Platform: PlayStation 4

Developer: IO Interactive

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Release Date: November 13th, 2018

Genre: Action, Stealth

Nerd Rating: 8.5 out of 10

So here we are. A short, short two years later, and the sequel to IO Interactive’s revitalized Hitman has hit the virtual shelves in the form of the aptly titled Hitman 2. Despite its rocky and rather heartbreaking release schedule, I absolutely adored 2016’s Hitman, a game that made me sad that I had missed out on previous titles from the series. Featuring sandbox-style levels that were more open than any stealth game I’d previously encountered with a plethora of hidden systems and rules that all interacted in a procedural manner, Hitman was a surprising joy, not only due to the cleverly scripted assassinations, but also due to the cleverly unscripted moments that would happen when you put the game’s many interconnected systems to the test.

And Hitman 2 continues this forward-thinking trajectory. Featuring levels that are bigger than ever,  infinitely interactive environments and NPCs, as well as new improvements to existing systems, Hitman 2 delivers all the goods that a quality sequel ought to. Let’s dive right in.

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Picking up where 2016’s Hitman left off, Hitman 2 follows the iconic, bald, and tattooed Agent 47 during a crisis within his assassination agency. At the end of the last game, it was revealed that someone had been using the agency that Agent 47 works for, known as the ICA, to strategically eliminate a bunch of high-ranking honchos belonging to a secret world order. This mysterious someone has been playing the ICA like a damn fiddle, and it is Agent 47’s job to find out who. How does one go about doing that, you ask? By assassinating even more people, duhhh.

Entering Hitman 2’s world of assassination, the first thing that I noticed about this game was the sheer scope and intricacy of its levels. The first (real) mission, taking place in Miami, dumps the player into a motor sport arena. Looking around, I was simply amazed at the number of NPCs milling about, and before I had completed a single run through the level, I had gotten myself lost on more than just a couple occasions. This level is simply massive.

Featuring control rooms, security rooms, popup bars, back alleys, underground tunnels and parking lots, pit crew areas, medical facilities, and an entire office building with multiple stories, the very first level of Hitman 2 displays a grander scope and higher degree of intricacy than any of the levels in the previous title. And that’s saying something; previously, I considered 2016’s Hitman to be the gold standard in this sandbox-style stealth subcategory. And so far, we’ve only been talking about the first level! I am simply amazed that in the short span of two years, IO Interactive has managed to craft five (plus a sixth “intro” level) amazing levels of such scale, intricacy, and intrigue.

If you’re a newcomer to the world of Hitman, or haven’t checked in on the series in a while, you may be a little confused as to how the gameplay actually works. Well, good thing papa Nips is here to help out! Following the style of its 2016 predecessor, Hitman 2 drops the player in a series of open sandbox-style levels where their mission is to assassinate two or three specific people located within the map. How do you kill them, you ask? Well, that is entirely up to you! Drop something on their head in an apparent accident, poison their food, garrote them with Agent 47’s iconic strangulation wire, or just give them a good ol’ fashioned bullet to the head; your choices are varied and multitudinous!

So, we know what our options are, but we still don’t know how to go about doing the killing of our targets. That is where Hitman 2’s various systems and rules come in to play. You wanna drop a sign on someone’s head? Well, first you better know where all the signs are located, chart the target’s path, and get the timing just right in order to succeed. Want to catch them alone for a little one-on-one time? Then you better figure out how to sneak past the guards, security cameras, and oppressive architecture of their hideout, all while remaining unseen in order to slip into their bathroom, bedroom, or other secluded spot, provided that they’re even going to step away from their personal bodyguard for more than a few seconds. You could do all that, or, you could use the Hitman series’s staple mechanic…

Disguises. Virtually every NPC located within the world of Hitman 2 is wearing an outfit that you can pilfer from their corpse or unconscious body. Want to sneak into a venue? Knock out a guard or custodian and put their disguise on! Want to poison a target but can’t figure out how to make them eat the food? Put on a chef disguise and serve it to them yourself! I gushed about this feature in my Hitman review, but no other stealth game has come close to replicating the thrill that I get in Hitman and Hitman 2 where I infiltrate a highly secured fortress or cartel mansion by simply walking through the front door in plain sight.

These disguises introduce the core gameplay components of Hitman 2, around which most of the game’s systems are designed. Each type of disguise allows you to get away with certain things. A guard disguise will allow you to openly carry a weapon without suspicion, a chef disguise will allow you to tamper with food without drawing a second glance, a custodian disguise will allow you to tinker with machinery, and so on. Certain characters, dubbed “enforcers,” will see through certain disguises, meaning that you still have to be on your toes and watch out for people that will recognize you. The developers did a good job planting these enforcers, and a lot of thought went into figuring out who would realistically see through which disguises adding an extra layer of complexity and challenge to the game.

Of course, even with all these tools and disguises at your disposal, it’s kind of hard figuring out how to kill your targets on the first go-round. This is where Hitman 2’s “mission stories” come into play. Just because these NPCs are in the game to be assassinated doesn’t mean that they don’t have lives, dreams, and desires of their own, right? Right! In their masterful way, IO Interactive have designed a slew of distinct targets, each with an interesting back story and personality profile. Not only that, but their life is going on around them while you’re trying to assassinate them. Hitman 2’s mission stories are the result.

From secret meetings to blackmail opportunities, flawed machinery, and everything in between, each level of Hitman 2 features a handful of mission stories–things that were going on in the targets’ lives before Agent 47 even got there, and would probably have gone smoothly if he weren’t there to take advantage of their opportunity. If you want to get a target alone, why not disguise yourself as a celebrity tattoo artist, or sabotage their favorite record player in the basement? Poisoning a target becomes much easier when you figure out what their favorite food is, and making an assassination look like an accident is a breeze once you get the scoop on that faulty piece of machinery in the shed.

Not only do these mission stories in Hitman 2 help the player learn the levels, but they also add a touch of context that simply isn’t present in a lot of other stealth games. The NPCs in this game aren’t just mindless robots to be manipulated (well, they still are, but bear with me); they feel like real people with real desires and fears, adding a lot of texture and personality to the world of Hitman 2. 2016’s Hitman had a similar feature called “opportunities,” but Hitman 2 seems intent on improving that format, with many of the mission stories featuring branching points that offer room for multiple outcomes.

And this leads me to one of the central components of Hitman 2: this game really doesn’t work like most linear titles. Instead, the developers built each level with a ton of replay value so that they can be repeated over and over and over, the player gleaning a few new things about them each time they play. By the time you’ve completed your 8th or 10th assassination in a level, you know its structures, rules, and NPCs inside and out.

The levels’ replay value is enhanced by the game’s achievement and item unlock systems. Increase your mastery of a level by completing a series of challenges. As you raise your mastery, you unlock new items that can help you better assassinate future targets. This is a great system, encouraging players to play Hitman 2 the way the developers intended without it feeling forced.

With Hitman 2, not only did IO Interactive expand the scope of the types of levels found in 2016’s Hitman, but they have also begun experimenting with different level prototypes. Miami takes the big arena format and absolutely blows it up, as if they shoved two regular levels together into one super-massive level. Colombia introduces shrubbery as a potential hiding spot in a hostile environment, encouraging the player to dispatch their enemies guerrilla-style. Mumbai explores the fun in blending in with crowds and evading your pursuers among the winding alleys of an Indian slum. Vermont strips things back a bit, exploring the quietude of suburbia with little security pockets in the form of individual houses and yards. Finally, the Isle of Sgáill in the Atlantic Ocean captures the feeling of being trapped in the lion’s den, depositing the player in a secret society’s castle with tough and incredibly hostile security all throughout.

Back in 2016, the release schedule for Hitman was fraught with frustration; each episode was released individually, and some of them took months upon months to get released, even though the developers promised them sooner. Not so with Hitman 2; this baby got released as a full package. But, this doesn’t mean that IO Interactive eschewed every aspect of their previous model. Even though Hitman 2 was released as a solid bundle, it is still very much in conversation with the episodes already released. I was pleased to find that my purchase of this game came with the Hitman legacy pack, which retrofits new rules introduced by Hitman 2 to the levels of 2016’s Hitman. Not only that, but if you have save data from 2016’s Hitman, you can bring your items and other unlockables into the world of Hitman 2. IO Interactive just keeps on giving and giving. Seriously, no one told them they had to do this. I genuinely believe they did this out of a desire to make the best game possible.

Much like 2016’s Hitman, Hitman 2 features online content such as Contracts and Elusive Targets, recycling the game’s levels in new contexts. Contracts can be made by players or the developers themselves, challenging the player to eliminate random NPCs in bizarre ways. But the real star is the Elusive Target feature, where IO Interactive designs completely new targets to assassinate. The only catch is you get just one try. If you die, you can never try that specific Elusive Target again. That shit is so cool. As I’m writing this article, the most recent Elusive Target was played by none other than Boromir himself, Sean Bean. In Hitman’s previous episodes, people such as Gary Busey played Elusive Targets, so I’m definitely looking forward to who they have in store for the future.

Aside from the basic online content, there are now new multiplayer modes that you can play in Hitman 2! There is a coop sniper-style mission that you can play, but there is also a completely unique game mode called Ghost Mode. Admittedly, I don’t pay for online, but there’s a pretty good demonstration of how it works here. Basically, you and one opponent are put in alternate universes, racing to get 5 kills on random targets. An interesting feature is the “ghost coin,” which you can throw into your opponent’s dimension in order to attract the attention of guards in their world.

Of course, not everything about Hitman 2 is perfect. Like its predecessor, this game still requires you to be online at all times, or you can’t access the majority of its content. While some features from the previous title have been improved, there are still some that are absolutely frustrating. For instance, in order to fulfill certain mission stories and opportunities, you have to wait around forever for a given NPC to cycle back through its pattern. This is not ideal, and it almost makes me wish that there were a fast-forward feature, kind of like in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, allowing you to speed up time in the game world if you don’t feel like waiting around forever to make something happen.

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At the end of the day, Hitman 2 represents even less rigidity than its predecessor, opening up the world and mission stories to a variety of interpretations and outcomes that encourage the player to break the game on a regular basis. There’s something freeing about the trust that IO Interactive places in the player, giving them a sandbox and allowing them to decide how they’re going to have fun with Hitman 2. This game may not have reached the incredible highs of 2016’s Hitman, but it offers improvements in a lot of the game’s central components while experimenting with new ways to improve on and expand the core gameplay. I am very impressed by Hitman 2’s commitment to growth, change, and experimentation. It may just be my favorite game of 2018.