Hitman has graced the collection numerous times over the years, and it's actually become more difficult to track the chronology of the series than you may expect. It's a series that's seen reboots, HD collections and expansions galore, and contained within the latest Hitman game - Which is Hitman 3 on the PS5, there are a series of DLC packs that allow you to replay the earliest titles in the Hitman series.
I've beaten Hitman 3, but before going back through for the Platinum trophy, it made more sense to return to where it all began with the Hitman DLC, which allows you to relive the entire first game in the whole Hitman series, which, from what I can tell amongst all the clutter, has never been done previously.
That's exactly what this content is. It doesn't really require an elaborate preface. The 6 levels that made up the original Hitman title are available to play through all over again as part of this DLC pack. They've been given the Hitman 3 facelift though, with challenges, mission stories and level mastery all allowing you to play through the game in ways you simply wouldn't have been able to back when Hitman was released on the Playstation 1 at the turn of the Millennium.
I did play the very first Hitman game, but I don't really remember much of it, and even this rush of nostalgia still left me trying to piece together the memories in my head. That's not always a bad thing though, and fresh experiences from old games can still be a blast to play through when you don't recall what's coming, and that's exactly what Hitman was. The story is fairly short and doesn't victimise itself with unnecessarily long-winded and complicated cinematics in the same way that some games do. It's very easy to follow and understand, and it's all tied together by the strongest suit of any Hitman game - It's cleverly crafted and creative levels.
Hitman's 6 levels take you through France, Italy, Morocco, Thailand, the USA and Japan - Assassinating plenty of targets along the way.
There are also 13 trophies on offer, and these can be broken down in very simple fashion. There are 6 trophies awarded for beating each of the 6 levels once, and a further 6 trophies for achieving Mastery of each level.
Level Mastery is a new concept introduced to Hitman within the main game, and is also applied to all subsequent DLC content. Each level comes with a range of different accomplishments, broken down into the following sub-headings; Assassination, Challenges, Discovery and Feats.
Each of these sub-sections will contain a variety of tasks, which, when completed, will contribute experience points that go towards levelling up the Mastery of a level. Once you reach level 20, you'll unlock the Mastery trophy relevant to that level.
Reaching Mastery level 20 isn't exactly difficult. It will require you to play through levels multiple times, ensuring that you're assassinating targets in different ways in accordance to the requirements set out within the menu, as well and ensuring you go round the map unlocking as many additional challenges simultaneously as you can. There is a certain level of tactful thinking required as you plan how you're going to go about each run of a mission in an attempt to complete as many challenges as possible during any given run, and it's a very effective method of adding replay value to the game.
It does get a little bit tedious eventually, but I do really enjoy how the Level Mastery trophies maximise the necessity to explore the environment and it was a joy to seemingly uncover new things every time you reloaded a level. New kill methods, previously hidden locations, little Easter Eggs. It all combines to prolong the fun and it genuinely feels like a beneficial learning experience, rather than just another tedious grind designed to draw out replayability. However, it is also responsible for my biggest gripe with the whole game - The Missions Stories.
Mission Stories are scattered around every level. They're a very specific timeline of events, triggered when you're within close enough proximity of their starting location. They'll tell you exactly where you need to go and what you need to do, with the outcome usually setting you up with a final scenario which opens up the opportunity to kill a target.
Hitman purists will hate this feature because it completely strips away the essence that Hitman is built on - Intuition. The mystery of figuring out every step yourself towards the ultimate satisfaction of killing a target knowing that you worked out exactly what to do all on your own accord, is where the real sense of achievement comes from. Completing Mission Stories awards experience that goes towards Level Mastery, so trophy hunters will have to view them as a necessary evil to progress.
I don't completely dislike the idea, but I think they're way too generous in the information they provide, to the point where most Mission Stories will literally walk you through every step towards gaining direct access to your target, where the only thing it won't do for you is pull the trigger.
Some of the challenges come with redacted requirements, with just a name and a picture to help you work out the rest for those that want the balance of intuition, and you will need to beat the majority of the tasks to fully Master a level, so the purist experience isn't completely left out in the cold.
For me, it was simply a case of beating the game once to unlock the 6 progression trophies, and going back over each individual level to earn Mastery in order to unlock the 6 Mastery trophies. It's a very straight-forward process.
There is still a final trophy to declare, which is awarded for Completing Suit Only and Silent Assassin Challenges on The Icon, A House Built on Sand or Landslide. These 3 levels come as bonus missions to Hitman, and are objectives set on smaller scale variations of some locations within the main story.
Suit Only and Silent Assassin require you to assassinate the target(s) without being spotted, no bodies being found, removing the target(s) only and doing it all in Agent 47's suit with no disguise change. This can be a challenging feat within the main game, where the levels are bigger and require more steps to completion, but the bitesize levels in relation to this trophy make it a little bit easier.
Plus, you have the flexibility to choose a preference from 3 different levels. I chose the Icon, which is the first one, and didn't see the necessity to switch at any point. It helps that I already knew Sapienza quite well from the second mission within the main game, so used this intel to my advantage. I managed to beat the task within an hour, which turns out to be one of the lighter tasks in this package thanks to the fairly lengthy level Mastery.
It's not a brief experience, with reaching level 20 for all 6 story missions requiring a thorough playthrough of the whole game, but it never really feels terribly grindy, and turns out to be one of the more effective ways of padding a game's replayability. It helps that's it Hitman too, which is, and always has been, great fun.
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