Hitman 2, the best game in the World of Assassination trilogy, uses the momentum of its prequel to take some huge swings on both a conceptual level and a design level. After a brief tone-setting mission set in a combatant-occupied beach house, Hitman 2 reveals itself as a tour de force of what the Hitman series can do. The ticking-clock of the Miami Indy 500 race, the dense crowds and ramshackle fortresses of the Mumbai level, the creepy, uncanny valley quality of the Vermont suburb, the ridiculously escalatory nature of the evil within Isle of Sgail - these are all-timer Hitman levels, providing their own interesting problems to solve, containing hundreds of thematically-dense little narrative details.
This is what I love about these games the most, and why Hitman 2, in particular, sticks out to me. Despite the organic, reactive feel of Hitman's maps, all of them possess an extraordinary intentionality. There is no 'filler' content in a these levels, because even the parts of the maps that don't directly affect gameplay do possess information relevant to the narrative. On a smaller map that lacks big crowds like the Vermont suburb, there literally are no generic NPCs. If you go up to the most non-descript NPC in that level and follow them around, they do have some unique quality or express something about the world in some way. Notably, many of the enforcers on that map are just random Americans - if the player opens fire in broad view of the public, the random suburbanites on that map reveal that they're concealed carrying, like, M16s under their polo shirts.
I've always felt like The World of Assassination's story is underappreciated, considering how driven these games are to express a perspective. Hitman 2, specifically, is a game with a coherent point of view that is unambiguous. The theme of class war, of an anonymized underclass who perform labor for a few sociopaths at the top of the food chain - of dinghy servants' quarters contrasted against lavish master bedrooms and executive offices - is more pronounced here than in the first game. The repetition of this theme climaxes within the Isle of Sgail, a level featuring a castle full of the ultra-rich who are plotting to commodify the impending collapse of the Earth's climate.
This is what I love about these games the most, and why Hitman 2, in particular, sticks out to me. Despite the organic, reactive feel of Hitman's maps, all of them possess an extraordinary intentionality. There is no 'filler' content in a these levels, because even the parts of the maps that don't directly affect gameplay do possess information relevant to the narrative. On a smaller map that lacks big crowds like the Vermont suburb, there literally are no generic NPCs. If you go up to the most non-descript NPC in that level and follow them around, they do have some unique quality or express something about the world in some way. Notably, many of the enforcers on that map are just random Americans - if the player opens fire in broad view of the public, the random suburbanites on that map reveal that they're concealed carrying, like, M16s under their polo shirts.
I've always felt like The World of Assassination's story is underappreciated, considering how driven these games are to express a perspective. Hitman 2, specifically, is a game with a coherent point of view that is unambiguous. The theme of class war, of an anonymized underclass who perform labor for a few sociopaths at the top of the food chain - of dinghy servants' quarters contrasted against lavish master bedrooms and executive offices - is more pronounced here than in the first game. The repetition of this theme climaxes within the Isle of Sgail, a level featuring a castle full of the ultra-rich who are plotting to commodify the impending collapse of the Earth's climate.