My History with Agent 47

Hitman (2016) is not my first Hitman game. I played a few Hitman games on older platforms (Codename 47, Blood Money and Contracts are a few that come to mind). I was excited about Hitman being revived in 2016, but not enough to give it a shot, at the time. It wasn’t until Hitman 3 came out recently that I decided it was finally time to jump into this series.

Lucky for me, Hitman (2016) had been a FREE PS Plus game at some point so it was already in my library. I decided to give this game a try since I already owned it, rather than jump straight into Hitman 3. I was never great at the sneaking around part of the Hitman franchise. I’m not very good at it in most games: Splinter Cell, Alien: Isolation, Metal Gear Sold V. But, for some reason, I still love these types of games. I’m more of a run-and-gunner (I don’t have much patience for being stealth).

Thing I Wish I Had Known

There are two things I wish I had known before starting my new journey as Agent 47. First, I wish I had known that you can create a save at any point during any mission. The game also autosaves as you complete mission objectives. This would have saved me so much time during those first few missions. Anytime I would get caught, accidentally kill an innocent person or find myself in a shootout — I would just restart the entire mission from the very beginning.

From there I would attempt to speed through the beginning of each mission (the parts I was already familiar with) until reaching the point where I’d get caught or do something stupid all over again. I was forced to take a break after attempting to beat certain missions and making it 20-30 minutes in only to get caught and have to start over. The repetition would start to annoy me. If only I knew about the save points. It was right there the whole time next to “restart mission,” it said “load saved game.”

It wasn’t until I was on fourth or fifth mission (World of Tomorrow: Sapienza) that I realized I could save at any point and load up from any save or auto-save. If I had known this from the start I wouldn’t have been so frustrated trying to beat those first missions. Check points and saves were a great invention in gaming, because it gets very annoying to start a level over every time you fail, instead of retrying the point of failure. Of course, some games are built on the starting over mechanic, but Hitman is not one of them.

Second on my wish list, I wish I had known how to handle missions. I went back to my original Hitman roots of being a run-and-gunner. Getting in, eliminating the target and getting out as quickly as possible while mostly always getting caught. There is a much better way to play these games, and it took me up until the second to last mission (Freedom Fighters) to realize it.

Hitman missions aren’t meant to be rushed. You’re supposed to explore these beautifully-designed destinations until Burnwood (the voice in your head) gives you hints on how to tackle different objectives, ultimately leading to eliminating your target (unseen and unheard). The NPCs in the game are triggered by you and what you do. Your target isn’t going to just escape without you triggering them by reaching certain checkpoints. Many important characters are even stuck in a never-ending loop. Each level is sort of like Westworld with each of the important characters and targets moving through their specific tasks each run.

The Ways of Old

As I said I was always impatient with the Hitman games and similar games. However, I still loved them. It took me some time to figure out how to eliminate targets unseen and unheard. As I said earlier, I played most of this game as a sloppy assassin.

Below is a video showing off my sloppy assassination skills:

A New Style of Hitman

After finally learning the language of the Hitman games (in one of the last missions) I found myself using new and smarter techniques to sneak around each mission. Instead of going straight for the assassination, I would complete smaller objectives that would help me ultimately take out my target. You end up finding better disguises and ways to eliminate your target. You slowly walk out of a mission instead of running out while bodyguards are shooting at you.

This video shows off my new style (aka the right style) of being an assassin in Hitman.

My Favorite Thing…

There’s one thing that is my true love in Hitman and that is throwing objects at people’s faces. It’s so much fun to knockout random NPCs with random objects. It doesn’t matter if they are good or bad people since these objects won’t kill them, they’ll just go to sleep for a prolonged amount of time.

This is a short video I edited together from a long mission I completed. This mission ran a bit sloppy. The best techniques weren’t exercised at all times, but I just wanted to knockout anyone who got in my way…

To Be Continued…

I made my way through the first season of missions in Hitman (2016) and a few extra missions. It’s amazing how many different objectives there are, and how many different ways each mission can be completed. I thought I would go back and try out different strategies to beat each mission, but I just didn’t feel like it.

I purchased Hitman 2 and would rather give that a try. I’m excited to continue my journey with Agent 47 and to share more in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for Diary of a Hitman: Vol 2
Coming soon…