Review - Hitman Absolution

“Hitman: Absolution” is a stealth game released on the most platforms in 2012. With a name like "Hitman," it's pretty clear what the game entails: you kill targets in creative ways and escape (ideally) undetected. As the fifth game in the franchise, one might expect the game to be immediately in line with its predecessors, but Absolution makes some polarizing changes to the Hitman formula.

Story -2/10

I really hate to give such a low score, especially when previous Hitman games didn't really *have* much of a story, but it's just so heavy handed. To quote Family Guy, "it insists upon itself." The prequels didn't NEED a story. Give me a target and let me kill them however I can: gunshot, poison, or perhaps drop a chandelier on their head.

Absolution has fairly lengthy cinematics before and after each mission, and they just feel forced and unnecessary. There's this big plot about a young girl and "The Agency," but I just don't care. I'm not playing Hitman for the narrative, I'm playing Hitman to sneak around and kill people. Really, the story itself isn't awful, it's just far more involved than it should be and the game dumps it on you in such a blunt way that it's more frustrating that enjoyable.

General Gameplay - 6/10

The good part of the gameplay is that costumes, stealth, and the WAYS you can kill targets are more or less the same as previous games. You can find an NPC that has access to areas you need to be in, kill or incapacitate them, and then wear their disguise to reach your target. There are lots of places to hide bodies, and if guards find a body or a trail of blood, they will alert the other guards and make it much harder for you to achieve your goal. It's a good system.

The aspect of gameplay that I like significantly less are the super long missions and the segments that you don't kill anyone at all. Most missions aren't just a one-off task to kill a target and escape. There's an infiltration component, THEN you kill the target, and there's often a dramatic escape sequence. A single target might take half an hour to an hour for the full process. Previous games were frequently ten minutes or less per target, especially if you knew where you were going.

I think it goes hand in hand with the involved story, truthfully. IO created more of a plot for this game, and by golly, they're going to make SURE you experience it. If that means gating you to narrow hallways and forcing cinematics between segments, so be it. And personally, I think that hurts the pacing and enjoyment of the game.

Difficulty - 6/10

There are different difficulty settings, and they really do provide a lot of accessibility for the game. The harder the difficulty, the more aggressive guards are, the fewer checkpoints you get, it does a lot more than just make enemies hit harder and you hit less hard. That's really important for making a game available to beginners and veterans alike, and I do think Absolution manages that very well.

I played through on normal mode, and I think it was a very healthy difficulty. Some missions were easy, only taking a single attempt. Other missions were particularly difficult, like sneaking through the library. I never felt like the game was unfair, and the additional checkpoints meant I never lost an excessive amount of progress on death.

Graphics - 8/10

I forgot just how good this game looks, especially for a 2012 title that I originally played on PS3. The environments and backgrounds are just vivid and beautiful. The models are a little less noteworthy, but they don't necessarily look bad. Especially when several areas have crowds of people all meandering around, it's easy to miss the forest for the trees. If you single out one guy standing at a food stall, sure, he's a little blocky and stiff. The whole area, though, with a huge count of NPCs? Watching 47 shoulder through the crowd effortlessly does look very good.

Music - 5/10

The music was fine. It's implemented more like a movie score, which is to say tension is ramped up by the tracks that play when you've alerted guards. They leverage it well, but I'm not going out of my way to listen to the soundtrack when I'm not playing the game. In fact, if I heard the soundtrack outside of the context of the game, I probably wouldn't be able to identify where it came from.

Performance

The game ran at a solid 60 fps constantly, even with explosions and tons of models on screen. I can't say how high it COULD have gone if my display wasn't limited to 60 fps, but it looked good and it ran smooth. Especially given the age of the game, it isn't exactly surprising, but I was pleased with the performance.

My Take

The Good

The graphics look good, and the core gameplay elements from previous Hitman games are still here and still play well.

The Bad

The story feels way too forced, and the extended missions often left me just wanting to be finished with them already.

The Ugly

The launcher menu requires touch to actually start the game, which felt clunky and inappropriate on the Steam Deck.

Overall - 5/10

Hitman: Absolution takes an established formula and attempts to make it more cinematic. I get what IO was going for, and a lot of people do like it, but I think it was a big step down from Hitman: Contracts and Hitman: Blood Money. I haven't played World of Assassination to know how it compares, but Absolution made a direction decision that I don't love and it isn't one I plan on replaying again any time soon.