Disappoints

Hitman: World of Assassination – Signature Edition sees Agent 47 and his penchant for disguises and creative murders arrive on Nintendo’s newest console. The Switch 2’s Signature Edition is a comprehensive package, featuring the full campaigns for Hitman (2016), Hitman 2 (2018), and Hitman 3 (2021), along with Contracts mode, Escalation, Elusive Target arcades, the relatively new (and excellent) Freelancer mode, Sniper Assassin mode, featured live content, and everything from both the Hitman 2 Expansion Pack and Hitman 3 Deluxe Pack. That includes cosmetics, locations like Haven Island and The Bank, and side missions such as the Seven Deadly Sins and Special Assignments campaigns.

The only content not included are three specific Elusive Target arcade contracts–Replication, The Base, and The Oroborous–and the Sarajevo Six bonus contracts. You can purchase all of this content on the Nintendo eShop for $5 each, but it’s disconcerting that these missions are gated behind paid DLC in the first place. The Sarajevo Six is the latest piece of significant DLC for the game, but it still came out two years ago after previously being exclusive to the PlayStation 4 version of Hitman 2, so you’d expect it to be included in a package that already costs $60. The Elusive Target contracts are even more egregious because they were previously released as free updates many years ago. These packs include cosmetics, which is probably the justification for selling them, but I think people would be a lot happier if the actual gameplay content was separated and included in the initial purchase. Having said that, you’re still getting dozens upon dozens of hours of Hitman to sink your teeth into. It’s an exhaustive package, even with parts missing.

Ultimately, this is still a solid collection–it just plays better everywhere else.

Of course, the big question regarding this port is: How’s the performance? Unlike the Switch version of Hitman 3, which required cloud streaming to run at all, the Signature Edition runs natively on the Switch 2 but falls short of other versions of the game in several areas. It’s not terrible, but there are clearly better places to play if you’re interested in killing people with a bald, barcoded assassin.

Visually, it looks good both docked and in handheld mode, whether you’re throwing axes at faces at a Paris fashion show, tampering with open-wheel race cars in Miami, or solving a whodunit at an opulent estate in Dartmoor. It appears to be 1080p when docked and 720p in handheld mode, so you lose some of the detail available on other platforms, and there is some occasional shimmering on certain objects. The Switch 2’s HDR implementation also doesn’t function properly when playing handheld, resulting in an overly bright image that makes certain aspects of the game, like the map, unreadable. Fortunately, you can at least turn this off in the system settings.

The framerate fluctuates wildly whenever you’re not in a small room.

Performance in the Signature Edition is uneven, utilizing an uncapped 60fps that varies from moment to moment depending on what’s happening on screen. If you’re in a small room by yourself, you can see the frame rate reach its upper limits, but it fluctuates wildly everywhere else. I never noticed any substantial drops, even when dealing with large crowds of NPCs, but playing in handheld mode fares best, as the Switch 2’s built-in Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) does a decent job of making the fickle frame rate feel smoother than it does when docked, where VRR is unavailable. Playing on a TV just feels unpleasant, even if the game’s methodical pacing somewhat mitigates this. There aren’t any graphics settings to tinker with either. This isn’t out of the ordinary for a console game, but the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of Hitman did let you cap the frame rate at 30fps for a more stable experience.

While playing in handheld mode is the way to go for more consistent performance, that doesn’t mean it’s great for taking Hitman on the go. The death knell for this port is the Signature Edition’s always-online requirement. This restriction has been part of the game since 2016, so it’s hardly surprising, but it’s disappointing that IO Interactive hasn’t found an alternative solution that allows you to reap the full benefits of the Switch 2’s portability. You can still play the game offline, but it’s a badly diluted experience, lacking progression, rewards, challenges, and level mastery; essentially, everything that adds replayability and a sense of accomplishment is absent unless you’re connected to the Hitman servers. If you’re playing through the campaigns for the first time, it’s mostly fine, but anything beyond this is significantly stripped back due to a rigid requirement.

Hitman 3 is one of our favorite games–it was picked for GameSpot’s Best of 2023.

Due to these issues and the game’s performance problems, it’s tough to recommend Hitman: World of Assassination – Signature Edition. Not only are other versions of the game regularly cheaper–and sometimes free–but they also run and look better, both on TVs/monitors and handheld devices like the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally. The Switch 2 port is certainly playable (albeit compromised), and the World of Assassination trilogy remains fantastic, but even amidst the excitement of a shiny new console, Agent 47’s latest Nintendo outing is a letdown.

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