stealth

My favorite moment in the nearly 100 hours I’ve spent with Hitman World of Assassination arrived right around the 80-hour mark. I had been on a terrible streak in Freelancer, the game’s roguelike mode. Sloppy in my stealth and assassination skills, I’d taken out my target, but was seen doing it–and I still needed to extract. Freelancer mode sometimes requires messiness, a willingness to just get the job done by any means necessary. That’s hard for someone prone to perfectionism such as myself. And I had been too messy this time. Now the guards are after me, popping off shots as I race down the corridors of a fancy hotel in Thailand. I duck into an empty bedroom to hide. The doors burst open; the guards have followed me. I move around the corner, just out of sight.

A lone guard wanders into the room, my gun’s sights following his head as he moves. If he sees me, I’ll need to pull the trigger with haste and precision. There’s obviously no bullet-time mechanic in Hitman, but the rush of adrenaline, of needing to stay alive so as to not ruin my streak of successful kills and keep the excellent equipment I’ve found on this run, make every second feel like an eternity. My gun continues to trace this guard’s head. I realize that if I pull the trigger, I’ll also need to contend with the three guards in the adjacent room. I imagine what that will look like. Several contingency plans run through my head as I consider the myriad ways I can escape this situation, and just how ugly things might get if I need to do so with guns blazing.

The guard leaves the room. They didn’t see me. I see the rest of the guards leave my immediate area on the map and breathe a sigh of relief. I have time now to wait for the alarms to go quiet. But my disguise as a hotel worker has been compromised. I sneak into the adjacent room and grab the one guard who has yet to leave, knock him out, and steal his clothes. I tuck his body out of sight and mosey onto the extraction point as I watch folks drag some of the poor bastards who got in my way out in body bags. I extract. There were a million ways this all could’ve gone down, but on this particular run, this was the story that the various elements of the emergent sandbox that is Hitman told. I return to my residence, load up another job and prepare as best I can, though I have no idea how the next one will turn out.

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

Hitman World of Assassination is an epic package of three single-player campaigns, a variety of challenges both developer- and user-made strewn across several maps in its Contracts mode, and a riveting roguelike experience called Freelancer that aims to simulate the ultimate fantasy of assuming the role of the world’s most deadly assassin, with the worst members of society right in his crosshairs.

The WoA update followed the release of 2021’s Hitman 3. The three recent and excellent campaigns from 2016 onwards are well-preserved, improved even, with tweaks made to the gameplay formula over the years. It makes for an excellent source of nearly endless stealth challenges using Hitman’s elegantly violent interplay of sneaking, subterfuge, stalking, stabbing, suffocating, and shooting. The violence sometimes takes on a comical role (one mission had me throwing butcher knives into the skulls of guards while wearing a friggin’ rabbit mask), but aside from some gentle sci-fi elements, the fiction is grounded in a dark reality that mirrors our own. It’s a world of brutal corporate powers, state actors with ill intentions, and secret societies aiming to construct a global order that secures the places of the rich and powerful while leaving the rest of us to be ignored or, in some cases, much worse. Agent 47 finds himself, along with his handler Diana, in a position to deal back some justice. A single assassination won’t itself change the world, but a continued pattern that strikes fear into the hearts of those who otherwise would never know it? Delivering that is your role as this mysterious, red-tye-wearing man with a barcode tattoo on the back of his head.

Deadly wetwork

Hitman’s stealth is incredibly satisfying, though its mechanics are slightly less sophisticated than what you’d find in something like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid V. Your footsteps, for example, won’t give you away nearly as much as they would for a Sam Fisher. But much as I enjoy the challenge of a more realistic stealth sim, realism is not always a prerequisite for a good time. (Metal Gear Solid, after all, didn’t have enemies hearing your footsteps until Snake Eater.) Besides, Hitman itself isn’t short on the challenge of remaining unseen, or, in Agent 47’s case, only being seen while wearing someone else’s clothes. The game otherwise contains many stealth trappings you’ve seen in other games: lockers and boxes to hide in, tall grass to duck under, the chore of hiding unconscious or dead bodies. In my 100 or so hours with the game, resources like tall grass don’t feel as easy to exploit as they do in, say, an Assassin’s Creed or Horizon game, but there’s still a familiar pattern here with their inclusion.

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

I dove into World of Assassination by starting with the campaigns, Hitman (2016), Hitman 2, and Hitman 3. Hitman’s campaigns can make for a solid introduction, but the story-based mission structure can detract from the more-unscripted, stealth sandbox that beats at the heart of this game. On normal difficulties, each mission will prompt you with a suggestion to follow a narrative thread that, while often containing some very well-written and amusing story material, can feel a little on rails. These scenarios, often, rely on you changing outfits to disguise yourself, so you’re not so much sneaking around corners as you are committing a serious case of identity theft. Furthermore, when in an alerted state, Agent 47 can die rather quickly, so straying from that path can feel intimidating. The narrative moments are often well written and amusing, so it’s a good time, just not the kind of shadowy wetwork I tend to gravitate to.

It can be hard to get out of a bad situation. Hitman’s environments, typically, are well populated, often packed with civilians who are quick to run to a guard if they catch you doing something weird, or even if they spot you walking around with a butcher knife. The places you’re infiltrating are unassuming locations for the most part: a dance club, an upscale hospital, a fashion show. And you always have a target, typically one who has a nefarious agenda. Even the game’s roguelike Freelancer mode, which reuses maps from the story-based campaigns, gives you targets who follow a routine. And the more challenging missions of that mode require you to pick your target out of a group of wandering suspects, looking for tells based on intel you’re given at the start. So your job involves more than just getting into some well-guarded area without drawing attention to yourself; you also need to find the right opportunity to take action after studying the behavior of your targets and determining the most efficient, or most hilarious, means of killing them. You’re going to need to adhere to some kind of structure for yourself, a routine of how you engage with enemies, how you manage your inventory, how you enter and leave rooms, and when you choose to open fire as opposed to running away. Improvisation is often only as good as the discipline you practice leading up to moments of uncertainty.

That, to me, is key to what makes Hitman and many other stealth games work: It’s the joy of adhering to form, of approaching situations cautiously, with awareness, so that you’re prepared to respond to anything with a degree of competency and strategy, always aiming to get the situation under your control as opposed to just reacting to incoming action like you typically do in a standard shooter. Sure, Hitman’s gunplay is smooth enough that you can get into some John Wick-esque situations, but you’re bordering on a fail state when you do (though it’s also extremely easy to line up shots if you can force guards into a choke point where they can’t easily flank you).

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

Always having that central objective, your target(s), helps direct the stealth gameplay into something meaningful. You’re not just sneaking for the thrill of breaking into some place you’re not supposed to be: You have a purpose, and that purpose isn’t a static thing that will never move. Playing Hitman well is about juggling time management, staying hidden, staying focused, and having a willingness to exploit an opportunity that you may not have expected.

And while the main campaigns are satisfying (though I found the nuances of the plot a little hard to follow, especially during Hitman 2), its roguelike mode, Freelancer, is where I’ve spent the majority of my time and will continue to do so. It’s a wildly compulsive forever-game that I still struggle to put down, even after hitting a three-digit hour count.

That said, there are some pain points worth mentioning. To start, Agent 47 is slow. His “sprint” is a jog at best and it feels a little strange sometimes that you can’t just book it to the exit when you’re under fire. Having a faster sprint might really interrupt the flow of the game, so I get not having it, but it still feels off. There’s also a weird issue where if you grab an enemy while climbing the stairs, even if you’re directly behind them, you’ll almost always get spotted by them and thus ruin a Silent Assassin run. Also, needing to use a thrown object to make noise and distract an enemy feels silly, as if Agent 47 couldn’t whistle or knock on a wall. And lastly, you’ll probably make a ton of use of Agent 47’s see-through-walls “Instinct.” Not only am I not a fan of this feature in modern stealth games as I feel it removes a huge part of the challenge of keeping track of your enemies, but it also coats the screen in a dull gray tone that isn’t pleasant to look at. For a feature that gets used so much, it could’ve used something with a bit of a cooler color. Make it blue and a little shimmery or something, I dunno. Anything but the monotone gray.

Hitman World of Assassination

• Back-of-the-box quote:

  “Because Mario ain’t gonna get it done!”

• Developer:

  IO Interactive

• Type of game:

  Third-person stealth action game.

• Liked:

  Endless variety of stealth challenges, engaging risk/reward experience in Freelancer.

• Disliked

  Reliance on “Instinct” view mode, sandbox can sometimes be unpredictable.

• Release date:

  January 2023: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows PCs (played) June 2025: Switch 2 August 2025: iOS (in episodic form)

• Played:

  100 hours through the three campaigns, Freelancer, and other challenges.

To be fair, some of these omissions, such as sprinting fast or wall–knocking, would make for a very different game if they were present. Not being able to knock on walls or whistle, as you can in other stealth games, means you need to interact with the game’s item sandbox more. And not being able to run means there’s no get-out-of-jail-free card if you screw up. It makes sense when you consider these omissions as intentional parts of the game’s design, but when three guards are hot on your heels popping off shots, it’s hard not to think, “Why the hell can’t I run?” Oh, you also can’t swim, but that’s okay.

The joys of the Freelance lifestyle

Like most roguelikes, or extraction shooters for that matter, Hitman’s Freelancer mode tasks you with heading into hostile territory to get a job done and come out alive. Fail your mission and you lose all the sweet gear you have on you. And Hitman isn’t short on sweet gear.

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

The overall flow works like this: You’ll choose from a list of potential crime syndicates to go after. Each has a bit of fictional dressing on the side that isn’t explored much beyond an initial description that you’re going after human traffickers or organ harvesters. There’s an undeniable Batman quality to the work you’re doing, and after some successful missions, your handler will remark that your actions will make others “think twice before turning to a life of crime.”

But Agent 47 isn’t Batman and isn’t content to just beat up his targets. No, he kills them. And each syndicate has a series of challenges to take on for each kill. These can range from things like only killing targets or only using silenced weapons to earning the Silent Assassin status for never being seen during your run, and more. Some challenges, like using explosives, shotguns, or other loud things, toss stealth out the window in favor of something a bit more daring. I tend not to do these as much since I prefer a stealthier playstyle, but Hitman can be a surprisingly fun run-and-gun game as well, albeit one that usually exists in short bursts as either you or your enemies are likely to go down pretty quickly. You can also stack some prestige challenges on top, which will ask you to use specific weaponry, never change your suit, or kill a target in a specific way.

Sometimes these tasks step on each other. For example, asking me to get a melee kill but then also asking that I only get headshots on my enemies doesn’t exactly work. Each challenge grants money you can spend to purchase better gear, so it’s a bummer when you fail one, but sometimes you have to fail it if it means getting out alive and not losing your progress. That risk of losing progress by failing the mission, which will see you lose all the gear you have on you, means that you’ll need to be prepared to abandon a challenge if it’s asking too much. That risk and reward, combined with the scarcity of the weapons makes each gun you earn feel valuable, and it plays a significant role in how you prepare for each mission.

A silenced sniper rifle, or even a silenced pistol, for example, is an incredibly useful tool. But maybe you know a certain level so well that, when a mission takes you there, you can leave those good weapons at your hideout for when you really need them on a more challenging assignment. Maybe it’s wise to save them for the more intense “showdowns,” where you have to spend more time studying the suspects to determine if they’re the target.

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

While the behavior of your standard targets in Freelance mode follows the flow of a Hitman level as it typically pans out, “showdown” missions lead up to a–you guessed it–showdown with a syndicate leader, who will be one of a few different suspects. You’ll learn what they’re wearing, what they’re likely to do during their mission, and what tells will give them away, such as whether they’re prone to allergies, like to smoke, or tend to pace nervously. It’s a fun game of cat and mouse in which you have to figure out who amongst the crowd is your mouse.

Overall, the endless nature of this roguelike mode, packed with its healthy number of maps and a seemingly limitless way they can be used with different targets, weapons, and items, keeps the environments you’ll play over and over again feeling fresh. And the thrill of maintaining momentum on a run, especially as you increase your arsenal, makes for a rewarding game loop that can trap you for hours.

As a veteran of many stealth games, Hitman’s endlessly unpredictable roguelike mode is what appeals to me the most. It’s an experience I can’t easily replicate elsewhere. But there are other challenges that are definitely worth exploring in the World of Assassination package as well, especially as they’ll help you better learn maps and strategies for staying unseen.

Arcade mode, for example, sees you taking on “Elusive Targets,” who, upon failure, can’t be pursued again for several real-world hours. Many of them are only available during certain times as well. These targets might also have specific ways they’ll need to be killed or their levels may come with unique constraints. Contracts mode features both preset and user-made contracts from any of the game’s many levels, often with optional challenges such as the need to use a sniper rifle or explosive device, or to execute someone while wearing a specific disguise.

I haven’t spent nearly as much time on these modes, but they can serve as helpful ways to practice very specific ways of playing, which will teach you skills and techniques that’ll come in handy across any of the game’s modes.

© Screenshot: IOI / Claire Jackson / Kotaku

Hitman World of Assassination offers up an exquisite buffet-style set of amusing and challenging stealth challenges with such an abundance as to be virtually endless. The moment-to-moment stealth gameplay is as challenging as it is rewarding. Agent 47 may feel a little stiffer and slower than someone like Venom Snake from MGSV, but once you get used to the pacing of Hitman, it reveals itself as an engaging stealth game that invites mastery over its interlocking and sometimes unpredictable systems. Time spent in this game is about getting better at the game itself, not just unlocking and collecting cool suits. Whether emerging victorious or suffering defeat, playing the role of Agent 47 is a thrilling and challenging experience that can last for countless hours.

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