Hitman III review: Let’s call it Hitman 2.5 and be fine with it

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  How many people can we assassinate from the very top of a Dubai skyscraper? Agent 47 seems poised to find out in the opening mission of Hitman III. [credit: IO Interactive ]

The Hitman game series reached a zenith in 2018 with Hitman 2, technically the seventh in the series-but, hey, the seventh time can be the charm. Everything that we enjoyed in the 2016 series comeback was even better in this sequel, and IO Interactive nailed its "murder puzzle box" concept with sprawling, macabre playgrounds, all built to encourage a kill-multiple-ways core.

Three years ago, IO Interactive still had compelling directions to take its level design and plot composition, and the resulting sequel doubled down on dark humor and inherent video game silliness-while also getting a better handle on how to compose its levels. Walking through crowded scenes as a slow, blend-in-the-scenes assassin, looking for clues and opportunities, simply felt better in Hitman 2.

This week, Hitman III arrives on consoles, PCs, and streaming platforms with five new arenas of mayhem-the fewest yet in a numbered entry-and a pesky list of new tweaks. It feels very, very familiar-even more than the leap from 2016's Hitman to 2018's Hitman 2. It lands in a nearly identical interface as the last game, with the same XP progression meters, the same objective-based system, the same one-off "escalation" missions, and the same "custom contracts" sandbox. And its graphics engine revolves around a seemingly identical core, with one admittedly handsome tweak.

A sequel or an episode?

The worst part about Hitman III, then, is the number in the title. It betrays the game's true nature as an expansion pack instead of a standalone game that can easily be enjoyed in isolation. That's not a bad thing! If all you want are "more Hitman reboot levels that are up to the series' par of excellence" (and that was the game's original "episodic" plan), then III will neatly lodge into your brain. IO Interactive has concluded the "World of Assassination" trilogy in mostly fine fashion, although its inability to live up to the heights of Hitman 2 led me to immediately wish this were a more ambitious sequel.

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