Every gamers favourite sharp suited assassin is back complete with his barcode tattoo and shiny polished bonce. The eighth generation of console finally plays host to a Hitman game with fans still waiting patiently for a suitable follow up to the excellent Blood Money. However as was the case with Hitman Absolution, it’s not as straightforward as it seems.

Blood Money was a veritable work of art, a loose story set on a mission by mission basis. Assess, plan and execute, time and time again. It was a game that made you work, it made you think and it punished he very slightest of mistakes. It was an assassination simulation of the highest order and left Agent 47 at the very top of his genre. Time would only polish and perfect the unique experience.

Only it didn’t. Hitman Absolution had lost its way and tried to deliver Agent 47 in some sort of adventure game with little bits of killing thrown in. It took away the finesse and the poise of the original games and left you with part shooter, part classic Hitman. It was much more miss-man and it very quickly found its way to the bottom of my game pile.

So with Absolution nothing more than a slightly bad memory I was delighted to hear that Square Enix were bringing us another Hitman game, one focused on the real task at hand, merciless killing of targets. It was going to be bigger and bolder than Blood Money. There could surely be no catch… right?

Wrong. They’ve chosen to release the game as a series of episodes rather than a whole standalone game. If you want it all in one go I’m afraid you have another ten months or so to wait. If you want to pay £12 now you can get a couple of training missions and a huge Paris mission, or you can throw £40 forward and get the other maps when they’re released. What you can’t do is play the whole game now.

This has caused some issues amongst the gaming community and I can see why. Expensive DLC and additional releases often feel like a way to milk fans rather than reward them, and most are still spinning from the dramatic increase in Fallout 4 DLC pricing. Some may have bought into Hitman not realising they weren’t getting a full game. If you are one of those people it does serve you right for not doing your homework. Did you not wonder why it wasn’t in the shops?

The episodic release could be the breaking of a game that still has much to prove. This isn’t a follow up to a recently successful series, this is the follow up to a game from a decade ago. Gaming changes and in order to make real waves this game needs to engage with gamers old and new, not just those who have been around long enough to remember how good Blood Money was. It needs to generate a new breed of Hitman fan and episodic release is not the way to do that.

Let us put to one side the issue of its release. If a game is good enough then surely its diehard fans will forgive the odd method of release and simply wade into what should be the ultimate Hitman experience, obviously better than Absolution and the rightful heir to Blood Moneys throne. If the game is good enough then those who have not previously dipped their toe in the murky water of contract killing will be relishing pulling out the fibre wire and offing a few high ranking politicians.

The game opens with a couple of training missions which are substantial enough to class as actual missions. They’re probably Blood Money size missions with a boat to infiltrate and then a Cuban air strip to negotiate through as well. I think those people complaining about a lack of content may have overlooked these two small tests, and although they may not be as big as the full episodes we’re expecting they still offered something of a challenge.

The main event is a Paris fashion show, which is as much as I’ll divulge without touching on a spoiler or two. This level is very big, much more ambitious than anything seen in Blood Money or even the better levels from Absolution. The show is brimming with life just as you’d expect a Hitman title to be, with NPC’s interacting all over the place. It looks wonderful with that dark edge you expect from a fully operation killing simulation, but also teeming with opportunity for death and destruction. Good-oh!

The basic controls for Agent 47 really hasn’t changed that much. You still interact with the environment in the same way, finding weapons both impromptu such as a wrench and very real like a kitchen knife. Wield the weapon in plain sight and the guards will be all over you, the key here is to remain low key. Wait for your moments and watch your surroundings. You can creep about crouching or try to don a disguise to fool those around you. It’s exactly as I remember it.

There’s a return for the instinct ability which allows you to see your target through a wall and allows you to track opportunities and items as well. The purists from PlayStation 2 days won’t approve with the addition from Absolution but I find it a helpful touch especially given that the map has got so much bigger.

As well as playing like a Hitman of old it looks absolutely beautiful. The fashion show setting is fabulous, pumping music and lights which really capture the essence of a vacuous and decadent Paris event. The move over to the eighth generation has certainly been very kind to Agent 47 although it doesn’t really test the machines capabilities rendering that bald head of his.

I think my main issue here is the actual relevance of a Blood Money successor so long after its initial release. It’s been almost ten years since it landed and since then gaming has changed significantly. We’ve had immersive experiences Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, we’ve had almost all of the Assassins Creed games and even the majestic Skyrim. Ten years ago perhaps dropping a chandelier on a target was acceptable, but has the series really made enough strides forward to warrant it’s place in a gaming collection of 2016? The weapons roster is very limited, despite such a huge map I could still only find wrenches, knives and screw drivers just like I could ten years ago. The area I was searching in for them was far prettier, and much bigger but the basics haven’t really altered all that much. It’s still about dropping chandeliers or blowing people up.

One hour in to owning the game and I’ve completed all three missions and I’ve come away to write this review. I don’t feel cheated because I knew exactly what I was buying, but I don’t feel the elation at having that natural successor that I’ve waited so long for. I don’t really feel the franchise has made enough ground up in its game play to justify the ten year absence. I was poisoning wine when I was 28, at 38 I need to feel that something has grown and developed in those 10 years. Assassins Creed has arrived, evolved and imploded in the same timespan but it seems in terms of gameplay, Hitman has stood still.

Maybe I’m missing the point, maybe I have outgrown the Hitman franchise and it is actually delivering the same game it always did. The diehard fans will want to replay each mission again and again, taking down the marks in a variety of different ways, and I’m sure they’ll be scheming on ways to get the silent assassin award. Maybe they don’t care that it’s simply the same game in a much bigger and better world.

There are the other game modes to take into consideration though, especially the Contracts mode which allows you to create your own contracts and hits. It was the saving grace for Absolution and I’m sure the developers feel that having that mode adds depth. Why would they go about setting up contracts for you if the gaming community can do it for them? There’s undoubted depth in the mode but only when there’s a few different maps to experiment on. I know they’re coming and hopefully there will be enough there to keep the game alive.

I’m not writing the it off completely, true fans of the Hitman series will welcome 47’s return with open arms. There is plenty to keep you coming back, not least the new levels that will be landing throughout 2016. It still has all the ingredients of the old game, that unique element to the experience that sees you planning and preparing, watching and waiting. This game does make you think, it certainly isn’t one to simply pick up and play. It looks and sounds beautiful and those extra levels will only add new experiences. I’m just not sure that the game play lends itself well to such a big single map. Extra missions and maps on a smaller scale would have immediately widened the appeal with losing too much from the current experience. We’re still just killing one or two people, do we really need such a big playground to do it in? Wouldn’t it be better to have five or six little playgrounds? 

I hope that  the new levels will keep me coming back because I feel there’s enough here to eventually make up a great standalone game. At the moment though it is definitely suffering for the method of it’s release.

RATING     78%