History of Hitman (2000 - 2018)

welcome back everybody my name is Nick 930 and to celebrate the upcoming release of hitman two I wanted to share with you the complete history of hitman [Music] hitman is a stealth action series with a heavy emphasis on executing the perfect hit the series is known for its sandbox approach to stuff gameplay the players capable of utilizing a variety of weapons items and tools to get closer to their targets in addition to disguising themselves in a large assortment of different outfits ranging from classic suits - chicken costumes despite the Hitman franchise existing for nearly 20 years it's managed to retain much of its original style due mostly in part to the original developers still overseeing the series in addition to an incredibly loyal fanbase so how did the franchise manage to retain its identity after all these years well to answer that question let's take it back to the year 2000 with IO Interactive first hitman title codename 47 in 1998 a group of Danish video game developers called Rito moto joined forces with Nordisk film studio to form a collective video game development studio called IO Interactive with this newfound culmination of efforts the team began brainstorming projects to begin working on with Rita moto wanting to pursue a large-scale fantasy MMO but Nordisk film requested that they focus on a smaller scale action shooter instead to minimize risk and resources the team agreed and began work on a fast-paced shooter game I would take inspiration from John Woo action films due to an interest in the rise of 3d based hardware on the PC platform in the late 90s IO Interactive decided to build a PC exclusive title and utilized their own in-house engine called the glacier engine this engine featured effects beyond what other game developers had been able to accomplish with things like cloth simulation effects and most importantly rag doll body animations these ragdoll animations drew attention from Jonas and iraf of IDUs Interactive who then negotiated a deal between the two studios and agreed to publish the title thanks to his work on stealth action titles like thief and day of sex Jonas recommended that IO Interactive stop pursuing their John Woo shooter concept and instead focus on slowing the action down into something more methodical to really showcase the visual effects they managed to develop this resulted in a complete shift in mentality as the simple shooter game that IO had previously intended to make would end up becoming one of them unique stealth action series in the gaming industry the team began designing missions tailored towards player choice and experimentation with players need to eliminate specific targets while also keeping a low profile players would need to neutralize guards and drag their unconscious bodies around corners and various other key elements like picking up disguises been materialized from there the player character was initially planned to be just a simple hired gun but because of technical restraints the developer struggled to find a way around getting the character's hair to look correct they eventually decided to remove the hair from the player model entirely and added the signature barcode to the back of his head to help the model look more interesting this resulted in the birth of the character agent 47 a professional killer clone that wore a clean black suit and blood red tie the game originally called a hitman the game was renamed codename 47 to call attention to the unique character that I had created agent 47 is the result of cloning experimentations made by dr. otto wolfgang Ortmeyer lord mayer was obsessed with the idea of genetic recombination and shared his ideas for a cloned super army with four of his friends from the French Foreign Legion intrigued each of the four friends donated some of their DNA for the project thus becoming the five fathers fort myer then purchased an asylum in romania to run his experiments out of and began work on creating the ultimate soldier Ortmeyer was eventually successful after his 47th attempt but the four other fathers were growing impatient and demanded the promised clone warriors at the start of the game Ortmeyer helps agent 47 escape the cloning facility and then through the international contract agency or ica begins issuing hits on the other four fathers codename 47s gameplay is focused entirely around executing these hits players will start each mission with a short briefing from the ica often detailing the target and giving some helpful Intel that will be crucial and completing the mission and spending earned revenue unnecessary equipment some of which is required to complete certain tasks while not nearly as open-ended and experimental as the newer entries to the series codename 47 still offered large open-ended environments with several NPCs ranging from civilians to armed guards first could knock out unsuspecting NPCs take their clothes and sneak right past the enemy without being noticed but would also need to choose the disguise for the right situation to avoid suspicion if the player did happen to be detected then an alarm would sound and all the enemies throughout the level would go on high alert often killing 47 with a few shots going in guns blazing was always an option but often a suicidal one especially considering the alarm often triggered the primary target to flee sometimes leaving the area completely and failing the mission this on top of the lack of manual saves made the game excruciatingly ly difficult even for the more seasoned stealth action game players and required a fair amount of practice and because of the randomized AI pathing and objective locations upon restarting a mission a fair amount of luck still hitman codename 47 was an incredibly inventive new game attempting to pull off the perfect kill made the game infinitely replayable and the open-ended level structure and unique signature kills made it more interesting visually codename 47 offered several unique and rare concepts that not only looked cool but also greatly benefited the gameplay first there are real-time mirrors which could be used to spot enemies around corners codename 47 is also often credited to be the very first game to utilize ragdoll physics but this is a false claim as the first reported use of ragdoll physics was in 1997 with a licensed Jurassic Park video game called trespasser still the ragdolls in codename 47 were impressive and are what convinced I doz to publish the project and what eventually led to the series turning into what it is now codename 47 was received OK by critics but was ultimately criticized for sloppy execution and a steep difficulty curve due to the lack of a proper mid mission safe system codename 47 was an excellent concept buried under some needless shooting galleries and bad design choices but thankfully gamers were willing to look past the shortcomings and loved the new antihero agent 47 in 2002 IO Interactive addressed the biggest complaints from the original game and created a worthy sequel called hitman 2 silent assassin hitman to help to establish many of the core aesthetics that are still present in the series today after struggling to develop the original PC exclusive due to the lack of experience with PC titles IO Interactive agreed to make hitman 2 a multi-platform title with the PlayStation 2 being the lead platform for the game this allowed the developer to focus more on refining the gameplay and resulted in a far more solid experience hitman 2 takes place shortly after the first game as agent 47 attempts to find meaning to his life he eventually begins working at a church in Sicily for his friend father Vittorio in hopes that religion might be the answer to his problems however a Russian crime lord named Sergei is a borracho kidnaps Vittorio in Homestead would draw 47 out of retirement this plan was successful as agent 47 immediately seeks out the ICA again it begins completing various contracts in return for funding and information regarding the whereabouts of Vittorio the story isn't nearly as focus as it was in codename 47 with agent 47 basically giving up halfway through and just completing missions to pay off his debt to the ICA again the story is decent but is a very minor part of the series with the gameplay being pushed as the primary focus the mantas gameplay showed a significant improvement over its predecessor with a ton of new features and a much smarter level design that fully took advantage of agent 47s ability to disguise himself the game stealth mechanics were greatly refined to allow the player to more easily pursue a clean approach agent 47 was now capable of crouching allowing him to hide behind cover and sneak up behind enemies silently the level variety in hitman 2 far surpassed its predecessor with a ton of unique and fun locations to sneak around in including a fancy mansion party in Italian villa and even a Japanese fortress unlike the first hitman game hitman 2 featured more signature kills like being able to poison the target with a poorly prepared fugu fish which made the levels more replayable than ever however the game is also significantly more difficult than the original game with much longer and more complex objectives címon assassin introduced a ton of new weapons including melee weapons silent firearms and even a non lethal poison that could be used to incapacitate guards temporarily first could also switch their viewpoint to a first-person view if they prefer which made for easier target acquisition in combat other improvements included a more useful level map which displayed real-time NPC positions and a redesigned detection system with a suspicion indicator that would rapidly bounce around the closer you were to being made by an enemy all these features made the gameplay more consistent with a new rating system challenging player by judging their play style based on the number of enemy alerts and unnecessary kills they accumulated through their playthrough with the smoothness playthroughs awarding the player with the coveted silent assassin award which also unlocked new weapons to equip when beginning missions visually hitman 2 made some notable improvements especially to its environmental complexity each level felt more alive than in the original game with more NPCs and higher quality character models switching over to a console focus pipeline allowed IO Interactive to create their world much more easily while also retaining some of the key physics based elements that made the original special hitman 2 was received well by both users and critics alike with most frizzing the game for improving on the problems of the original while also building on the iconic sandbox design that the franchise was becoming known for after hitman two's release IO Interactive began work on their third hitman game which they intended to be the finale to their Hitman trilogy go over at the same time idols finally acquired IO Interactive completely and encouraged the studio to meet the same two-year deadline that they had made with hitman 2 due to the strict scheduling IO Interactive realized that their planned hitman 3 would never reach its full potential in time and instead of cancelling it or rushing it out the door decided to split up into two teams with the smaller team building 2,000 force hitman contracts using the same game engine used for hitman 2 the small crew took a bunch of old missions from the original hitman game and remastered them with updated visuals better pathing and all the more refined gameplay features this on top of a few brand new missions made up a bulk of hitman contracts and allowed the core IO Interactive team to work on other projects while also keeping idose happy rather than just retelling the same story as codename 47 contracts is set up as a sort of collection of greatest hits all set to the backdrop of agent 47 weeding out in an apartment surrounded by the police there's not really anything special about contract story aside from the story taking on a much darker tone and giving a bit more character 247 but it was great getting to revisit some of the better missions from the original game with the better gameplay mechanics hitman contracts handles almost the same as hitman 2 though there were a few changes that improve the overall experience the biggest improvement was the game's sneak ability hitman 2 allowed players to enter a crouch mode but this feature was pretty much useless for sneaking up behind enemies because of how slow it was contracts sped up the sneak mode making it a much more practical option the in aesthetic tool was also replaced by a non-lethal syringe for Lu simplifying something that wasn't properly explained in hitman 2 on top of these improvements contracts also introduced some very well made levels on top of the remastered ones of course levels like the meat Kings party and belting furred Manor demonstrate the direction that IO Interactive planned to take feature hitman missions with large expansive areas filled with a large variety of locations and NPC types which really played a hitman strength because hitman contracts utilize the exact same game engine - hitman two the visuals are practically identical between the two games interestingly though every mission in him and contracts takes place at night with some of the remastered levels featuring new rain effects while this was likely done to save on development time and resources it also works well with the game's story considering agent 47 is frequently fading in and out of consciousness and a dark apartment room while he's recalling these past missions hitman contracts wasn't received as both hitman tomb with many finding it odd that the developers were already releasing a greatest hits type of collection game rather than a true sequel others praised contracts for delivering the same great gameplay from hitman - but what some new and classic levels to explore ultimately contracts with just a game to keep investors happy and looking back it definitely comes off that way especially considering what the true hitman 3 would be like in 2006 hitman blood money hit store shelves and is still to this day the most beloved entry in the franchise for many fans hitman blood money took roughly four years to be fully realized and went above and beyond what fans had expected from IO Interactive with high weight detailed level environments completely revamp controls any more cohesive experience that holds up surprisingly well today in hitman blood money players once again assume the role of agent 47 in one of the more complex storylines in the franchise after completing several contracts from an American client it's revealed that there's a shadow organization called the franchise attempt used to not only destroyed the ICA but also take advantage of the cloning technologies used to create 47 and sell it to the highest bidder 47 and his handler Diana Byrne would manage to successfully stop this plan exposing the shadow corporation and the duo tie up loose ends in one of the most epic endings to a videogame but money's story not only expanded on the relationship between 47 and his longtime handler who up to this point had simply been the voice of the briefings before each mission but it also expanded the scope of the Hitman more and brought more personality to this killer clone hitman blood money expended in almost every way from its predecessors with more refined movement controls more combat options and a more complex rating system that would judge the player's actions even more harshly the levels now featured more ways to move around including climate while surfaces various hiding places and even places to dispose of neutralized enemies first could find disguises to sneak past enemy guard post or find ways to climb around the buildings for an even more creative approach new tools like the coin could be used to distract guards while other devices like the remote explosive and various syringes could be used to eliminate targets stealthily if you didn't feel like being stealthy the combat mechanics were improved slightly with Asian xlvii capable of using a large variety of weapons that could also be upgraded between missions first could even grab enemies and use them as human shields thanks to a new notoriety system players need to be more careful with their actions avoiding witnesses and were even encouraged to eliminate targets by making it look like an accident the AI and blood money were smart and could see things like blood stains and no longer would instantly start shooting at 47 if they found them trespassing making for a more believable and accessible experience these fundamental changes to the core gameplay helped to shape what hitman is today and the series has only just now started to really embrace these excellent ideas thanks to the power of the new Xbox 360 and various other software improvements over the course of the past four years hitman blood money looks miles better than his predecessors with more advanced lighting effects more complex environments and better character models while the ragdoll physics may have begun to look a bit stiff for a 2006 game hitman blood money it still managed to push the boundaries with new technical achievements like a dynamic crowd in the new orleans level that would react to live gunfire and much larger levels in general hitman blood money received positive reviews all around with many applauding the game's deeper narrative improved gameplay and solid visuals but a few critics did find the game to be a bit derivative of what the series had already done before which is a possible explanation for where the series went next after the success of hitman blood money io interactive announced a brand new IP called Canaan Lynch which would feature a cooperative shooter heist experience likely inspired by original concepts they had prior to the creation of hitman the hitman property went silent as IO Interactive were pushed to make other titles like 2009's Mini Ninjas to reach a broader demographic soon after this title was revealed both idose and IO Interactive were purchased by an even bigger company Square Enix but this supposedly had no impact on is creative freedom after several rumors and trademarks being filed back and forth IO Interactive finally revealed hitman absolution which would release in 2012 hitman absolution is probably one of the most ambitious narrative chief and hitman experiences in the franchise that takes agent 47 completely out of his comfort zone but tasking him with assassinating his handler Diana burn would right at the start from here agent 47 goes off the grid feeling betrayed by the agency and also need to protect a young girl named Victoria who is later revealed to have also undergone experimentation similar to 47 the story feels more emotionally driven with 47 coming off as even more of a legend than ever before and expands greatly on the character despite him being mostly a shell of a man unfortunately this cinematic driven narrative also negatively affected the gameplay to some degree removing the more open-ended level designs that the series have become known for absolution while seemingly the same as his predecessors felt stripped down with less freedom when it came to eliminating targets this is due mostly to the more linear level designs a majority of the levels in hitman absolution didn't even feature any targets to kill but instead were connector levels often branching one large area to another rather than casually walking through parties in disguise were sneaking into casinos absolution had 47 sneaking around back alleys and derelict buildings avoiding the police and blooding into crowds Jason Bourne style there's still plenty of really cool moments throughout the game but the overall vibe of the game had gone from being a hitman sandbox to a cinematic one-off deal the replayability of the game had been reduced significantly even the levels that felt more open-ended and featured actual targets to kill seem too straightforward with only a handful of practical ways to kill your target and about 30 ridiculous options that nobody would even think to that being said the refined game controls and movement felt much more polished than anything seen in the series up to that point and the enemy detection system was much more clearly translated to the player with clear indicators on screen that would notify a player when they were being spotted where is also no longer need to rely on having a sedative syringe or anesthetic to knock out NPCs but can now simply grab them with their bare hands and subdue them first could also grab enemies from cover and even pull them out of windows combat mechanics sub good has always been a part of the series but never properly implemented felt much smoother in absolution and make getting spotted equal parts frustrating and fun at the same time first can now snap to cover peek out to fire and even blind fire the weapons around corners making for a more visceral combat experience on the easier difficulties players could even activate a special instincts mode which enabled them to see enemies through walls slow down time and allow them to select targets and initiate a cool multi kill take down the inventory system was reworked and simplified with players now only capable of holding a few weapons and a handful of tools found in the environment advanced game mechanics like Metal Detectors and being able to pack a sniper rifle into a suitcase were removed and 47 would now have what many fans referred to as magic pockets with large firearms stored magically inside his coat the disguise system was also reworked with players still capable of wearing a large assortment of different NPC clothing but because of the smaller level scope and limited variety of enemies in certain areas the disguises felt pretty much useless in absolution NPCs wearing the same clothes as xlvii would be able to see through his disguise and the only way to sneak past him undetected would be to hold the instincts button which would have 47 attempt to blend in for a short time this felt counterintuitive to one of the franchise's core gameplay elements and discourage disguises all together in fact there were even challenges added in like suit only that required the player to complete levels without ever changing disguises only further pushing the series away from what made it special to begin with lover hate it hitman absolution still featured some phenomenal visuals that still hold up relatively well today textures were incredibly detailed and things like agent 47s bald head were finally perfectly rounded rather than looking like a bunch of polygons hitman absolution addressed some of the complaints with hitman blood money is derivative design by making a more narrative driven experience that was also more accessible to a broader audience on the surface it's a cool stealth action video game that was received well by critics but fans and even members of IO Interactive felt that the series was beginning to drift away from what made it unique in the first place and thankfully the next main entry to the series would aim to write the course despite the high critical acclaim absolution received the game ultimately failed to meet square enix's unrealistic sales expectations and they began to re-evaluate IO Interactive development pipeline for now on the Danish videogame development team would focus entirely on the hitman property and franchises like Kane and Lynch were effectively abandoned as IO Interactive began pre-production for the next major installments at the Hitman franchise Square Enix Montreal developed a mobile game called hitman go originally planned to be an endless runner hitman go was a turn-based puzzle game that resembled a board game and would task players with needing to move their agent 47 game piece to various goals like assassination targets while also avoiding being intercepted by various patrols here Bango surprised critics and was a well-made puzzle experience that fit in well with the franchise's core aesthetics prior to the release of hitman absolution a pre-order mini game was released that featured a single level where agent 47 would perch himself on a nearby rooftop and snipe various targets this experiment eventually evolved into hitman sniper a Square Enix Montreal developed free-to-play mobile game that built upon this simple premise hitman sniper is split up into a series of three different main missions each with a high profile target in a large residential environment filled with guards traps and clever trick shots the goal of the game is to snipe enemies while also taking advantage of ragdoll physics to avoid anyone noticing the resulting body this makes hitman sniper somewhat of a puzzle game as players juggle distractions with clean kills to avoid setting off enemy alerts this concept would be explored again with a similar pre-order incentive for 2018 s hitman 2 and it's odd that the mode was never fully implemented into the core titles prior hitman sniper received decent overall reviews from critics with most praising the clever concept but claiming that the level designs weren't complex to keep users interested due to his financial shortcomings and the overwhelmingly negative fan backlash over the gameplay direction of hitman absolution IO Interactive decided that they needed to reevaluate where they wanted to take the series it was clear that the sandbox nature of hitman blood money coupled with the excellent visuals and control design of hitman absolution would be the way to go which resulted in the soft reboot hitman however there was a catch to justify the amount of money and effort going into yet another major hitman experience IO Interactive and Square Enix agreed that this new title would release in pieces with the first half of the game being available at release and the second half later down the road only a month before the game officially released to the public a statement came out announcing that hitman would now be fully episodic with one mission available at launch and additional missions releasing every other month while this choice did result in much deeper expansive sandbox levels with the smooth gameplay mechanics the game story took a major hit hit man's plot begins with a flashback sequence showing how agent 47s involvement with the ICA began back in 1999 after this initial tutorial though the game goes back to the present day where 47 has given multiple contracts by a shadow client in an underlying plot that would inevitably hurt the reputation of the ICA there's not really much else to the story and by the time the final episode released there were still many questions left unanswered and it felt unsatisfying to say the least thankfully all the efforts that didn't go into the story did make their way into the gameplay resulting in one the most genuine hitman experiences in the history of the franchise hit man's level designs are second to none with massive sandbox environments filled with areas to explore tools to use and plenty of signature kills to eliminate your targets levels are so large even that many of the rooms were never used in the main missions but instead are used for various other bonus modes wares will begin each level in a simple starting location often positioned near the front door of a target building each level features multiple targets to eliminate and each have their own distinct pathing that is repeated endlessly allowing players to take advantage of any well-placed accidents waiting to happen other signature kills can be triggered through opportunities which are a series of events that can get your target into a vulnerable position after completing missions players are greeted with a scorecard and any completed challenges throughout the mission the player with additional weapons tools and even new insertion points all of which greatly encourage multiple replays many of the franchises defining features made a return including full security pat-downs throwing coins as distractions and of course a large assortment of alphas to disguise yourself in unlike hitman absolution hitman allows players to wear disguises of matching NPCs and not be detected however the idea that workers within the same outfit would recognize 47 still exists to some extent there are now specific high-ranking NPCs throughout each level that can see through certain disguises this adds a fair challenge to the experience and removes the annoying instinct blending mechanic entirely other returning features from absolution include the responsive control scheme making it easy to maneuver the world climb certain objects and neutralise NPCs the combat was toned down though making high alert situations nearly impossible to deal with first could no longer use NPCs as human shields and the epic slow-motion instinct kill feature was removed as well hitman encouraged the smooth a silent assassin approach and despite the decently large arsenal of weapons discourages combat encounters due to the episodic nature of the game's release hitman received a ton of gameplay modifications throughout the year with direct community feedback greatly influencing the direction things like the game's detection system were refined allowing players to access camera terminals and delete evidence from being caught on camera thereby avoiding a negative mark on the mission stats fixes like this are some of the few redeeming factors of the odd decision to make the experience episodic and have helped steer io interactive in the direction that fans wanted to see the franchise go the episodic nature of hitman also allowed for a more connected experience with bonus episodes and additional live missions helping to branch new level releases one of the most interesting new modes and hitman is the elusive target illusive targets are missions that are only available for a very limited time and can only be attempted once by players requiring expert knowledge of specific level layouts and the ability to improvise assassinations on-the-fly failing to kill the target or getting kill yourself would result in an instant failure with no option to retry players could of course disconnect their internet to force the mode to reset but typically the idea behind the mode is that players would need to be perfect on the first attempt testing their ability to adapt to diffic circumstances IO Interactive released a ton of these targets each with unique guard patrols and various other small changes to the pre-existing level designs it was a very cool and inventive new feature that encouraged more community engagement and discussion and took advantage of parts of each level that were not used otherwise visually hitman 2016 looked excellent with a modified glacier engine showing off some highly detailed environments and dense NPC populations really making each level feel alive hitman 2016 is also one of the first games to take advantage of the newer DirectX 12 API which could result in smoother performance for compatible Hardware hitman received some of the highest reviews since hitman blood money with many praising the game's intricate mission design smooth gameplay mechanics and superb understanding of what made hitman great to begin with but as expected many fans and critics found fault in the episodic release schedule saving that it felt unnecessary Capeman could have benefited from releasing a full finished product a year later and would have avoided confusing the fanbase because of the poor sales of hitman Square Enix and Ness in 2017 that they were cutting the small Danish development studio IO Interactive loose and began meeting with investors over a potential buyout many developers from IO Interactive lost their job during this time and the heads of IO began negotiations was Square for a management buyout in June 2017 IO confirmed that they successfully managed to become an independent studio and also managed to retain full rights to the hitman intellectual property while seemingly good news on the surface this left many fans concerned about the state of hitman 2 which was at this point according to IO Interactive well into production and would have featured classic levels from older hitman games in addition to a conclusion to the splintered plot of hitman 2016 after months of silence IO Interactive announced that they would be picked up by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment and hitman 2 would be releasing in fall to us in 18 and that brings us to now with the impending release of yet another hitman game which appears to be delivering a near identical gameplay experience to the well-received hitman reboot from 2016 hitman 2 aims to continue the storyline introduced in the previous title while also answering some questions about agent 47s origins there's very few new features hitman two outside of reintroducing hitman blood money suitcase mechanic which allowed players to conceal sniper rifles without drawing attention in addition to a few new gadgets and six confirmed locations that will be available at release the elusive targets also make a return in addition to a new cooperative sniper mode that borrows the design elements from 2015's hitman sniper and the hitman absolution sniper challenge demo based on the available gameplay footage the visuals appear to be exactly the same like we using the glacier engine once again which makes sense considering IO Interactive we're not in the financial position to invest in any new graphical technologies I'm excited to see how hitman 2 turns out and hope the planned expansion missions will feature the return of classic hitman missions that were originally planned either way I'm just glad to see I owe Interactive not only continue to build a franchise that they created but also return to what made hitman such an icon to begin with agent 47 has been assassinating targets and committing identity theft for nearly 20 years most stealth action game franchises failed to last this long without succumbing to the pressure of making their experience into a fast-paced action shooter but IO Interactive's dedication and solid understanding of the core gameplay aesthetics have allowed the Hitman franchise to transcend industry norms while the franchise may have taken a slight stumble with absolutions more story driven experience it emerged better than ever building on the freedom of choice and experimentation that made the series such a hit to begin with I hope you guys enjoyed this look back at the history of the Hitman franchise if you'd like to see more documentaries like this one please consider becoming a member of my patreon also don't forget to Like and subscribe for more videos posted every week [Music] [Music]

Channel: Nick930

Views: 967,206

Rating: 4.9087501 out of 5

Keywords: Hitman, Hitman 2, Review, Analysis, Retrospective, History, Blood Money, Absolution, Silent Assassin, IO-Interactive, EIDOS, Square-Enix, WarnerBros, Agent 47, Documentary, Game, Video, PC, Ultra, Comparison

Id: KfaYkyTMOYA

Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/tonybarnaby]

Good one