A tribute and farewell to a timeless saga: Hitman 3
Closing a video game franchise so dear and famous must not be easy, especially if that beloved franchise is the classic stealth Hitman that has captivated friends and strangers since the beginning of Agent 47 until its last installment, a well-deserved tribute to the genre of espionage and stealth that combines a sublime and extensive level design along with a gameplay that perfects the classic formula of the saga and combines it with some spectacular auctions, Each mission is a set of paths that we can cross freely as long as we meet the ultimate goal, Hitman 3 also concludes its history that has gone through several ups and downs over the years, but always staying true to its initial style, the path of the killer is one of stealth and enjoy having control of situations so let's analyze it to see if it meets expectations.
I'm not going to talk about the plot because it just turns out to be a series of cinematics with a voiceover and a couple of vocal performances without any ties or interest, the story does try to keep our attention in the later stages of the game but by then I had already decided that the gameplay was the only reason I would play a Hitman, the developer studio hasn't paid special attention to all these years of stories so each mission can be treated as a series of standalones that work great to introduce us to the mechanics and some cinematic drama.
Now if we go for the good stuff, in Hitman you can make the simple fact of picking up a disguise the architect of a whole series of scenarios but also reflects the most worked section of the studio IO Interactive, the variety of routes that put us on each map so that we can find our way to play it, the game will reward us every time we complete a mission without alerting anyone and fulfilling some secondary objectives that put us on the road but whenever we want the game will allow us to just grab a couple of guns and finish with everyone present to reach the goal, of course we will have some penalties but we will find it fun to make our way at gunpoint, no two roads are alike in Hitman at least in the first games so every little action we can do to change the course of what would be a very straightforward missions is appreciated.
The first mission of the whole game is a good omen of what awaits us, having to eliminate a target in the middle of a party we are presented with several options and a couple more that we can discover if we infiltrate the hotel rooms, we will have several perspectives to be able to finish with the target but we will also be in permanent contact with everything the game has to offer, and I'm talking about a wide variety of costumes, weapons and other interesting gadgets with which we can play to see what comes out on the road.
Each mission has its own section of challenges in case the difficulty is not enough, plus there are also scattered throughout the levels some NPCs that will give us one or another side mission as well as clues to fulfill the main one, personally I love these details that put where completing a side mission unlocks another special way to finish our goal, thus motivating the player to explore the map in search of these challenges.
The scenarios and level design in general are brilliantly constructed from start to finish, it is fascinating just to walk around these small towns that allows us to approach the game from a different perspective, we have several routes where we can find passages to more restricted areas in search of an object or a way to kill our target, this ability to choose between several routes makes each mission highly replayable from start to finish, It's even much more enjoyable when we know the scenarios and we manage to kill our target in novel ways (such as using an explosive hidden in a stuffed animal), each new room offers a technical display of lights and shadows that shine in an objectively small title, in terms of performance the game is a remarkable having several characters in the scenario still holds up quite well without presenting failures or FPS drops.
Hitman 3 does not seek to be a reinvention of the saga but rather a tribute to all the road traveled and a refinement of the techniques already explored, the controls are at its highest point, each scenario and mission has its own life and its own ecosystem, the gameplay is very interesting if approached from the theme of stealth but it can also be said that this game advances little with respect to its predecessor, the IO interactive team has waited for years to release this latest installment so it can not be said that the game is a very good game.