The Hitman series, in which players take the role of an international assassin known only as Agent 47, has always been defined by its levels. Each one is like an intricately designed puzzle box, with new paths and strategies opening up as 47 explores his surroundings, gathers intel and dons disguises. In 2016’s episodic Hitman, released in six chapters over seven months, developer IO Interactive explicitly made the levels the star of the show: Players had to sit with each of the six locations for weeks and weeks, learning all the characters, corners and clockwork mechanisms. Yet how would the studio top itself for Hitman 2, in which all six chapters are playable from the get-go? To hear IO Interactive tell it, reverting to a traditional release model didn’t change much about the way the team made the sequel. The developers did want to create larger, more complex playgrounds for 47 and his adversaries in Hitman 2 — but they knew that bigger wasn’t necessarily better. “We definitely don’t design these locations just for the sake of that they’re big,” said IO’s Sven Liebold in a phone interview with Polygon last week. “We want to make sure that you have gameplay, or that you can create gameplay, essentially in every single little corner if you want to.” I recently took a crack at Hitman 2’s mission in the town of Santa Fortuna, Colombia. Agent 47 is sent to a rainforest village that’s in the grasp of a drug kingpin named… [Read full story]
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