Hitman 2 (2018 video game)

In addition to the single-player campaign, the game features several gameplay modes. Escalations are missions that include multiple stages. After completing each stage, the player will unlock the next stage which will increase the difficulty by adding additional targets or requirements (such as specific disguises or kill methods). Elusive targets are time-limited assassination missions that can only be attempted once. Contracts mode allows players to assign assassination targets, set requirements for their killings, and share their contracts with other players.[12]

Hitman 2 introduces two new game modes. In Sniper Assassin mode, players are tasked with eliminating targets from afar using a sniper rifle within 15 minutes. As in the main campaign, the NPC will react to the player's actions and each map has numerous assassination opportunities. This mode can be played solo or with other players, who will assume control of either Stone or Knight, characters who are equipped with concussive shockwave rounds and wall-piercing ammunition, respectively.[19][20] Ghost Mode is a competitive, multiplayer mode in which two players must race against each other to eliminate assassination targets. Players start in the same location with no equipment.[21] The two players cannot directly interact with each other but can see the other player's avatar and will be notified when the other performs certain actions. They also share a target and ghost crates that contain disguises and weapons the players can use. The players who last discovers the crates may be left with inferior gadgets. If a player eliminates the target, the other player will have 20 seconds to eliminate their target in their world. Successful elimination of a target scores one point; the player who receives five points wins the game. Players lose one point if they kill a non-target character.[22]

As 47 and Grey begin their search for the Partners, Diana tells them Hall found recent obituaries for all three Partners, leaving the group to conclude the Partners faked their deaths and plan to resume their lives under new identities. The Constant, seemingly unaware of this contingency plan, tells 47 and Grey to follow their bank accounts, which lead them to a New York City bank branch. 47 infiltrates the bank to retrieve data files, as well as kill its director and Providence operative Athena Savalas to prevent the Partners from discovering the data breach.

With the data acquired from the bank, Hall discovers the Partners paid large fees to HAVEN, a Maldives-based corporation that secretly creates new identities for wealthy criminals. To allow Hall to breach HAVEN's servers, 47 poses as a client to infiltrate the corporation's island resort and eliminate HAVEN's co-owners Ljudmila Vetrova, Steven Bradley, and Tyson Williams to prevent them from resetting access to the servers at 10-hour intervals. Hall gains access to HAVEN's files on the Partners and discovers the controlling shares that comprise the backbone of Providence have not been allocated to the Partners' new identities but rather to the Constant under the alias Arthur Edwards. Diana rushes to check on the Constant but finds he has escaped. Hall obtains the locations of the Partners and informs 47 and Grey, who prepare to hunt them down, leading into the events of Hitman 3.

Hitman 2 was developed by Danish video game studio IO Interactive. The game's predecessor, which had an episodic release, received critical acclaim but missed the sales expectations of franchise and studio owner Square Enix. The team began developing a sequel that would incorporate online modes and more gameplay features while experimenting with new gameplay mechanisms. While preparing for game's production, in May 2017, Square Enix announced it had sold IO Interactive to concentrate resources on other studios.[23] While Square Enix negotiated with potential buyers of the studio, IO Interactive became independent following a management buyout.[24] The management of the IO Interactive, which had about 200 employees, had to lay off 40% of the workforce due to limited cash flow. Hitman 2's development was about 25% completed.[25]

After the buyout, IO Interactive owned the intellectual property (IP) of Hitman and decided to make the first episode free-to-play. The number of players nearly tripled and a significant portion of them bought the full game, ensuring a steady revenue for the studio. Due to limited manpower, the team had to limit the scale of the sequel and many planned features were cut. Development of Hitman 2 progressed quickly due to the foundation of Hitman (2016), which was originally designed as a platform known as World of Assassination to allow the developer to add content. The late success of Hitman helped IO Interactive show there was a demand for this type of game, and the studio secured additional funding for the game's production.[25] Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment signed to publish the sequel after partnering with IO Interactive on the Definitive Edition of Hitman.[26] The game was declared went gold on 27 September 2018.[27]

The studio initially planned to include five massive maps in the game but decided to include six maps, some of which are smaller in scale.[25] As the game was no longer episodic in structure, the team wanted the maps in the game to be more "consistent" in quality.[28] The game's locations were chosen early in the game's development; each level was assigned to a "track team" that would be responsible for its level design, targets, and opportunities. As with the original Hitman, there are two types of levels in this game; "fortresses"—areas the player must infiltrate—and "snailhouses", levels with a circular design in which players are encouraged to explore the peripheral areas.[29][30] The team visited the Maldives and Mumbai to ensure the locations in the game were authentic. According to the team, they did not intend to create an accurate version of these locations but wanted to "evoke the smells, tastes, and sounds of these places".[31] One of the design principles was to ensure each map would have spaces players could familiarize themselves with while providing an element of surprise by showing operations that are typically conducted in secret. For instance, players can disguise themselves to enter areas of a bank that are off-limits to the public. IO experimented with the two established designs. For instance, player must identify an unknown civilian as the assassination target and eliminate them in a public area in Mumbai. Track teams needed to decide on the items featured in each level. Items and outfits generally are categorized as specific items used for mission stories, and items that were designed to fit each map's aesthetic.[32] Hitman 2 added regional accents to many of its maps, such as the Mumbai and Colombia levels.[33]

While Hitman served as an introductory chapter to the World of Assassination series, Hitman 2's story has a more prominent role and a more structured narrative.[25] Hitman was described as a "white collar new money" crime thriller whereas Hitman 2 focuses on eccentric characters and "old money", which were inspired by secret societies. Much of the storytelling occurs within a level and during gameplay, and cutscenes mainly serve to tie together story threads.[34] The abandonment of the episodic release model allowed IO Interactive to present a more cohesive story because players often forgot about narrative elements while they were playing Hitman due to its sparse release schedule. Like the first game, Agent 47 is a blank-state character and the story is mostly driven by his handler Diana Burnwood and Lucas Grey, both of whom have their own emotions, motivations and goals. Their presence allows Agent 47 to gradually develop as a character and foster change.[35] The main story was written to motivate players to eliminate the targets.[36] Mission stories in Hitman 2 were designed to encourage players to try out new gameplay features, tools, and costumes, while providing additional story content.[37] Developers were careful to ensure the game was hitting the right tone, recasting a more mature-sounding actor for Alma Reynard (the target from the opening New Zealand mission) and giving her a new outfit after the original take was "too young-sounding" in order to avoid the game becoming "too creepy or sexually predatory".[38]

The game includes extensive dark humour; early promotion of the game showed Agent 47 whacking NPCs with a fish.[39] According to Markus Friedl, the game's executive producer, "this little bit of tongue-in-cheek humor [is] very much part of the Hitman DNA".[37] David Bateson, who provides the voice of Agent 47, initially thought some of the dialogue was absurd but grew to appreciate it after understanding how mission stories work. According to Bateson, while Agent 47 is an expert at disguising himself, he is a terrible actor. He was instructed not to change his accent when disguised as other personalities and he delivered his lines in a "delightfully wooden way".[40]

Hitman 2 received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[60][61][59] Reviewers agreed the game does not significantly deviate from its predecessor's formula but they enjoyed the general gameplay loop and its improvements.[70][64][71] Some gaming journalists said the episodic model of Hitman helped players thoroughly explore each level and were disappointed IO Interactive abandoned this release strategy for Hitman 2.[72][73]

Hitman 2's design received critical praise. Phil Savage from PC Gamer strongly praised five of the game's six maps, and described them as "large" and "intricate". He added the quality of the maps is more consistent than those of the first game. He said, however, Hitman 2 did not extensively experiment with the formula and that the game simply "riffs on familiar design principles".[67] Writing for GameSpot, Edmon Tran described the maps as "overwhelming in the best way possible" and singled out Mumbai as one of the game's standout maps.[6] Many reviewers praised the diversity of the maps, each of which is set in visually unique locations with their own characters and routes.[69][63] Caty McCarthy from USgamer praised IO for perfecting the formula established in its predecessor and said all levels reached the quality of Sapienza, which is widely recognized as Hitman's best map.[68] Destructoid's Chris Carter agreed, and said "Hitman 2 is a colossal collection of puzzles begging to be solved through multiple playthroughs".[62] The Legacy content received praise for introducing gameplay adjustments to older Hitman levels.[68][64]

The gameplay received generally positive reviews. Several reviewers said the game offers players too much guidance, making exploration and discovery of creative assassinations less organic.[63][67] Savage liked the gameplay enhancements but said familiar problems of the franchise had not been solved.[67] Tran enjoyed the core gameplay loop of slowly discovering a location and its stories. While the gameplay is built on trial and error, he said the game becomes more exciting when the players' plan fails, forcing them to improvise.[6] IGN's Ryan McCaffery praised the developers for allowing players to freely approach their objectives and liked the mission stories for presenting memorable and unique gameplay moments, and making successful assassinations a satisfying gameplay experience.[66] McCarthy praised the dialogue of the mission stories, describing it as "sharper and funnier", and adding the script "adds to the silly fun of the Hitman universe".[68] Many reviewers agreed players can only understand the intricacies of the game's system and the availability of the options presented to them by replaying it.[66][74][64] Minor gameplay adjustments IO Interactive added to the game were also appreciated.[6][66][65]

Ghost mode had a divided reception; some reviewers said its design does not well complement the slow, methodical gameplay of the single-player campaign.[65][66][63] Some reviewers, however, said it is a fun, satisfying experience.[74][64] Some reviewers expressed disappointment Sniper Assassin had only one map at launch.[64][63]

The game's story received mixed reviews. McCaffery was disappointed by the overarching story; he called it "absurdly dumb" and poorly presented, and said the game's attempt at exploring Agent 47's backstory is as bad as that of the 2007 Hitman film.[66] Brad Shoemaker, writing for Giant Bomb, found the main story surprisingly engaging; he described it as a "taut international cat-and-mouse thriller", and appreciated the story for raising the stakes and resolving the mysteries of the first game. He agreed, however, the game does not have the production quality of Hitman, which is evidenced by the lack of CGI cutscenes.[65] In Hitman 2, cinematic cut-scenes are replaced with static images and voice-overs.[75] Writing for Game Informer, Jeff Marchiafava said the storyboard sequences are "cheap and disappointing", especially since the first game has lavishly produced videos and in-engine graphics.[63]

Hitman 2 debuted at tenth place in the UK's all-format sales charts.[76] It was released in a competitive week that also saw the launches of Pokémon: Let's Go, Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Fallout 76.[77] In Japan, the PlayStation 4 version sold 10,162 copies in its debut week, making it the week's fifth-best-selling retail game in the country.[78] IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak said releasing the game so close to other blockbuster titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2 negatively impacted the game's sales.[79] Hitman 2, however, recouped its development cost more quickly than Hitman had.[80]

Hitman 2 was nominated for Game of the Year during the 2018 Steam Awards.[81] It was voted the best stealth game of the year at the 2018 Global Game Awards.[82] The game was also nominated for "Game, Franchise Adventure" and "Control Design, 3D" at the NAVGTR Awards.[83] David Bateson was nominated for "Outstanding Video Game Character, Best Voiceover" for his performance as Agent 47 in Hitman 2 at the 2019 Society of Voice Arts And Sciences Awards.[84]