A bunch of ambitious ideas and concepts that the developers simply didn't quite have the chops to bring to fruition. There is a seed here of what this franchise would become down the line, but it's buried under a veritable mountain of broken systems and janky gameplay.
So what's worthy of admiration here? Well, one can see that the developers had some cool notions regarding level design - there is an attempt (albeit unsuccessful) to give the levels a degree of openness and density that would eventually become a hallmark of the series. And the fundamental idea of leaving the player character to explore the level and devise their own way to achieve the objective is present in a few of the scenarios (the game would've been much better off had the developers fully committed to this ideal; the mandatory combat encounters here are both contrary to the spirit of the series and, not coincidentally, incredibly awful).
Alas, the strong foundational ideas sadly do not define the majority of the game's playtime. My personal play experience, for instance, was largely defined by a sense of bewilderment. A big part of this derives from the game's completely busted AI. The number of instances in which guards attacked 47 for seemingly no reason or ignored him as he strolled out of a room full of corpses was beyond counting. The failed attempt to develop dense levels also plays a role - these levels are labyrinthine, alright, but they are also hollow and redundant. Empty rooms, hallways leading to nowhere, and other forms of insanely inefficient architectural design are the primary features of the indoor spaces. Moving the action outdoors presents the opposite problem - there are hardly any noticeable visual indicators to follow, so it just feels like a giant field with the same model of a tropical tree repeatedly rendered ad nauseam. These design flaws make the sort of tense yet deliberative social stealth that Hitman thrives on effectively impossible to sustain.
As someone who is not above indulging in the sort of B-movie humor and Eurojank that this game trades in, I was able to push through this despite being frequently being lost and unsure of what to do next. If those features don't hold some degree of charm for you, then this will likely end up being a bit of joyless death march. Certainly, no one could be blamed for skipping to the more worthwhile sequels.
So what's worthy of admiration here? Well, one can see that the developers had some cool notions regarding level design - there is an attempt (albeit unsuccessful) to give the levels a degree of openness and density that would eventually become a hallmark of the series. And the fundamental idea of leaving the player character to explore the level and devise their own way to achieve the objective is present in a few of the scenarios (the game would've been much better off had the developers fully committed to this ideal; the mandatory combat encounters here are both contrary to the spirit of the series and, not coincidentally, incredibly awful).
Alas, the strong foundational ideas sadly do not define the majority of the game's playtime. My personal play experience, for instance, was largely defined by a sense of bewilderment. A big part of this derives from the game's completely busted AI. The number of instances in which guards attacked 47 for seemingly no reason or ignored him as he strolled out of a room full of corpses was beyond counting. The failed attempt to develop dense levels also plays a role - these levels are labyrinthine, alright, but they are also hollow and redundant. Empty rooms, hallways leading to nowhere, and other forms of insanely inefficient architectural design are the primary features of the indoor spaces. Moving the action outdoors presents the opposite problem - there are hardly any noticeable visual indicators to follow, so it just feels like a giant field with the same model of a tropical tree repeatedly rendered ad nauseam. These design flaws make the sort of tense yet deliberative social stealth that Hitman thrives on effectively impossible to sustain.
As someone who is not above indulging in the sort of B-movie humor and Eurojank that this game trades in, I was able to push through this despite being frequently being lost and unsure of what to do next. If those features don't hold some degree of charm for you, then this will likely end up being a bit of joyless death march. Certainly, no one could be blamed for skipping to the more worthwhile sequels.