This video is sponsored by you and your wonderful support on Patreon. Help me continue to make
more stuff and get access to exclusive stuff by heading to patreon.com/writingongames! Thanks so
much for your support and now on with the show. The Hitman series has seen a number of business
decisions made along its over-two-decades-long history that have seen audience reactions range
from a near-constant fear regarding its future, to outright confusion directed squarely at those
holding the reins. Breaking up the World of Assassination trilogy into episodic chunks;
maintaining a completely pointless always online experience despite the fact it made said trilogy
markedly worse in all sorts of novel ways; taking a series known for the freedom it
afforded players in how they approached objectives and morphing it into a much
more linear experience as found in Absolution. But perhaps most confusing is the idea that
someone would look at that game, see the many fans decry its adherence to more conventional action
game tropes of the time, lamenting the resulting restriction in approach, and saying “you know
what this series needs? A board game adaptation. And what’s more, let’s release it on mobile just
so we can ensure that no fan is left happy.” But like the episodic structure of 2016’s game
really emphasised the joy of replayability in the World of Assassination trilogy at large, sometimes
there is indeed method to some of that madness and similarly, the scepticism that surrounded 2014’s
Hitman GO largely subsided as soon as people got their hands on it—not simply because it turned
out to be a fun puzzle game in its own right (although it absolutely did), but because to this
day it manages to capture everything that makes Hitman the unique curio of a series that it is.
I mean, just look at this aesthetic design. The perfectly crafted little dioramas, the pristine
architecture, the delicately organised topiary that surrounds it, the pastel glow it’s all baked
in, It’s all so… clean, so stark, in a way that immediately brings to mind the refined elegance
of the high society settings 47 finds himself navigating in more traditional series entries;
the sleek efficiency with which he works—his character design is so genuinely iconic that even
without facial features, on a board of similarly featureless pieces, you know exactly where 47 is
at any given time, and what he’s capable of. Of course, this is the most surface level
indicator that you’re in for an experience that captures the essence of Hitman, but what’s most
impressive about GO, as you find navigating the countless grids that comprise its levels,
is how this extends to the gameplay. As it turns out, even on a set grid,
47’s capability will outshine your expectations. Sure, there’s the typical rigidity you might
associate with the board game format here – the distinct pathways, the ruthless adherence to
the assigned routes of your enemies and the quickness with which your game is ended if
you should wind up wandering into one of them, but even for a title that reduces the scope of
its namesake quite like GO does, you are afforded a fair amount of flexibility in your approach.
Of course, as evidenced by the big retry button constantly taunting you from the corner,
there is almost always the possibility you could find yourself boxed into an unwinnable
situation – a momentary tap dance around the inevitable – but because the rest of
the board only shifts when you decide on where you’ll position 47 next, in order to study the
board and the multiple systems that might be at play here, you find yourself constantly on
the move – having to manoeuvre around multiple constantly shifting sightlines, jumping between
shrubbery and deciding the most efficient moment with which to activate a distraction,
so its effects draw in as many unwitting guards as possible (although hopefully not the one that
will subsequently move into the path you had just cleared – it is very possible for your best
laid plans to turn on you just when you think everything is starting to go your way and, like
the best situations in Hitman proper, sometimes you get to improvise your way out of said binds).
Disguises, distinct weapons with different functions, conveyor belts, guards that face
two directions simultaneously, guard dogs that track you through a level… it feels like every
few boards you’re getting introduced to some new mechanic or tool or enemy type that stacks upon
the previously established mechanics, that mean by the time you get to the end of the game, the
sheer number of variables and rules to consider in any given map can be pretty overwhelming at first.
At times, especially later on, such abundance can lead to certain rules not being explained
as well as they could be (I’m still not sure about the specifics of the airport disguise
you start out with that allows you to murder some guards but simply move alongside others…)
but the fact that such a wealth of strategic options is being provided to you in a board
game that’s actually a phone game is novel enough to make up for such inconsistencies.
Do you use the sniper rifle to take out multiple guards on the one target at the same time? Or do
you instead shoot down the statue over here? It might seem like a wasted opportunity to let all
those people go, but maybe they’re not actually in your way in the long run, and maybe you’ve just
blocked the path for another unsuspecting guard that might have become more troublesome down the
line. Just like regular Hitman encourages you to consider the consequences of any action you might
take, where your exits are, how many guards might be in your way, etc., Hitman GO requires you to
take your time and think several moves ahead, literally, as thanks to clever puzzle design,
the obvious answer is rarely the best. In much the same vein, the game has enough in
its toolbox at that point that it can actually throw you mechanical red herrings – placing
a pickup at a certain faraway spot on the map’s grid, conditioning you to think “at
some point in the level I’m going to have to use that,” and factoring the possibility into
your experimentation and improvisation; making you worry when you realise you’re deep into a strategy
that somehow doesn’t involve that one piece… only for you to reach the end of the level without
incident and you realise the level designers have been playing tricks with you. Of course,
you could have gone out of your way to use it if you so wished, but most of the time these
tools would offer minor benefits and lock you off from certain objectives in your pursuit of them.
Speaking of which, these optional objectives found in each map bolster the already impressive
flexibility on show here. I do often find myself wishing that there were more opportunities
to figure out an optimal route and tick off both optional objectives at once – you know,
with many missions taking the form of completing the board in a certain number of turns, and goals
like “collect the briefcase” usually requiring careful and prolonged manoeuvring of enemies,
it’s rare that you’ll find two such objectives that aren’t at direct odds with each other
tactically – but I dunno, one of the key tenets of Hitman’s design as I see it is the necessity
of revisiting older maps with renewed strategy. If you drop someone off a balcony then you’re
going to have to wait until the next go around to drop a chandelier on them too.
And with the need to repeat maps in order to wring all the rewards you can from them,
it helps that somehow, even in a board game setting, the Cold Hard Murder you’re here for is
made viscerally satisfying. Indeed, the clack and clatter of conquered pieces is the kind of sound
that makes you truly thankful for skilled audio design – finding a way to create the board game
equivalent of that instantly recognisable fizz from a silenced pistol; a sound that’s delicate,
but decisive, and only grows more satisfying the more targets you’re able to take out at once.
Indeed, in a way that might actually go against typical stealth game logic, taking
people out actually feels really good here. Where extra-curricular kills are considered a failing
in other games, leaving a mess that might alert others to your presence, here every piece taken,
no matter how minor, feels like the core of the level you’re on – the reason you’re there;
with victory over your actual crucial targets being given the added ceremony of slow motion
and having their demise soundtracked by Ave Maria. See, even the series’ trademark jet-black humour
is captured here in the form of the set dressing of these dioramas – the peripheral little action
figures frozen in time in often compromising positions. This set dressing also pulls double,
triple duty in highlighting the raw capability of our protagonist – you know, 47 gets in and
out before these dimwits even have a chance to move – while also telling a story without words.
47’s targets don’t need huge lore dumps here, telling you why they’re a key part of Providence
or whatever – they are pieces on a board, bigger than the rest of the pieces and requiring the
most work to get to, which is incentive enough – but the snapshots of time you find them in,
trading organs or sifting through box upon box of highly valuable, questionably sourced art,
helps place them in the exact same kind of shady upper echelons of society consistent with
the more fully characterised targets in other games, all without a single line of dialogue.
And that’s perhaps what I love most about Hitman GO—despite only being made by eleven
people as the first project of a new studio, it all just feels so effortless, so confident,
like this was the mechanical and aesthetic blueprint regular Hitman would go on to pull
from rather than the other way around. In some ways that might not actually be too far from the
truth—need I remind you that this released two whole years before the World of Assassination
trilogy that put the series back on the map. But further, Hitman works so well as a board
game because, well… it is a board game, of sorts. You carefully analyse the game space and
the pieces that populate it, looking for a hole in their clockwork AI patterns and manoeuvring
your pieces in just such a way that you can pick the right moment to pierce it. In other words,
for all the talk of how accurately Hitman GO captures the essence of its series, in truth
it’s Hitman GO’s purity that helps us see more clearly what Hitman actually is to begin with.
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