Last week I travelled to IO Interactive in Copenhagen to slip on a PlayStation VR 2 headset and visit the sunny climes of Sapienza. I spent a couple of hours in the shoes of Agent 47, something I’ve done countless times before, but this time I had a new perspective that changed everything I thought I knew about the stealth classic.
Ever since it was first released in 2016 as an episodic outing, it feels like IO Interactive has sought to evolve Hitman at every turn. Every new location brought new weapons and equipment, while the fully-fledged sequels abandoned the episodic model while attempting to transform this trilogy into an interactive platform all its own. And it worked, because right now you can log into Hitman 3 – or Hitman: World of Assassination as it’s now known – and access three entire games’ worth of levels, challenges, and targets which encapsulate hundreds of hours of violent play if you go hard enough.
Hitman Feels Like A Different Game In PlayStation VR2
Over the years, I’ve made a habit of revisiting Hitman whenever I want to clear my head and play a game for nothing more than fun. I know the majority of its playgrounds intimately, so I can load into a random location and take out each target in new and interesting ways. And every single run it feels like I’m learning something new or honing my reflexes to be a much better assassin. In its traditional form, Hitman is one of the best stealth games of the past decade. In virtual reality, it feels like something new altogether. Yet also familiar.
Aside from Sapienza, some of the maps I tried out in VR included Marrakesh and Miami.
Hitman can currently be played in virtual reality on PC and PS4, although this version introduces support for newer headsets while adding a number of distinct features. I was talking with some of the development team as I played, and they shared a number of issues such as inconsistent gunplay, movement options, and the act of climbing, which in the previous version just didn’t feel right. IO wanted to make it feel like a legitimate experience in the medium rather than an obvious conversion, and in this new version that goal is closer than ever. But not quite there.
This game isn’t built for virtual reality, so you can’t pick up and toy with every single object in the environment, while interactions like climbing or interacting with parts of the environment will transition the camera to third-person in order to give players a clearer view. This choice was made for moment-to-moment gameplay to feel more seamless, as Hitman is otherwise entirely freeform in its movement instead of allowing you to teleport about the place, and it’s better for it. After figuring out the controls and how exactly my inventory and holsters worked, I felt free to take out my target however I liked, and everything about it felt incredible.
Your inventory can be found by placing a hand in your chest and pulling out a circular menu in the palm of your hands. From here, items can be selected and equipped using your hand motions. Holsters work like they do in the majority of other VR games, where you reach for your belt to grab equipped weapons.
But It Also Made Me Feel Right At Home
I’m terrible at doing what I’m told, and having played Hitman a bunch before, my ADHD brain ignored all instructions given to me as I stumbled into the closest room and punched a guard unconscious. That’ll show him. But it also tripped an alarm, so after getting into a gunfight that resulted in my untimely demise, I decided to listen as the designer led me through things. That was the right call, because it turns out this new version has plenty of secrets up its sleeve.
You can throw guns now, essentially using firearms as impromptu melee weapons in a fight, meaning if you run out of ammo or find yourself surrendering to a couple of enemies, there’s a way to escape with fast enough reflexes. It’s also hilarious, since there are few things more fun than yeeting blunt objects at someone’s cranium from several metres away with pinpoint accuracy. Better yet, you can now dual-wield weapons too, and there’s no limit on the type of weapon. As a consequence, I found myself firing a silenced pistol and a sniper rifle at the same time. It wasn’t stealthy, but hot damn did it make me feel cool.
Dual wielding also extends to melee weapons and other objects found in each level. I was told that IO wanted to make gunplay a viable option for succeeding in a mission, as in the past it’s been recognised by most players as an unavoidable fail state.
This mechanic alone makes everything feel more playful and unpredictable, opening up a new toolbox of possibilities within the sandbox that didn’t exist before. After breaking down one of the walls that led into the Sapienza lab, I found myself surrounded by armed guards. But with a knife and a screwdriver in each hand, I managed to take out two of them before reinforcements arrived. Soon after, I was holding a knife to the throat of my human shield before stealing his gun and opening fire. I walked away alive and completed all my objectives.
I Have The Power Of Screwdrivers And Hammers On My Side
Mission stories and the actual nature of objectives remain intact, and as far as I can tell, there wasn’t any unique content in Hitman VR, but everything has transitioned so well that even as a seasoned player, it feels fresh. I need to earn my stripes all over again, but this time I can do it with two fire axes to the head instead of one. Similar to the base game, all these stories exist as tutorials before you can get creative with your own solutions. Many encounters and set pieces therein are also reframed through this new perspective, which means you will want to experience them with fresh eyes or for the first time.
I couldn’t help but roleplay in certain situations, such as waving important documents in front of a target’s face before they lured me to a meeting place that would spell their doom. There are so many opportunities for hijinks that I almost got away from myself.
I felt like I knew Hitman like the back of my hands, but its timeliness became apparent as I had so much fun figuring out how to be stealthy in this new iteration, or how I could hide in a closet or around corners in ways that made me feel like the Pink Panther with a penchant for homicide. It is goofy, slapstick, and so satisfying when things go right. And even if it doesn’t, you have enough tools to make the best of a bad situation.
Hitman VR isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it feels like IO Interactive is framing this as a victory lap for the World of Assassination. A way to celebrate a decade of work on a stealth title that will go down in history as one of the genre’s very best. It also lets you hurl hammers into the faces of innocent bystanders, which is always a win in my book.
- Released
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January 20, 2021
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language