Hitman 3

Like its predecessors, Hitman 3 is a stealth game played from a third-person perspective and players once again assume control of assassin Agent 47. In the game, 47 travels to various locations and carries out contracted assassinations, continuing the story of the last two games. The base game features six new locations: Dubai, Dartmoor, Berlin, Chongqing, Mendoza and an epilogue set in the Carpathian Mountains, Romania.[4][5] Owners of Hitman or Hitman 2 are able to import maps, levels and their progress into Hitman 3.[3]

The new locations in Hitman 3 include persistent shortcuts, a new gameplay feature to the series. Each stage includes a number of initially locked doors which can only be unlocked from one side; once unlocked, these doors stay open in all future playthroughs, allowing initially closed-off locations to be reached more quickly.[6]

The game features PlayStation VR compatibility on the PlayStation 4 version, with support for PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility.[7] The VR functionality also retroactively applies to levels imported from the previous two entries.[8] Unlike Hitman 2, there are no multiplayer modes, with Sniper Assassin being purely single player, and Ghost Mode being removed entirely.[9]

During the events of Hitman 2, professional assassin Agent 47 and his handler, Diana Burnwood, defect from the International Contract Agency (ICA), joining forces with rogue mercenary Lucas Grey to destroy Providence, an alliance of corporate executives and industrialists collectively wielding vast global political, military, and economic influence. While 47 and Grey seek revenge on Providence for creating and exploiting them both as disposable, cloned assassins from birth, Diana is motivated by Providence's assassination of her parents many years ago, not knowing that 47, under Providence control, carried out the killing. The trio captures Arthur Edwards, Providence's Constant and second-in-command, who identifies the three Partners leading Providence: Carl Ingram, Marcus Stuyvesant, and Alexa Carlisle. Edwards then escapes, and promptly seizes the Partners' corporate assets for himself.

Working together, 47 and Grey eliminate Ingram and Stuyvesant in Dubai at the newly inaugurated world's tallest building, the Burj Al-Ghazali (a fictitious version of the Burj Khalifa), and eliminate Carlisle at her ancestral manor in Dartmoor. Edwards, now in full control of Providence, deploys mercenaries, who capture both Grey and Diana. Grey commits suicide to ensure 47's escape.

47 arranges to meet hacker Olivia Hall, Grey's only other trusted ally, in Berlin. Discovering that the ICA is tailing them, 47 staves off the pursuit by infiltrating a nearby nightclub run by an outlaw motorcycle club, and eliminating a number of plainclothes ICA agents. Together, but unable to locate Edwards and still hounded by the ICA, 47 and Hall team up to conclusively stop the ICA by exposing it to the public. 47 eliminates "Hush" and Imogen Royce, the overseers of the ICA data storage facility in Chongqing, China, allowing Hall to steal and publish all of the ICA's operational data, while deleting all records of 47 and Diana. The ICA is irrevocably compromised and forced to shut down, ending 47's career as an assassin.

Meanwhile, Edwards attempts to convert Diana to succeeding himself as Constant, and seeks her betrayal of 47 by finally revealing his killing of her parents to her. Diana seemingly double-deals both sides, accepting Edwards's offer while inviting 47 to a gathering of Providence members in Mendoza, Argentina. Diana instructs 47 to eliminate Don Yates and Tamara Vidal, Providence members standing opposed to her succession, so that she can dismantle the organization upon assuming control. Though he follows her instructions, 47's longtime trust in Diana is finally shaken, and his fear is seemingly realized when Diana incapacitates him with poison and confronts him with the murder of her parents.

In a nightmare, a vision of Grey persuades 47 that Diana has not betrayed him, but rather helped to put Edwards within his reach. 47 wakes up imprisoned on a moving train in the Romania region of the Carpathian Mountains, with Edwards also on board. Though Edwards intends to make 47 into an assassin for Providence once more by wiping his memory with a serum injection, 47 breaks free, either killing Edwards or injecting him with the serum instead.

Diana assumes power as Constant and forces Providence's members to resign their leadership positions at major global corporations, destroying Providence's power structure. One year later, 47 reunites with Diana, both once again returning to their former roles as assassin and handler, as a means of keeping the power of global elites in check.

In a secret ending, if 47 injects himself with the serum while confronting Edwards, he passes out. He awakens in a padded room, greeted by Edwards' voice telling him, "Wake up. Wake up, my friend. It's the dawn of a new day, and you have things to do"—akin to the opening of Hitman: Codename 47.

The game was announced on 11 June 2020 at the PlayStation 5 reveal event.[10] Developers have said that the game will be "a lot more mature, serious and darker" than previous installments in the trilogy.[11] IO Interactive self-published the game when it released on 20 January 2021 for Windows via Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and streaming service Stadia.[12][13] Notably, it was also made available on Nintendo Switch in the form of a cloud based game. This marks the first time a Hitman game was released for a Nintendo platform in almost 18 years; the last game to be released was a port of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin for the GameCube in 2003.

The Mendoza location was IO Interactive's first attempt to depict Argentina in the Hitman franchise. The company went to great lengths to create a fictional location with authentic-looking terrain and vegetation, to show the winemaking process, and to accurately portray aspects of Argentine culture like the tango and the drinking of mate.[14]

The one major compromise was the decision to reuse existing non-player character (NPC) dialogue which had been recorded with Colombian and Mexican accents, rather than recording new NPC dialogue with authentic Argentine accents. According to IO Interactive, this was because of time and budgetary constraints and the additional complication of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company chose to focus on securing appropriate voice talent for the Chongqing location.[14]

On 15 January 2021, IO interactive announced that unlike console players, PC players will have to pay for an access pass to unlock Hitman 2 locations in Hitman 3,[15] even after announcing in August 2020 that players would unlock them in Hitman 3 at no additional cost.[16] Tim Sweeney, Epic Games' CEO, later responded to the announcement with: "Sorry, the team is looking into this with IO. It’s never Epic’s intent to create a situation where someone who owns a game on Steam would have to buy it again on Epic Games Store to get the full benefits of it."[17]

Two days later, IO Interactive said they were working on a solution to allow Steam players to import locations to the Epic Games Store. They guaranteed that players will not need to repurchase the games;[18] however, there will be a delay and players will be unable to import Hitman 2 locations for a few weeks in Hitman 3.[19]

On 27 August 2020, digital-only pre-orders for the game launched for PlayStation, PC and Xbox players. It was also announced that a Deluxe Edition of the game would be released, which includes Deluxe Escalations, in-game items and suits as well as digital soundtracks for the trilogy.[20] On 8 September 2020, pre-orders for Stadia went live.[21] On 15 October 2020, it was announced that physical copies of an exclusive variant of the Deluxe Edition containing all the digital content and an exclusive physical passport would be released by Limited Run Games.[22] On 30 October 2020, standard retail physical copies for both editions of the game were announced through traditional brick and mortar retail stores.[23]

After launch the game was plagued with server-based issues, with users unable to transfer over their progress from Hitman 2, users unable to use their Access Pass levels, and users unable to access the servers at all, leaving them unable to make progress in the game.[24][25]

A week after Hitman 3's release, IO's studio head Hakan Abrak stated they had made back their development costs for the game, and "that puts us in a really good place and allows us to confidently move forward with our ambitious plans for future projects."[26]

Hitman 3 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[27][28][30]

IGN gave the game a 9/10, writing "Rich, rewarding, and highly replayable, Hitman 3 is a superb instalment of IO's idiosyncratic but much-loved stealth series." GamesRadar+ gave the game a 4.5/5 stars, praising the "fun and imaginative murders, beautiful levels to explore, [and] incredible world building" and calling it a "slick and entertaining conclusion to the trilogy". GameSpot wrote "What's good about Hitman--its level design and the creativity, experimentation, and exploration that affords--is great in Hitman 3."

In an interview conducted with IO Interactive on 31 December 2020, they confirmed that despite Hitman 3 being the final game in the World of Assassination trilogy, it will not be the last game in the franchise. Christian Elverdam, director of the game, has said that walking away from the Hitman franchise for the time being and closing the door on this chapter of Agent 47's story feels fitting.[39]

• Official website