HITMAN 3

Agent 47’s big finish is a fresh start for his creators

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Endings: a topic in which we’d imagine Agent 47 is uniquely well-versed by now. He’s certainly delivered enough of them in his time – via the medium of piano wire, silenced pistol, tumbling stuffed moose. And now, with IO Interactive putting another besuited amoral agent in its sights, it seems 47 is about to get one of his own. An ending, that is. Not a stuffed moose.

“We are going to put it to rest for a while, the franchise,” game director Mattias Engström tells us. “We have the live tail, and there’s going to be some cool stuff coming there” – he means the kind of extra missions and Elusive Targets which have followed the previous two games – but this release will be 47’s last full-length outing for the foreseeable future. “It’s going to be a pretty emotional moment for me, but we’re moving on.”

The aim for Hitman 3, Engström says, is not only to wrap up the World Of Assassination trilogy that began with the series’ 2016 reboot, but also to provide closure to the past 20 years of creative murder, borrowed costumes and largely extraneous plot points. Which makes Engström an interesting choice of director. Before joining IO in 2013, he admits, “I didn’t really know Hitman that well.” But working as a level designer on the last two games (Engström was the primary architect of Marrakesh and Mumbai) has fixed that. So don’t expect an outsider’s take on the concept. Hitman 3 is an iteration, building on all that experience – and directly atop its two immediate predecessors.