks, and knives and rat poison that litter the levels if you know where to look. My goal for each level was the same as it was for the main game. Make the cleanest kill possible and get out without people noticing, and that meant avoiding most bonus objectives. The only interesting levels were the boss levels, because it required more work to identify the target, but those are few and far between. My biggest gripe was that somehow over the course of a single campaign, not only did I get the same level twice (which makes since because there is only a limited pool of levels), but I had to kill the exact same target in those levels. Did I get a bad dice roll, or is there only a small pool of characters for each level that are available to be targets? I am choosing to believe that there is something that I missed that made Freelance a popular mode when it came out, because people’s whose game opinions I trust all loved it, but it never clicked with me. The Hitman game is all about replay ability, but if you max out on a location, or are sick of going after the same targets, I had more fun doing escalations or other “main” game modes then I did with the freelance campaign. On the plus side, I was able to play DLC levels in freelance mode, despite not having bought those DLC levels. If I could make one change to freelance mode, it would be that your notoriety would go up based on previous level performances. If you were spotted, if you left witnesses, etc. etc. it would make enemies in the next level even more alert than normal. I’m sure that is a lot of work, but it could have broken up some of the monotony of playing the Rave level for the third time.

Now don’t get me wrong here, Hitman is a fantastic game and once I got back into playing the campaign I immediately perked up. I see the benefit of just having more Hitman for people who have truly done it all, but I would say for the non-obsessive or more regular player, you have more than enough in the main game + escalations and the freelance mode can be ignored. There is something much more satisfying about the curated level design pointing you to specific targets, where you really feel you have to work at something, then just shooting guard 7 in the head while they walk behind the bathroom. Not anyone would make you choose, but in terms of best levels, I think it is game 1… game 3.. and then game 2. Each game has it’s standout levels, and I would obviously suggest getting them all if you are buying into the series late. My absolute favorite level would be Sapienza if it wasn’t for the “destroy the virus” objective, and Paris has it’s appeals, but I think my favorite level individually comes from the 3^rd game as I really enjoyed hunting the agents for the German Rave. Identifying the agents and devising ways to take them out via accident, or other means was very entertaining. The worst level I think can easily be the train level, but that’s because it is very story specific, if we are talking about main levels it is probably Colorado. Small level, everyone is a guard or soldier, and not as interesting as the other levels to look at or explore. You are telling me that there would really be like 3 different guard levels (costumes) within such a small area?

Is this the greatest game of all time?: No

Where does it rank: Hitman WOA is an amazing game, but you do have to approach it on its level. If you treat the game like a 3rd person shooter, or just play the freelance mode, then the game is going to give a pretty poor showing. However, if you take in the levels, play through the whole campaign, and poke at its sandbox to see all the things you can do, it is truly amazing. I have it as The 8th Greatest Game of All Time out of 168 total games. It sits between Stardew Valley (7th) and Into the Breach (9th)

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

Future games coming up 1) Tinykin 2) Shantae: The Seven Sirens 3) Vampire Survivors

Eh, that's really not true, though. Hitman: Absolution definitely had a story; in fact it focused on that to the exclusion of everything else. So much so that it wasn't really even a proper Hitman game, but a thriller in which 47 was running away as often as he was assassinating someone. Which is of course why no one liked it.

But Hitman WoA seemed to find the right balance. They managed to include a story that was vaguely compelling while never sacrificing any of the gameplay that makes Hitman what it is. Too bad they couldn't keep doing those sublime cutscenes with that good Square Enix money like they did for the first game, but it was still a better story throughout the trilogy than I was really expecting.

I do think that Hitman WoA really is an all-timer. Hell, the first game won GB's GOTY in 2016, and this combined version is just the same thing with three times the levels plus Freelancer mode. That is an insanely good package. And there's really nothing else out there quite like Hitman. It's one I think I'll still be returning to years from now when I've forgotten most other releases.

I had a better opinion of Freelancer than you did. It's not perfect, but it did give me what I wanted out of a mode like that and revitalized my interest. Sure, the bespoke targets from the campaign are more fun on a first play, or even the first few plays, but at some point you've done those missions so many times that you're worn out on them. Maxing your mastery on all locations will do that to you. I really like 47's ridiculous house, I like that the stakes are higher instead of infinite save scums, I like that there's some kind of currency to earn (otherwise why is 47 doing all these hits, anyway?), and also just the way that Freelancer strips the game down to its most basic elements. It's definitely not a mode that should be played first, because playing it well relies on knowledge of the locations gained through playing the campaign... but when you've got a handle on all the campaign missions, Freelancer is fun as hell.

I liked Absolution. It might've been Hitman by way of latter-day Sam Fisher but it worked.

I've put so many hours into this game, one of the all time greats. In regards to freelancer, I struggled a lot when I tried to play it. I was on the PS4 version so the long loading times were frequent which annoyed me a lot. On this very day, I got a PS5 and downloaded that version of the game, so maybe I'll have more success with that. ...Who am I kidding, there are so many games coming out, I have no idea when I could get back to it.

@atheistpreacher: yes you are correct.. this is where I admit that absolution is the hitman game I have played the least. As for freelancer, you are right.. it shouldn't be played first, and maybe only after you max proficiency all the missions, but it shouldn't have to be that way. I was just disappointed that for a game I enjoy playing so much seemingly took some of the fun out of the game... by having no save states and knowing you could lose all progress with a death, you become ultra cautious and then doing fun, but riskier kills are not really encouraged because I don't want to start over because I messed up an axe kill while dressed as a clown.

I mean to each their own, and thanks for the read and comment.

The load times on PS4 are indeed absolutely brutal. It was one of the things that made me stop playing freelancer back when I only had the game on PS4. I ended up buying the game a second time on PC and you can literally load into freelancer, pick a mission, get equipment, and load into the mission in the time it takes just to navigate from the main menu to the freelancer hub house on PS4 (which requires 2 fairly long loads on PS4 for some reason). Having much faster load times makes freelancer a lot less annoying to play since there's way way less downtime between missions. I would bet the PS5 version loads as fast as the PC version so it's worth giving it a go on there.

Since I got it on PC, I've started playing this game almost daily again. Being able to pop in, do a couple freelancer missions, then pop out makes this game a great palette cleanser or game to play if you have like 15 minutes or a half hour to kill.

My one other comment for people who haven't played freelancer since launch is to give it a go again. They've reworked it quite a bit. I hadn't played it since February and it seems like it's been rebalanced a lot. Colorado feels a lot more fair now since it seems they got rid of the one super unfair spawn point and moved the others a bit. The one other thing they did though, at least on PC, is remove the exploit where you could exit the game mid-mission and not lose progress. Now leaving the mission at all is treated as getting downed in the mission, which makes sense.

I mean, it wasn't a terrible game when considered in isolation. Not a great one, either, but fine. Plus it had Keith Carradine, and who doesn't like Keith Carradine? It just wasn't a Hitman game, like at all. IOI themselves knew it, which is why they wrote what amounted to an apology letter to fans saying that they knew Absolution had missed the mark and they'd return to the real Hitman formula for the next game... which turned out to be the 2016 reboot, so they definitely delivered in spades.

Hah, the long load times on PS4 is something I'd sort of forgotten about. I did buy the first two games on PS4, but then I was lucky enough to snag a PS5 at launch, so I never had to deal with the long loads for Hitman 3 or Freelancer. And I can imagine how it would be particularly bad with Freelancer due to the constant loads back into the safehouse.

I believe the alt+F4/"close the app" exploit still works for consoles, or so I remember reading somewhere?

FWIW, the one bug in Freelancer that I'm shocked they've yet to fix is that it remains impossible to get the coin for your tool case. You can get the coin for the wall, the one that costs 5,000 and persists between campaigns, but not the one for the case. Bizarre, as there have been a couple patches since release and it seems impossible that IOI doesn't know about it.

@jeremyf: thanks for the read and comment.. I did play it all the way through on PS4 and I didn't really notice the load times, but I trust you if you say they were long.

@ben_h: 15 minutes a mission? I think I was regularly spending 40 minutes or longer per mission.. but that's me working out the perfect hit each and every time..

I feel like part of the joy of Freelancer is that you no longer need to plan a perfect hit every time. Getting that Silent Assassin rating was always a thing in the campaign, but in Freelancer it entirely depends on what your optional objectives are... in some cases getting spotted or getting into a pitched battle won't even matter. It's nice to be able to do things more freeform without worrying about ratings. You just have to worry about finishing the mission at all, and secondarily your specific objectives for the merces (but I don't hesitate to skip an objective if it's at all likely to lead to a mission fail).

Also, the Sieker emetic dart gun is stupidly overpowered. Once you get that, it's usually quite easy to dart your targets and send them to a bathroom where you can drown them for an accident kill totally unmolested. And if you've taken the "Big Pharma" syndicate—which has objectives like "poison target," "poison target – emetic," and "poison target – dart gun"—you'll often end up doing a lot of the objectives without any extra effort. So if you know the OP strats and are really familiar with all the locations, 15 minutes is usually a realistic amount of time to finish a mission, even with three or four targets.