Hitman: Hitting Men

Berlin is an absolutely top-tier Hitman level. And you get a completely different experience depending on whether you choose the default starting location or any of the others.

I'm gonna have to get Hitman 3 by the 8th of March to get a crack at that Elusive Target.

With Mastery 20 and an SASO run completed in Santa Fortuna, I've moved into Mumbai – so my Series X game has finally caught up with where I got to on PS4.

A quick, aimless jog around before getting summarily executed by guards in the tower has underlined the usefulness of Mission Stories as a learning tool. I think I managed to complete Mumbai once or twice before, but I couldn't remember anything about the level.

Well… Had a go on Chonquig & attempted suit only/silent but got stuck in what would be the final 3rd. Completed the level but, as with Dartmoor, I probably picked one of the least interesting assassination methods for the first run. A pal popped on Discord so both started streaming - he's playing Darksiders - put on Berlin to show that off and ended up playing long after he logged off.
The main reason for not going to bed was accidentally figuring out how to subdue most of the targets at once (and seeing that touched up painting of Christ into the bargain) to have time to take out the rest without them clearing out of the map. What a lot of fun this murder simulator is!
Hit mastery 13 which seems to be where 2-3 runs at a level leaves me and… I'm happy with that. Can see H3 getting finished fairly soon at this rate with an eye on then playing from the start again.
Don't know if it's coming off the back of H2 and being in the right frame of mind for this bit H3 is one of my favourite gaming experiences. I've really enjoyed all the levels so far (eventually), I don't think there's been a clunker yet.
Also realised this evening that "the classics" challenge includes Suit Only which I only just understood doesn't necessarily mean being stealthy.

The main reason for not going to bed was accidentally figuring out how to subdue most of the targets at once (and seeing that touched up painting of Christ into the bargain) to have time to take out the rest without them clearing out of the map. What a lot of fun this murder simulator is!

Ohhhhh. I think I know what you mean. I hadn't even considered trying to take them ALL out (there's no challenge for that, maybe slightly surprisingly) but now you've given me Ideas.

I also played Chongqing for the first time last night. That is a spectacularly beautiful level. With all the rain and neon, if you'd told me it was using ray tracing I'd have believed it, no question. Strong Deus Ex vibes throughout. Made an absolute hash of my first run through, though:

Spoiler - click to showFollowed the obvious mission story (somewhat messily) right to the end for the test subject setpiece, then completely failed to work out how to actually kill the guy as part of the experiment and ended up just popping him in the head, vaulting over a balcony and pegging it into the night. Had to finish for the night while infiltrating the facility so I don't actually know if the second target is there or whether I'm accidentally doing the third part of the level before the second.

Hitman 3 has been great, no doubt about that, I can't quite shake the feeling that the scope of it all is slightly smaller than before though. There definitely seem to be fewer challenges and opportunities than in previous games and the fact you have to do almost all of them to hit Mastery 20 seems to back that up. But then again it's more story-driven than before so maybe they want to propel players through the game with more urgency; or maybe I've played enough Hitman levels now that I'm just working things out more quickly. I'm not complaining.

The main reason for not going to bed was accidentally figuring out how to subdue most of the targets at once (and seeing that touched up painting of Christ into the bargain) to have time to take out the rest without them clearing out of the map. What a lot of fun this murder simulator is!

Ohhhhh. I think I know what you mean. I hadn't even considered trying to take them ALL out (there's no challenge for that, maybe slightly surprisingly) but now you've given me Ideas.

I think there is, maybe even two. One's called cleaning house and there's one for taking them all out when they're fleeing the level. I think I got both because I'd pacified a bunch of them so when their handler tells them to get out I just went back and killed them.

The Chongqing path I followed was the drones from the laundry. It's really… Fine, just fine but got it out if the way.

Just checked - clean house just triggers when you've taken them all down at least once regardless of the number of times you've played the level.

Cleaning House is

Spoiler - click to showfor killing them all, individually, but not all in one go: I got it over the course of two or three runs. You just have to take out each of them at least once.

Good point about the "fleeing the level" one though, I was wondering how to get that one!

Interesting comment about the Chongqing mission story - it feels very much like the levels in Hitman 3 have one "main" mission story that it points you clearly towards first time through, and it can feel a bit unsatisfying picking up one of the others by mistake. If you ended up doing the graveyard first time through in Dartmoor, for instance, you'd definitely wonder what all the fuss was about.

Finally, that's Dartmoor Mastery 20. Not helped by a bugged challenge, but there are some really cool little conversations and things you can set up, and by the end of it, I almost once my way round the house!

Tomorrow, Berlin.

Played the last two missions this evening. Managed a suit only silent assassin for my first run at Mendoza (not quickly mind) and then, thanks largely to the narrative beats that come into play, went straight to the final level. The only time I've been glad IO abandoned the episodic release of H1. The last mission is a wonderful bookend to the series.

Still have yet to attempt Berlin, but I realised I'm not just holding myself to 20 Mastery before moving on - I'm also making sure I get at least The Classics and Versatile Assassin, into the bargain. I spent a good 40 minutes on Dartmoor after the trophy dropped, following the old bag around until I found something she drank from so I could drop an emetic in it.

I’m genuinely looking forward to your impressions of Berlin. The more I play it, the more I think it might be the single best level of the entire trilogy. (Haven’t played the last two yet, mind).

I tend to just go for the emetic syringe when I know they’re in the vicinity of a toilet. It’s usually fine until the old bat decides to hack up in a bin or an umbrella stand or something.

The problem with the syringe is getting spotted - in 2016, at least, it was a very unsubtle thing to do. Nowadays, I prefer the dart gun.

I tend to just go for the emetic syringe when I know they’re in the vicinity of a toilet. It’s usually fine until the old bat decides to hack up in a bin or an umbrella stand or something.

This is how you choose to entertain yourselves.

One of the advantages of Covid-19 is that I haven’t seen my in-laws in nearly a year. But I need to remain prepared.

Berlin run 1 complete. I'm… not sure on it. The concept is amazing, but I was able to complete the mission without even going into the club. I did explore for a bit after, though, and from the Challenges it looks like there's a ton to find. Mastery is only at 4 so far.

It took me a couple of runs. Specifically it’s very different if you pick a different starting point. I absolutely love it now though.

A little less keen on Chongqing:

Spoiler - click to showThe city streets look incredible, but the level itself is basically one big tower block and one big data facility: it's a map of two halves, with the two targets doing little loops within each. There's one mission story that brings them both together but otherwise it's like two small levels crammed together into one. Not the most inspiring design they've done. It reminds me most of all of Marrakesh from Hitman 1.

Worth noting though that again they've done what they did in Berlin, and changed things up after the initial run:

Spoiler - click to showThe first run through has an elaborate but highly scripted coda involving you hacking a data core and staging an escape; it's completely optional in subsequent runs.

Which is probably what they should have done with Sapienza's virus all along… I guess mission design evolves (for the better) over time.

It reminds me most of all of Marrakesh from Hitman 1.

I really liked Marrakesh…

Neither of them are bad levels - but there are better, more cohesive designs across the three games, I feel.

I'm still lagging behind, but another couple of runs at Berlin this evening. Mildly disappointed that Spoiler - click to showit revealed everyone right away,but I'll manage.

Had a repeated game crash every time I tried to take out Lowenthal as target #5, which meant I had to reload a save some time prior and take him out earlier in the run (he was the last one I needed for Cleaning House).

A decent few challenges ticked off - though I'm still a ways off Silent Assassin, never mind SASO.

I think on balance a better approach for Berlin might have been

Spoiler - click to showfor the game to only reveal those targets you'd killed in previous playthroughs - which would have led to a tense game of cat and mouse as you tried to track down the last couple

but I do love the way the current approach completely turns the tables and you go from hunted to, well, Apex Predator in the space of a single run. If you want the original experience you can get it by choosing the Gas Station as the starting location.

Going to move on to Argentina tonight I think, got Silent Assassin in Chongqing last night and I've had my fill of that level for now. When I'm done with the last two levels of Hitman 3 I think I'm going to do a story runthrough of the whole trilogy - one completion of each level in sequence - just to see if all these cutscenes actually make sense.

Crawling along behind everybody else, I'm still chipping away at Mumbai – got my cleanest run yet last night, with a bit of save-scumming to get all of the non-accident Versatile Assassin executions on Vanya Shah and to grab a couple of Maelstrom and Rangan options; I've also done all of the Mission Stories. Next up is an attempt at Silent Assassin, which I haven't come close to yet (bodies found, mostly) but I think I might be able to get Suit Only as well if I can figure out a couple things.

When I'm done with the last two levels of Hitman 3 I think I'm going to do a story runthrough of the whole trilogy - one completion of each level in sequence - just to see if all these cutscenes actually make sense.

My memory is that they mostly kinda do? Videogame-logic sense, at least…

Berlin run 1 complete. I'm… not sure on it. The concept is amazing, but I was able to complete the mission without even going into the club. I did explore for a bit after, though, and from the Challenges it looks like there's a ton to find. Mastery is only at 4 so far.

Didn't realise you could preserve the hidden state of the assassins as Gar points out above. Probably worth doing if you've not seen those inside the club. For my first run I had no idea there was another location beside the club!

So, server troubles aside, it seems to have been a very successful launch - IOI just announced that they made back the development budget in a week. I don't doubt working with an established formula on an already-known engine contributed to lower dev costs, but it still must have sold a fair few copies.

SASO Berlin in the bag. Took nearly half an hour, but I didn't reload a single save, so I'm quite happy with that. Having so many targets to choose from provides a certain flexibility of approach, too. A hair's width from 20 on Mastery, so I think if I can get Sniper done, that'll do it, and I'll be able to call Berlin finished.

I got an SASO on Mumbai this evening, to bring it to 20, and to celebrate took a quick jog around Whittleton Creek – which has such a chill vibe after the bustle of the slums.

Had an absolute nightmare with this last night. Just constant server disconnections (sometimes several in a minute) and various other bugs, including leaving the "reconnecting" box on the screen, obscuring all the action, and failing to load various menus. At one point it got stuck in a loading loop so I had to restart it, whereupon it decided I no longer had access to any of my content.

I'm no software developer but I struggle to understand how this game can be THIS buggy when it's essentially the exact same backend they've been running for the last five years. And it's been left essentially untouched for a month after release. You think they'd have rushed out some sort of fix for the server disconnections, at least.

Anyway, I digress. First run of Mendoza down, not going to comment on it yet as there's a lot going on there and I don't think I've got to grips with much of it at all. And I wasn't exactly experiencing it in ideal conditions. Found some more inavertently hilarious bugs though:

(minor mission story spoilers)

Spoiler - click to showOne of the mission stories is triggered when you overhear a phone call to one of the targets, setting up an opportunity to kill the other target. When I heard this call, I'd just killed the first target. I stood there listening to a conversation with a dead man, in full view of his corpse.

(slightly more detailed mission story spoilers)

Spoiler - click to showYou can dress up as the winemaker to give one of the targets a guided tour of the production plant. So I disguised myself as this natty dude complete with beret and false moustache; unfortunately I didn't hide the unconscious body well enough so at some point the semi-naked winemaker was found, ran off, somehow found himself a new suit of clothes and came back and joined my tour, as my doppleganger.

In general the level felt quite unpolished and glitchy compared to the earlier levels, I wonder if this is a case of "late game lack of polish" or just glitches being triggered by my other technical issues.

Think I might just push on with the final level now to get it done, I want to see how the story ends now and get it out of the way so I can get back to my freeform murder simulator.

You think they'd have rushed out some sort of fix for the server disconnections, at least.

These aren't necessarily as straightforward as they appear – capacity issues seem like a prime candidate, and dynamically-scaling instance clusters should be the norm for any kind of service like this where demand fluctuates, but it could also be a bottleneck somewhere less obvious. Back at YoYo, our site was demolished by traffic related to a Humble Bundle, but the webservers themselves weren't the problem – it took a day or two to figure out that it was a part of the database replication that was choking out, and come up with a solution that wouldn't completely take us offline for days while we upgraded everything. And a website is, I assume, significantly less complicated than the kind of backend you need to run a service like Hitman's.

It's probably running on some kind of microservice architecture, so the problem might be in the authentication/login layer while the progression service is rock solid (or vice versa), and upgrading one without affecting the other(s) could be tricky.

I also wouldn't assume that it's "essentially the exact same backend they've been running for the last five years" either – and if it was, that could also be a contributing factor to its unsteadiness.

All of this could have been compensated for with architecture decisions, of course, so IO aren't off the hook, but it's not always as simple as "throw more servers at it". Especially if you want to stay cost-effective long-term; our Humble trouble was short-lived so we could afford to bulk up for a limited time, but IO are probably planning for whatever they implement to stick around for a couple years at least.

I went back and did the ICA Facility last night, the difference in picture quality between the old levels and the new levels is heartbreaking. All the Hitman 3 levels look like they've got the gamma turned up too high, there's a kind of grey film over them that really harms the look of the game. It's particularly noticeable in HDR but you get it in SDR too, there's just a different look to the new levels. I really can't believe that can have been an artistic decision, but then again I can't believe it was a bug that somehow wasn't spotted. Even YouTube playthroughs make it really apparent. Really hoping for a fix that at least makes the game look consistent, the Hitman 1 and 2 levels still look absolutely perfect.

Winding back to this, I played this morning briefly to get a quick achievement and noticed exactly this. However, it wasn't there before when I was playing previously. The big difference is that since then and now, I've:

• swapped over my inputs and now have the Series X running through HDMI 1 on my TV, which is supposed to be the 'best' one for 4K content
• followed all the steps on the Xbox for configuring my TV to show the best possible image (when I swapped the cable over originally, everything was super blown out for brightness and really green)

The thing is, I think it's the game rather than the Xbox. You can notice the difference immediately just between the home menu and the title screen - the game icon on the home menu has the logo in blood red, while the title screen has it in a weird off-colour orange. The grey film is immediately noticeable on the main menu of the game too, everything looks washed out. It's very, very odd and not attractive at all.

For reference, I was finishing the escalation on the freeform training level so it's not just the new levels…

Hmmm, I thought the ICA Facility looked fine when I played it but I haven't gone back and tried the other levels from Hitman 1 and 2. The Hitman 3 levels suffer from it to varying degrees but Dubai, Dartmoor and Mendoza look particularly bad IMHO.

It's definitely the game rather than the Xbox though. Hitman 2 on exactly the same setup looked perfect. And I was playing The Medium a bit yesterday and the HDR in that is superb, really great contrast and a million miles away from Hitman's washed out appearance.

You can compensate for it a bit by making sure you've done the HDR adjustment in the graphics menu correctly (it looks worse if you've got it too high) and you can also lower the gamma a bit, which helps. But I do genuinely think this needs some sort of fix. Not as much as the server issues, but still.

You can compensate for it a bit by making sure you've done the HDR adjustment in the graphics menu correctly (it looks worse if you've got it too high) and you can also lower the gamma a bit, which helps. But I do genuinely think this needs some sort of fix. Not as much as the server issues, but still.

This kind of helped - I pushed the HDR up and the gamma as low as it'll go, and now the orange logo/menu marker is more red. The grey wash has definitely reduced, although now everything is very dark and it's hard to see sometimes. I guess it being daytime and the sun being out fully doesn't help.

Hey ho. I'll give it a go and hope for some better graphical settings in whatever update comes next.

It's doing it for me on base PS4, so it's definitely something in the engine.

Can't stop thinking about Sniper Assassin on Berlin. I think I have an approach worked out - or at least, I've decided which targets I think are the best candidates.

Apart from the odd disconnection I've not had any issues with the game (except some invisible washing machines in but that's common apparently).

Re: last mission in H3. I've read a couple of things that do it down but read a more interesting take today which - while still doing it down - inferred that it gave even more hope for the Bond licence. Not a spoiler really but tagged anyway:

Spoiler - click to show One of the pieces was a list ranking the levels and… I'll need to let it sit with me but I think the last mission ranks pretty highly for me. Certainly not 2nd from the bottom.

Can't stop thinking about Sniper Assassin on Berlin. I think I have an approach worked out - or at least, I've decided which targets I think are the best candidates.

You can get three from the radio tower without any difficulty at all.

Spoiler - click to showThe sniper, the guy who walks around under the crane, and the guy who leans on the balcony as you look towards where the sniper is - all very clear shots. You need to vacate the area pretty quick but it's doable and there's plenty of foliage.

As for the other three, I've got no idea really, but I reckon you could use

Spoiler - click to showthe Juice bar opportunity to get the guy who walks around there to go to the very secluded portaloo area

and then one other?

Spoiler - click to showThe guy who walks around the biker area can be isolated reasonably easily, so you could jab him with an emetic and off him in the bogs maybe. Or deliver the pizza and poison that.

Those last two would have to be point-blank range with the sniper rifle though so depends on how elegant you're planning to be.

Berlin Sniper: you only need five, soSpoiler - click to showthe three from the tower, for sure; I reckon the guy leaning on the railing over the dance floor would be a fairly straight shot, too; and then the guy who comes into the security room on the bottom floor, who can be distracted into a side room fairly easily.Thankfully, there's no disguise requirement for Sniper, so if I can get Spoiler - click to showbiker gear that'll be fairly straightforward, I think?

That certainly seems to be the super outfit for Berlin. You can even wander around freely in that disguise with a shotgun strapped to your back - no idea if the same applies to the sniper rifle though.

Weirdly, it seems to depend on the sniper rifle? I was able to meander around in Dubai with the Sieger 300 Ghost just fine as Penthouse Security, but one of the others (which I took because it had Piercing) was an illegal item.

And that's run #1 on Chongqing. It's a jarring shift going from from Berlin to a much more traditional Hitman level. Still, I completed a couple of interesting little challenges, though unfortunately killed both targets in accidents; oh, well. More variety next time.

Speaking of which, I'm seriously hoping thatSpoiler - click to showthe escape at the endisn't a requirement on subsequent runs, because that was just… not fun.

You can compensate for it a bit by making sure you've done the HDR adjustment in the graphics menu correctly (it looks worse if you've got it too high) and you can also lower the gamma a bit, which helps. But I do genuinely think this needs some sort of fix. Not as much as the server issues, but still.

This kind of helped - I pushed the HDR up and the gamma as low as it'll go, and now the orange logo/menu marker is more red. The grey wash has definitely reduced, although now everything is very dark and it's hard to see sometimes. I guess it being daytime and the sun being out fully doesn't help.

Hey ho. I'll give it a go and hope for some better graphical settings in whatever update comes next.

An update to the update: after a session of Sea of Thieves last night where the sky had a permanent green glare to it and everything that glows brightly was massively overblown, the verdict is a resounding 'Fuck this'. The problems only arose after swapping the HDMI ports on my TV and since HDMI 2 also supports 4K, I figured I'd just put things back the way they were.

And it worked. Trying H3 this morning, the washed out sheen of grey is totally gone, the title logo is back to being a deep blood red and everything looks great. I have no idea why the 'better' port fucked everything up, but there you go. Problem solved, at least in my case.

Gar: worth trying something similar, just in case?

Nah, it's not that - I'm very well aware of how my TV looks in HDR, I've been using it for years for games and movies and I'm sure Hitman is just busted. Not terribly so, just in need of a fix.

What's your TV? Have you managed to move the Xbox to a channel that doesn't support HDR maybe? What happens when you do the "TV details" section now in the Xbox settings that tells you what your TV does and does not support?

First run done in Whittleton Creek. Thanks to a necessary reload, I managed to get poison, straight shot and accident kills, so the next run will be a garotte and drowning effort.

I think I've got a potential SASO approach for Janus already, but the other guy is going to need more observation.

Have you managed to move the Xbox to a channel that doesn't support HDR maybe? What happens when you do the "TV details" section now in the Xbox settings that tells you what your TV does and does not support?

You're 100% right - HDMI 2 supports 4K, but not HDR it seems.

Based on the immediately visible results, I'm 100% okay with that.

Fair enough - what TV is it? Some "support" HDR but don't do a great job of it.

If it supports it well enough then it's probably just that you need to tweak the settings for that input, and you should in theory be able to get a much better picture on HDR than on SDR. (Possibly not for Hitman 3, though). I might be able to help, depending on the model.

I think I've got a potential SASO approach for Janus already, but the other guy is going to need more observation.

If memory serves, there's a fairly straightforward approach to Cassidy involvingSpoiler - click to showthe fumigator that just requires a bit of patience.

So that's Hitman 3 done, then. The last level is basically just an epilogue, it's sketchier even than Hawke's Bay, so really there are only 5 proper Hitman levels here. (That last level is fun - but I won't be replaying it any time soon).

On balance - yes, this was definitely more Hitman and therefore I am very pleased it exists. The whole trilogy end-to-end in a single package is a marvellous thing. It's hard to separate Hitman 3 from the other two games - all of them have good levels and not-so-good levels, and I've put less time overall into this one so far - but from here it feels like, narrowly, the weakest of the three. It's got the fewest "full" levels (5 here, 6 in Hitman 2016 and 7 in Hitman 2 if you include the DLC) and two of them rely heavily on specific gimmicks which may or may not appeal. But there aren't any bad levels here really and one of them (Berlin) might be the standout of the whole trilogy. It's a very good game overall.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I only realised today that the constant server disconnections I've been having were a symptom of a problem on my own network rather than the game, and having changed some settings, I didn't experience a single disconnect in over an hour. So I feel a bit silly about that.

Now to go back to Mendoza (I've only really scratched the surface of that one), then to Colorado which is the only other level I haven't played - then it's a straight run through the trilogy for me I think.

I still have an immense soft spot for Paris; having never really played much of any Hitman game before, that was my first real glimpse at what the series was, and I don't think any of them have - or could - ever wow me in quite the same way.

Sapienza is a great location, too, but I think my fondness is partly down to the absolute embarrassment of content they got out of it - not just World of Tomorrow, but three alternative missions, plus escalations and elusives, and it's just a cool little town to wander around.

Colorado is still the place I have the greatest hesitancy to return to; I appreciate it more now than I did when it first launched, but I never really loved it. The colour palette doesn't help either, mind - it's all very brown.

Time for a Hitman levels ranking post then.

For me - from best to worst:

Hitman 3
Berlin
Dartmoor
Mendoza
Dubai
Chongqing
Carpathian Mountains

Hitman 2
Miami
New York
Santa Fortuna
Whittleton Creek
Mumbai
Haven Island
Isle of Sgail
Hawke's Bay

Hitman 1
Hokkaido
Paris
Sapienza
Bangkok
Marrakesh

Haven't included Colorado there but FWIW I've never seen any list that doesn't put it bang last for H1.

Need to think more on an overall ranking for the series as a whole, that's a lot tougher.