absolutely amazing stealth/assassination sandbox game. the story is sort of bad but it's far from the focus of the game. it really shines with its escalations, custom contracts and challenges. figuring out to kill your targets in specific ways in the most optimal form will never not be fun to me. another thing that could be considered a flaw is that, at the start of the game, you have no items, which can really limit your possibilities and imagination. however, seeing your arsenal grow and doing challenges to gain those good items was really fun.
overall, very entertaining game with a huge amount of content, could recommend it to anyone

While technically this is three games, I played it as one so.... Hitman is a series I've had problems with; I didn't like the controls of the PS2 trilogy, trying to run Agent 47 on my laptop was like pulling teeth, and when I bought this game on steam it worked once then never again and I had to refund it. My point is after all that, I still bought and loved this game (on PS4). This has become a comfort game of sorts... (don't read too deeply into that lol). Not all the levels are great, but the best ones are so fantastic!
8/10

God damn. I was kinda expecting to be let down, but I think the concept of giving a player an objective and letting the player decide how they reach that objective is just an insanely strong game design choice that has, so far, always been engaging and compelling. Breath of the Wild and Metal Gear Solid V really nailed that and this scratches that itch that I've been looking for since I've finished those games. I loved my time with the game and I can easily see myself returning to it consistently.

I won't lie; I skipped the cutscenes. I really did not see myself being able to be engaged by any story here, but I doubt that's the point anyway. The gameplay here is supreme and just plain fun.

If you'd asked 14-year-old me what her favourite game was, she would've said the first of the World of Assassination trilogy. I loved that game. I'd played through every mission dozens of times and I had go-to routes so that I could get silent assassin on every mission (still remembered my routes for Paris and Sapienza but completely forgot the others). Despite that though, I never actually got around to playing Hitman 2 or 3 so it was nice to finally play them. The gameplay is great, the various minor improvements were enough to make the gameplay feel better without straying away from what makes it so good, and the levels from 2 and 3 are great sandboxes just like I'd come to expect although I do feel like the Hitman 3 levels feel more linear than their predecessors. I'm definitely gonna end up going back to this every few months to approach all the levels in a different way.

(Copied from my Hitman III review since they're the same game)

If it weren't for the always online bullshit, this would be a 5 star game. While it lacks the attention to detail, atmosphere, music, and great story of Blood Money, it absolutely makes up for it in terms of ease of play, fun factor, and an astronomical amount of content. I really thingk the World of Assassination trilogy is the best Hitman game, alongside its much more interesting, if jankier, predecessor. Really a game of all time.

But again, fuck the always online.

This trilogy sits happily in my All-Timers list and, while it understandably might anger purists of the genre, this does firmly fit into so much of the Immersive Sim genre.

There's very few games for the price-to-gameplay value this trilogy has. It's honestly quite stunning.

For people who want to jump in though for the first time: Do yourself a favor and turn off all mission story guides. Just drop into a level and ... work.

in my opinion the best in the hitman series, and probably the best stealth action game i've ever played. it was a great move to incorporate the whole woa trilogy into one game, and i applaud io interactive for making the less greedy choice (for once)
my favorite levels in the trilogy were the hitman 2016 levels, so getting to play them with the updated graphics, new items, and new gameplay features is amazing.
the visuals and level architecture is amazing, my personal favorite in terms of visuals is chongqing, with it's cyberpunk city asthetic. the soundtrack is also my favorite out of the series, being very cinematic and fitting with the story well, and the sound design is just as satisfying as 2016's.
in terms of gameplay, hitman 2 and 3 fixed a lot of minor annoyances i had with hitman 2016, including not having the ability to use instinct while aiming a gun, some awkward movement, and the addition of a green/yellow/red gun indicator for silent assassin.
the best thing about the hitman series is it's ability to accommodate vastly different playstyles, whether you want to sneak around and kill every target silently with no unnecessary casualties, or if you want to go wild and take out everyone on the map. there are so many different ways to complete any objective in any level, (except carpathian mountains, we don't talk about carpathian mountains) that it's almost a sandbox game. this also lends itself very well to speedrunning, as you can set up intricate kills and set them off from afar with all the gadgets and tools you bring with you from outside of the mission, as well as items you can find inside levels.
i won't be going into freelancer here, given that i haven't played it fully, (most of my time played was before it came out) but from what i have played it's pretty fun, albeit kind of buggy.
i haven't completed all achievements for this game yet, but i have beaten every level with the silent assassin and suit only rank, and done many contracts and elusive target missions. i've spent over 200 hours in the game, most of which has been speedrunning.
definitely up there with the stealth greats.
amazing game.

Esta trilogía conocida como "World of Assassination" es una muestra perfecta de lo que es buen diseño de nivel, inteligencia artificial bien construida, elementos interactivos perfectamente añadidos y te invita a la rejugabilidad. Puedes estar jugando el mismo escenario 5 veces sin aburrirte antes de pasar al siguiente por lo creativo de las formas en las cuales puedes eliminar a tus objetivos.

Poder disfrazarte de distintas profesiones para pasar desapercibidos pero teniendo que en cuenta que ciertos NPCs cumplen el rol de gerentes o jefes por lo que conocen a su personal y podrán reconocerte. El juego de verdad recompensa tanto tu imaginación como creatividad, desde recompensas por explorar los escenarios, distintas formas de crear "accidentes" mortales, y tu habilidad para pasar desapercibido.

Tengo un par de quejas como que los NPCs no se alteren o sospechen de ver sangre en el escenario o que no llames la atención por hacer ciertos actos erráticos como acosar siguiendo a pocos centímetros a una persona o realizar un tiroteo en plena calle y que solo algunos npcs se alarmen y huyan pero otros se queden estáticos asustados.

Del resto, está perfectamente bien construido, y realista, la inteligencia artificial es capaz de notar cuando realizas actos sospechosos como que te vean soltar los cables que sostienen candelabros o exponer los circuitos del cableado.

Las formas de culminar las misiones son tan bien diseñadas que incluso puedes hacerte pasar por detective privado, resolver un asesinato que no tuvo nada que ver contigo, para luego descubrir que dicho culpable quiere eliminar a tu objetivo y puedes indirectamente brindarle las herramientas para que dicha persona asesine a tu objetivo sin que tengas que hacer mucho esfuerzo, así es el nivel de detalle en esta obra.

Solo el contenido base, un total de 18 ubicaciones te puede brindar horas de diversión, y si eso no es suficiente tienes el modo arcade en esos mismos lugares con otros objetivos y nuevos contextos o contratos creados por la comunidad con sus propios requisitos y cierta edición en los niveles.

Una experiencia que recomiendo totalmente para aquellos que disfruten de desafíos qué pongan a prueba su ingenio.

Having all 3 games together finally allows for a coherent story to be told. The stealth gameplay is really fun, the costume system, the various weapons and environmental interactions. I really like the mission stories system, it allows the player to streamline their gameplay by playing it more like a traditional game story, but you're not pigeonholed into doing it, you can bail out of the story at any time and do things your own way, you can never interact with them in the first place if you want, you can fail them as your targets move around and do things which really helps immersion. The world never revolves around you so you need to be thinking about what is going around you and what your target is doing, the game is always requiring you to problem solve and think on the fly and that's really fun especially in the context of being an assassin with the goal of leaving no tracks. My biggest gripe with the game is the always online requirement, yeah you can play the story offline but offline is a separate save which sucks. There's no real good reason for it, their rolling missions that change (separate to the story) don't really have to work that way, and it kinda sucks that content gets time gated. Hopefully a future update adds all the content to be available offline and a new disc can be printed so it can be preserved forever.

Hitman is obviously a great series of games and bringing all 3 of the modern titles into one collection has made the franchise accessible to more people as the episodic releases were a bit hard to get into.

The writing for this game when on missions is fantastic, npc interactions with each-other are meaningful, organic and help to progress the player whilst providing alternate methods for observant players.

Gameplay is tight, with agent 47 controlling so well and feeling as fluid as ever.

Freelancer mode is also a game changer. It drastically switches up how you play the game and gets you away from the standard suit only silent assassin runs. You’ll make mistakes, end up in shoot outs and generally just try to survive this mode rather than perfecting it.

Having heaped praise, the game is predominantly losing half a star for these 3 things…

Beginning in Hitman 2 the cutscenes just become images with voiceovers. What happened to the fully voiced videos that were acted? The final scene of Hitman 1 was gripping, removing these impacted the story.

The AI is still goofy, how can I panic a guard and then withdraw a sniper rifle in my suit without consequences? In the same way, how can a guard sometimes see me through walls etc? Its consistent enough, but frustrating when “Hitman bullshit” ruins your run.

And lastly how much of this game is gated behind DLC? Every time you unlock something, it seems to only be applicable if you have the DLC of which there appear to be so many. Bundle it together please.

A must play, even at full price. The value and replay-ability is there.