Hitman 3 preview for the game: Dubai, Dartmoor levels are a great start

Through two of the six missions in Hitman 3, the game already brings IO Interactive’s World of Assassination trilogy to incredible new heights. I do not mean just in terms of the beautiful venues that Agent 47 invades or the extra toys and tactics at his disposal. Perhaps the most surprising element of Hitman 3 so far is how well IO Interactive has developed the story and characters of the series – whether it’s 47 and his teammates, or the targets they hunt.

Now I want to note that the vast majority of Hitman players do not come to the franchise for telling it. It is clear that IO Interactive has tried to summarize some narrative elements here and there over time. Hitman 3‘s predecessors, 2016s Hitman and 2018s Hitman 2. But it was only halfway through the second game – after a major revelation around the past of 47 – that this whirlpool of a global conspiracy story came into focus.

The triumphant end of Hitman 2, in which 47 and his team managed to capture the leader of the shady global cabal known as Providence, also dug up a ticking time bomb or two. And about a third of the way Hitman 3, the story took some explosive turns. I will not spoil them here, of course, but I will say that at the end of the second mission I felt really invested in the story. So far, the narrative elements of this Hitman trilogy have mostly seemed like an excuse to tie the meat of the series together: its expansive levels and their clockwork machinery, and the strategic prank underlying everything. But at this point, the shit hit the fan, and I’m all-in.

In a nice nod to the episodic nature of Hitman (2016), the campaign of Hitman 3 contains a video that was previously going on to keep you informed of the events of the last two games. As the third begins, Agent 47 and his groups begin – his ICA handler, Diana Burnwood; his long-lost childhood friend (and fellow student in the art of murder), Lucas Gray; and Grey’s hacker associate Olivia Hall are hot on the trail of the three Providence Partners to wipe out the organization by chopping off the snake’s head.

Hitman 3‘s opening mission ‘On Top of the World’ begins with Gray and 47 jumping from a plane high over Dubai. They aim for the Burj Al-Ghazali, or the Scepter, which according to the game’s fiction is the tallest building in the world. (The scene in question is scrapped from a series in Paris in the latest Mission: Impossible movie, and while not as heartbreaking here, it’s still a breathtaking introduction by Hitman.) The parachutists are almost shredded by a helicopter rising from the skyscraper – that of Alexa Carlisle, one of the three Partners. This leaves the other two, Carl Ingram and Marcus Stuyvesant, as the targets of the mission.

The Hitman trilogy was characterized by missions in vast places, such as the city of Sapienza in Amalfi Hitman and the streets of Mumbai in Hitman 2. The first two cards in Hitman 3 – the Scepter in Dubai and Thornbridge Manor in Dartmoor, England – are more compact experiences, with only three ‘mission stories’ (guided assassination attempts) baked into each, though the locations are no less complicated.

Image: IO Interactive

The bait level designers at IO Interactive have some new tricks up their sleeve this time around, especially a shortcut feature. On your first pass of a place, you may come across ladders and doors with yellow metal locks that cannot be selected, which reminded me of a trunk placed on an illegally parked car. Instead, find out how you can reach it from the other side (ie the top of the ladder or the opposite side of the door), where you can break the lock.

These shortcuts are designed to encourage the repetition of a level; once unlocked, it remains available for future play. Veteran Hitman players are used to returning to places in an effort to increase their master level Hitman 3, they will be able to use the persistent shortcuts to shave precious minutes off their completion times. I also appreciate them just because they encouraged me to explore every nook and cranny of the levels, even though that’s the kind of player I’m already.

Dubai, at the start, introduces a new feature that is new to Hitman 3: Agent 47 now has a high-tech camera. You can use it to take photos, but while it is possible to apply some filters to the images, the feature does not really qualify as a photo mode (hence IO Interactive does not charge it that way). Instead, it is used for certain challenges, such as one in Dartmoor asking you to take a photo of two people flirting with each other and to scan. In Dubai you can look for some closed windows to open it; in Dartmoor, where a murder mystery takes place, you can scan clues a la … well, lots of games.

As an assassin, 47 must remain hidden; as such, many Hitman levels offer him the opportunity to go behind the scenes of some kind of event secret. Dubai is no different: while 47 arrive at the Scepter, Sheikh Omar al-Ghazali stops the reception of the building. An art installation behind the stage is full of narrow corridors, multi-level scaffolding with walkways and stairs, and very large suitcases that are ideal for storing equipment or bowls. And once you get a disguise for a guard, waiter or maintenance worker, you can freely explore the many floors of the building. But there’s a neat twist: because 47 parachutes without the usual equipment and equipment fall into the Scepter, you do not have access to the map in the game until you walk to an information kiosk and download the floor plan of the building.

As on many Hitman levels, Dubai’s targets mostly hang in their own areas; Stuyvesant wanders around the reception, while Ingram is locked in the master suite on the roof level. Part of the fun, of course, is figuring out the monkey wrench (s) that can throw 47 in the proceedings to get his targets crossed. This stage offers an ingenious double assassination that could end up being one of my favorites in the franchise. I’ll just say that it involves parachuting, and that the interconnected layout of the public and only staff areas of the Scepter makes it a lot of fun to pull off, regardless of whether you use one of the above highways.

[Ed. note: If you’re unconcerned with spoiling yourself and you’d like to watch the skydiving assassination in question, scroll up and check out the 12-minute gameplay video near the top of this article.]

The end period for ‘On Top of the World’ is where 47 and Grey’s quest begins to go south. The Constant, the leader of the Providence, escaped Diana’s supervision – and it seems that he orchestrated everything throughout! (Like I said, this is a spy story with more twists and turns than a Twizzler.) Alexa Carlisle, the third partner, fled the scepter because she found out all her billions had disappeared. And she’s the target of ‘Death in the Family’, the second mission of Hitman 3.

Image: IO Interactive

The mission is based in the English country house Thornbridge Manor, the Carlisle estate. IO Interactive did not want the media to reveal any plot details about the mission or details regarding its murder mystery. So I will just say that this is a brilliant, captivating blend of an Agatha Christie-inspired adventure with the traditional Hitman formula.

There is the expected dose of family fights and intrigue, plus a family history element that gives a tragic air to the proceedings. The mansion, of course, has its role, with secrets reminiscent of board games Clues and a fun nod for Knives out. And the way the case unfolds – if you prefer to play Sherlock, rather than just meeting the mission terms – is integrated into Hitman’s existing “intel” system. If you come across clues, it will appear in your intel menu. As you uncover more of them and get closer to the case, the descriptions of the articles will expand with information obtained by merging two by two, as if 47 fills in the details in his detective’s notebook. (If you’re not a big fan of it yourself, Diana’s voice-over makes the connections useful.)

And if you manage to find every clue … boy, there is an overwhelming end waiting for you if you report to the private investigator’s client? It involves the first dialogue choice of its kind I can think of in Hitman, and it stopped me in my tracks – which is impressive, since 47 is a cold-blooded killer with no human emotions. I’m very interested to see where Hitman 3‘s story goes from here.

Hitman 3 will be released on January 20 on Google Stages, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X. cloud-based Nintendo Switch version does not yet have a release date.

Schedule version