It took me about 15 minutes to finish Hitman’s main Paris level. Okay, let me just back up there a second. It took about five hours to perfect that slightly scrappy speedrun. Five hours of poking around, exploring and discovering before finding one possible route through a busy high class fashion show.

Even now, about eight hours in, I’m still finding new things, previously unrevealed options, entire areas I didn’t know about and racking up more and more ways to be the perfect assassin: to kill with stealth, style, violence. And, occasionally, a well-thrown wrench. Just because you’re a pay-as-you-go murderer doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun every now and then.

Hitman’s episodic structure might only contain one initial level (as well as two not insubstantial …show more content…
Wrenches and crowbars can be used as thrown weapons, as well as to tamper with fittings and valves. Flipped coins send guards obediently into corners, while rat poison can taint drinks and send people puking alone to the toilet. (Although, if I’m honest that last one feels a little OP currently as it’s so guaranteed to work.)

At this point I haven’t even mentioned the extra stuff - menus full of challenges that unlock new equipment, the ability to stash things in the level for later retrieval, or even start somewhere already undercover - in the kitchen as a chef, for instance. There are also Contracts - user made kills set up by players taking out any NPC and challenging you to match it - and Elusive Targets - victims that only appear for a limited time and can only be killed once.

It has a few issues, like weirdly unpredictable frame rates. It actually speeds up in places, although there is the option to lock it down. It’s connected nature is also a little confusing. You can play it either on or offline but the two don’t join up, and I was kicked out of a playthrough once because my internet went