It's safe to say that a lot of people were feeling quite nervous about the annoyingly named Hitman. Its episodic release schedule worried many people, and tensions were high after the disappointing Hitman: Absolution – would Square Enix mess up again? After playing the beta for many hours, however, it seems that there's nothing to worry about. In fact, there's a lot to be excited about.
From what we've played, Hitman PS4 takes everything that was great about Blood Money – the trial-and-error gameplay, the outfit swapping, the variety of ways to assassinate your target, the non-linear sandbox levels – and improves it. Just to give you an idea of the creative freedom that you're given in the game, in the first mission alone we killed a target by dropping a lifeboat on him, spiking his drink and drowning him in a toilet, blowing him up, dressing up as his associate and strangling him with fiberwire in a meeting room, and many more methods that would put us on a government watch list.
A variety of new ways to kill also means a variety of new tools and costumes. While you still have your trusty fiberwire and silenced pistol whenever you start a mission, there are always goodies to be found in every level that can help advance your assassination: crowbars can be used to drop skylights on unsuspecting enemies, rat poison can be used to taint drinks in order to send enemies to a nearby bathroom where they can be quietly taken out, radios and generators can be tampered with, and even the most obscure items can be used in some way. In one mission, we rewired the ejector seat on a plane so that it would immediately activate when the target got in.
Hitman PS4 takes everything that was great about Blood Money and improves upon it
What reminds us so much about Blood Money is the whole trial-and-error style of the game: you're encouraged to explore each area and set out your plan, rather than go in guns-blazing like in Absolution. The game autosaves key points in your playthrough so that you can go back to them, while there's also an option to save progress manually in multiple slots so that you can try one method out, then go back and try a different one if the previous plan didn't go well.
You're also encouraged to steal different costumes in order to access different areas and avert suspicion from certain people. For example, if you're dressed as a mechanic, some greasers may not recognize you and start following you, and you may not be allowed to reach certain areas. These suspicious people are marked with dots above their heads, and there are plenty of indications on the HUD that tell you if you've been spotted. It does feel a bit hand-holdy at times, but you're able to disable everything on the HUD in the options menu, so you can play however you want.
As you play through a mission, clearly-marked Opportunities can be revealed by eavesdropping on certain conversations. After listening for a certain amount of time, you're given the option to track the Opportunity, which from then on the game will tell you how to fulfil it; one told us that a soldier needed to pick up some presentation slides, so we were instructed to steal an outfit and snatch the slides. Once again, it does feel a little too easy at times, but it's all totally optional, so you can play how you want to.
Instinct mode – similar to Assassin's Creed's Eagle Vision or the Arkham series' Detective Mode – allows you to spy on enemies through walls and find objects and weapons, but doesn't really sit well with us because of how easy it makes the game. It seems like cheating, so for most of the game we turned it off, but it could come in handy in later levels, or in Silent Assassin runs.
Probably the best new feature in Hitman PS4 is the new Objectives system made up of a number of different tasks, which are divided into different categories. Discovery objectives are all about finding different weapons, objects, and costumes in each map, while Assassinations can be fulfilled by killing your target in different ways. Feats, meanwhile, are the hardest challenges to complete, often giving you strict criteria on how to play through a level. What's great about these objectives is that they encourage you to play creatively, and are satisfying to pull off – everything that a good Hitman game should be.
Overall, we're pretty pleased with how Hitman PS4 is turning out. It resembles the essence of what a good Hitman game should be, and allows you to kill and clobber in as many ways as possible. The levels are well designed and have plenty of things to discover in them, and while the game can hold your hand a little too much, it's easy to turn off anything that you don't like and play as purely as you want to. If the full game is as good as what we've sampled, then it's well deserving of your blood money.
Did you try out the Hitman beta on PS4? Do you reckon that the new entry scrubs up nicely? Try not to get detected in the comments section below.
Comments 17
Great write up, Sam. I only spent an hour or so with this, but I was very impressed with it. I loved the environmental design of the faux cruise ship setting, with the backdrop drapings hurriedly hung around the hangar.
I did a couple of different kills but decided I want to wait for the first episode now, as I was having a lot of fun. Shaping up to be very cool, this is.
I haven't got access to the beta but I've been hearing very positive things. I watched PS Access' video on it and it looks really fun.
I'm interested to see how this game pans out. Maybe I'll wait for an eventual full game release before jumping on board, but I'm glad to hear it's shaping up nicely
Sounds very good! I'll probably buy the first episode and see how it goes... I like that you can turn of all the bits that make it easy, I'll probably turn it all off from the start until I possibly need it later on though. But if it's just like Blood Money I know I'll have some fun with it. I reckon this being episodic could help me too as I sometimes get bored of going through a game all in one go especially if they are repetitive. Look forward to it.
Weirdly, I had a bit of a contrasting experience and have actually cancelled my pre-order for the time being. Overall I did have some fun with it - there's promise. But there were a few big problems for me...
1. Technical performance. Not the be-all and end-all of course, but a month out from release the performance really was very choppy. And that was with the much simpler, cardboard 'training' levels.
2. AI is pretty basic. All you needed to do was get a certain outfit and dodge people with circles above their heads. Apart from that it really seemed quite...I dunno, 'last-gen', I guess? I mean, after blasting a VIP into the stratosphere on an ejector seat, barely anyone in the entire base batted an eyelid and I just strolled out like nothing happened. One enemy said 'Did that just happen?' and that was it.
3. Poor animation and voice acting. Not much else to add there.
Overall, It was pretty fun. I do want to play it, but honestly for the most part I felt like I was playing a slightly-scaled up PS3 game with performance issues. Nothing to get excited about, exactly. Kinda felt like the whole thing was a big fetch quest from an RPG. Go here, pick up that, take it to X, lead him there, push square (!) to kill. Leave. For all the talk of creative kills and open approaches I still felt scripted and uninvolved. I know it's pre-release, I know it's just the training level, but still...it didn't excite me like I thought it would.
So I'm cancelling my pre-order. Not ruling out a purchase eventually, but my confidence and excitement for the game got a bit dulled and I need to see more before I'm back on board.
@SegaBlueSky Agree with you on the voice acting and performance issues, though the latter has to be pinned on it being a beta for now. I partly agree on the AI bits, but I think there always has to be an aspect of simplicity, because it is ultimately still a game.
I imagine the larger environments will have more of what you want, but obviously that's for the reviews to determine.
@get2sammyb I'm pretty sure in the second mission alone there were 13 ways to kill the target, which is excellent. However big this game turns out to be, thanks to its sheer amount of replayability and its Contracts mode it should last a while.
@Quintumply To be honest I'd wait for the game to fully release as well, in order to make sure it turns out as a good one. It all depends on whether the first episode sells me or not!
@PostmanPatinator It feels a lot more pure and fun than Absolution ever does, and if this has half the amount of replayability that Blood Money ever did, then I'll be pleased. Loving your new name by the way
@SegaBlueSky The performance issues are pretty weird, considering I didn't get any. I did get plenty of glitches, though, so maybe flaws in the game's code are to blame for that. Hopefully these issues will be fixed before the game releases. I've heard a lot of people say that game seems "last-gen" too, and I can see where they're coming from, but I still enjoyed the almost-clunky animations and that sort of thing because it reminded me of Blood Money. It's all a matter of opinion though. The voice acting is pretty bad though, like you said.
I'm here to answer any more questions anyone may have!
Hitman does seem like a really cool game. I've sparingly played the other games on PS2, and I am definitely keeping my eye on this one. Probably going to wait until it's complete though, I don't know yet.
@Anchorsam_9 I know what you mean, I figured many of my concerns could well be fixed by launch but it just seems a little worrying given the game is only a month away, which to my mind doesn't seem to leave much time to fix core engine problems. I don't know much about betas though, is it common for games companies to use significantly earlier builds for betas even this close to launch? Just trying to figure out how much is likely to change before launch I guess.
Either way the flaws I mentioned aren't a total dealbreaker - I'd still like to play the full game (eventually at least), but it is affecting my choice to pre-order at the moment, whereas it was more of a 'must-have' in my mind before that.
@DerMeister That's what I'd do: better to ensure the game is all-around good than to buy the first episode and hate it
@Anchorsam_9 @DerMeister It is worth mentioning that you can get Episode 1 for £11.99 and then a discounted upgrade bundle if you decide you like it. Worth mentioning, but yeah, worth waiting until the end if you don't want to spend anything yet.
Thank goodness sounds great - Absolution was a slap to the face of its fans.
@AXEL314
Thought people liked Absolution? Around the time it came out it seemed to be well received. Didn't love what I played but it certainly wasn't bad. To be fair, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan of the series.
@AXEL314 It really was. It seemed to throw all of the stealth aspects out of the window.
@Gamer83 While Absolution did get quite a lot of praise (Currently sitting at an 83 on Metacritic) it was a pretty divisive game, and a lot of fans of the series (myself included) They took everything that made Hitman great and ignored it, plus it was way too linear for a Hitman game
Afraid I am not interested because of the annoying adverts before the new series of the X-Files on Channel 5.
Also, I suck at stealth games.
I am not a massive hitman fan but I have enjoyed some of the previous releases so I am happy to hear it's an enjoyable experience but I will wait until the complete release before I part ways with my money
i played all hitman games and loved those on the ps2 the most ,i spend hours on all 3 games and then absolution ....... i finished the game but it wasen't like the old ones ... i wanted to rush everything and get done with it lol , i really hope it will be like blood money and the other 2 ^^ and that the bugs will be gone when the main game releases ^^ i did not pre order the game since i wasent happy with absolution but this previeuw motivated me a little to give it a chance anyway ^^
I just wish it was launching as a full game and not episodic. I much prefer to play games like Hitman as I feel like it instead of being forced to wait between episodes. I'm in a bit of a predicament because I want to purchase it and show Square that I'll support these kind of games as long as it's closer to Blood Money, Contacts, and Silent Assassin than Absolution but I'd rather wait and buy the full release as I'm not big on episodic games. Of course I'll still wait until it fully released to pick it up.
I do have one question, do you still have to use instinct when you're in disguise and close to people in the same suit or does it work like Blood Money where you don't?
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