Hello and welcome to The Back Page, A Video Games Podcast. I’m Samuel Roberts and I’m joined today by Matthew Castle. Hello. Matthew, this podcast is all about Hitman. We have, in the past, talked about some games individually. We’ve kind of like happened across this format where we’ll talk about a big new game and then attach some kind of fun feature onto the side of it. So in this episode, we’re gonna talk about Hitman 3. We’re gonna go deep into the game, talk about the new levels, that sort of stuff. And then in the second half, we’re gonna do the top 10 Hitman levels across the World of Assassination trilogy. Matthew, do you think that’s gonna make for some exciting content? I think it’s gonna make for some incredibly exciting content. This is a game which has been a key part of my game playing habits for the last few years. So I feel like I’ve got plenty to say and I love ranking stuff. So it’s basically a match made in heaven. So anyone who listened to our James Bond episode is probably aware of the fact that we’re both big fans of IO Interactive’s Hitman games. How would you classify them genre-wise, Matthew? I know this is often a kind of pointless activity, trying to figure out what things are. It’s kind of an old magazine box-out mentality, I guess, of what genre is this? But do you consider these stealth games, puzzle games, some kind of hybrid? I’d say stealth game first and foremost, but with leaning towards a kind of interesting social stealth. But there are puzzle elements in it. There are action elements, for sure. There are kind of sandbox elements. It’s like a stealth sandbox. Yeah, for sure. I kind of thought about this. In terms of sandbox gameplay, it’s obviously nothing like a GTA or anything like that. But there is a kind of enjoying the environment element to Hitman, particularly this trilogy that’s extremely powerful, just enjoying the kind of sense of place. And this new game taps into that very well also. But I found that when we were ranking our levels, which obviously we’ll get to later, I was definitely leaning towards the ones that were like the prettiest or sounded the nicest. So it definitely is like, it’s a huge part of why these levels work right. It’s not just how good are the ways you can kill someone. It’s how pretty is this place that I’m gonna spend probably 10 hours trying to perfect? Yeah, there’s a big sort of fantasy kind of escapism version of this. I mean, it’s basically luxury holiday destinations. Like Agent 47 never gets sent somewhere crap. You know, he never has to go to like buttlands. You know, it’s not the places I went on holiday as a child, for sure. Well, you say that Matthew, but this new game has Dartmoor in it. And if you could go to any place in the UK, would you pick Dartmoor? No, probably not. I mean, it’s a big stately home. It’s, you know, it’s got like national trust energy. And I’d probably, you know, I am a national trust member. So. We’ll show off. No, I think it’s just my mother not really knowing what to buy us for Christmas. So a rolling subscription to national trust, or, you know, rolling membership to national trust. It’s not as posh as I think you think it is. Yeah, I think you’re probably right. I just think the idea that you said subscription makes me think of like, oh, I’m gonna binge some national trust landmarks. Oh yeah, I’m gonna binge some manners. So Matthew, why is Hitman such a big deal to us specifically? Why don’t you talk a bit about, you know, why these three games have resonated with you so much? Yeah, I think they resonate mainly because they’re kind of the version of Hitman I’ve always wanted. This particular series has been with us for a long time. I mean, it kind of kicked off just as I was really getting into games. And the idea of you play as an assassin is kind of the cool shit that as a 13 year old or whatever, it is just so laser targeted at your mind. You know, like, this isn’t just any old action game. As a concept, you’re this kind of strange bloke in a suit. You’re gonna go in, you’ve got to kill one guy. You know, it’s gonna be really slick. I’ve always loved the idea of it, but it’s taken like a long time and a few stops and starts along the way for the series to actually kind of give me what I wanted from that idea. That isn’t to say it hasn’t done it in the past. You know, Hitman 2 is pretty solid. Blood Money, obviously, amazing game, which this build, the new trilogy, I’d say builds on a lot. But for me, this was, this just felt like the version I’d always been waiting for. So yeah, kind of combination of that and it just being a series which has just been so regular through my gaming life, I guess. Yeah, so I think about, we discussed this a bit on the James Bond episode, but the thing they just really got right with this trilogy, this World of Assassination trilogy, is that the controls are just perfect, the interface is perfect. And Hitman had always struggled with that to some degree. That’s not to say everything about how you interact with this game is perfect. Anytime it’s a shooter, I still don’t think it really works on any level. Yeah. But when it comes to the sort of like, grab a guy, climb in here, do that sort of thing, there’s nothing fiddly about it. They basically built this format for this template for the whole game and then kind of created levels that made the most out of that format. And so as a trilogy, it’s a bit of a weird one in the sense that like they’re collectively, it’s an amazing game, but when it comes to just those sort of core specifics, it never really changes that much, which doesn’t count against it, because like you say, Hitman’s been around for so long and it’s just never been this slick. So yeah. Yeah, just the, it was so obvious when you played, you know, whichever of the World of Assassination you play first, in just five minutes, you could tell that they’d fix some like massive, massive problems with the game. I think like the disguise system just suddenly made so much sense. The fact that, you know, it brought, you know, got you into certain areas and it was so clear at illustrating or communicating rather, you know, you know, if you were just going to get in trouble for being there or if you were going to, you know, kick off action for being there. I love the whole kind of costume, the dots, but I don’t really know what we call those characters, but there’s characters who’ve, who can see through your disguise, I guess. That just felt like there was just an amazing amount of clarity to it. I just think the rules really solidified perfectly for this trilogy and what they’ve added in each subsequent game’s kind of been like a few interesting mechanical twists, but nothing as substantial as the kind of heavy lifting that was done in Hitman 1, I think. Yeah, so even though obviously the series started as this kind of episodic releases sort of format, that did change to kind of full games, but the episodic nature of it, I think, still remains in some form. Each time you buy a new game, you’re kind of buying a packet of levels. Now, I would say that each game varies quite wildly in terms of like, well, not wildly, but there’s definitely a running thread, I think, through the different levels that you see in each of the three games, particularly in this last one, which we’ll get to. But Matthew, I was wondering, do you think that the World of Assassination trilogy is more than the sum of its parts? Because I feel like whenever I see Hitman getting reviewed, it always gets like a round eight out of 10. There’s been a few nines this week as Hitman 3 has released, but I feel like collectively the experience is amazing, but individual, when it comes to individual games, like it’s been a kind of a weird one to sort of celebrate and highlight why it’s so good. Do you think that’s the thing with this? Yeah, definitely. I think that’s partly because it kind of crosses the ground of like, crosses the streams of like individual games and almost this kind of bizarre games as service model. And I find them quite hard to unpick. Like taking these individual games, I find them quite hard to talk about. Like in my head, it’s just this massive snowballing thing. So kind of regardless of how good the individual groups of six levels are, the fact that it brings the older levels forwards, you can basically import the levels from Hitman 1 into 2, then you can import the hit levels from 1 and 2 into 3. And it updates them to the kind of tech standard of the newest game. So in 2, they added the mechanics they’d added in 2, they went back and retroactively kind of added things to the levels from 1 so that they could use those mechanics. Like they added a load of bushes that you could hide in. I love the idea of that someone’s job is you just have to go through these, you know, quite tried and tested levels and just plant a load of bushes down for Agent 47 without like breaking the level. Yeah, patch notes, Paris has bushes now, you know. Yeah, Colorado is just like crazy, it’s like Bush City that place. And then you have like three, doesn’t really add many mechanics as such. It’s more of like a visual makeover. So the appeal now is just going back and playing 1 and 2 and seeing kind of how the levels look with their new lighting and shaders and all this kind of stuff. But yeah, so I find it very hard to unpick it all. Like in my head, I’m kind of reviewing it as an individual game. So I reviewed three, but like as a collective thing, it’s kind of a 10 for me, the trilogy. Because I just see it as this massive, very consistent coherent project that I really, really enjoyed. Yeah, so we’re gonna do the best games of the generation in two parts over the next few episodes. And I’ve been trying to work out in my head how to make Hitman figure into that. Yeah. I think it has to come down to the three games. Because like you say, even though the games have moved on PC to the Epic Games Store, which is a very mild inconvenience for PC players who have been enjoying it on Steam, and has definitely had some teething problems in actually transferring your data across. When you install this 80 gigabyte file and you have all three of these games levels in there, it is such a rich package. I played the whole set of them when Hitman 2 came out, within Hitman 2, and at that point, it was incredibly, it was already loads of content in there. I played it for like 80 hours and had a really good time. But now, the idea that you can buy this as one trilogy, I mean, this will just keep, I assume, keep selling in Steam sales for the next 10 years, and people will be writing on subreddits going, how good is this trilogy of games that I missed when they first came out? And yeah, I think over time, it will probably be celebrated as much as it should, but I don’t know if in the short term, it will ever quite get the credit it deserves, you know? Yeah. Would you have liked it if they’d carried on doing all of them episodically? Did you enjoy that? I don’t know what your relationship with one was, but. So I played Paris and Sapienza as they came out, and then I kind of left it. I think that the problem was that that episodic structure, when the first Paris level came out, and I remember having server issues, I remember thinking, this feels like, it feels rough as a first taste, because clearly the level’s very good, but you almost wanted a grander look at what they were selling you, because you could buy the whole game, or you could buy them individually. You kind of wanted an idea of what they were going for, was every level gonna be like Paris, that sort of thing. So the unknown factor, I think, means that I don’t necessarily love the episodic idea, because I do think that some levels are worth more than others. That’s not to say I think that any of them are total write-offs, but you could definitely say that there’s a couple of Hitman 3 that stand above the rest in terms of how many hours you can potentially play them. So I think having them episodically makes you think too much about the value of what you’re buying, whereas having them in a package, not so much. What do you think? Yeah, no, that sounds about right to me. I did wonder if, as the thing goes on, a person playing Hitman 3 and 2 and 1 for the first time now is getting such a good version, the best versions of all those games, the most complete version of them. And I don’t know if I’m a little bit jealous because I played Hitman 1 on Xbox and then I played Hitman 2 on PC and I had to get the levels again on PC. So replaying all the levels in one, I didn’t resent it. I still enjoyed them, but I couldn’t bring in my progress from Xbox. And a little part of me was like, oh man, if I’d come to this fresh, this would seem so exciting. And I think that of people playing Hitman 3 for the first time now, you’re like, oh man, if you get all the levels, that’s like 20 levels with the two DLCs as well. I mean, that’s just, what a treat. Yeah, especially because you can play them on next gen consoles and have the higher frame rate and resolution, what an amazing package that is to just have. Yeah, I kind of agree with you. That said, I almost considered not bringing my progress across from Steam and just playing all the levels again from scratch and having that feeling of unlocking all the different stuff again in each one, because I know I’ll play them all again at some point. Yeah, well, I actually didn’t bring my progress across, which, because when I was reviewing it, the transfer wasn’t working, and by the time I’d finished reviewing it, I’d played Hitman 3 for about 40 hours, unlocked so much stuff that I was just thinking, do I really want to delete? Or, you know, I was weighing up, do I want to do Hitman 3 again, or do I want to delete my progress from Hitman 1 and 2? And I just figured, ah, screw it, I’ll just do 1 and 2 again, and like, I haven’t really got a problem with that. You know, I’ve, there are some levels which I’ve played a lot more than others. Like I still feel like in Hitman 1 and 2, there are levels that I still need to like, kind of properly dig into. I’m maybe like halfway there with them. So yeah, I figured let’s start from scratch and just not worry about it. Yeah, I consider that too, because yeah, Hitman 3 being so recent and all. But I figured I could keep my saves for, I’ve got saves for a couple of them that I think I can just finish and then I’ll just get a load of points. And it should work out all right, because you don’t copy your save data across. Getting too granular there about what I’m gonna do with the transfer tool. But yeah, I do think it’s just, yeah, it’s an amazing suite of stuff. Like when we were ranking the levels, just seeing them laid out like that does just put in your head, like they built so much stuff over these three games. This is like more than six years’ worth of work for them. Shall we get into Hitman 3, Matthew, after a short break and talk about how it compares to the first two? Let’s do it. Welcome back to the Hitman chat, Matthew. Fantastic. I was gonna make a joke at the end of that first segment about needing to use the bathroom, the classic Hitman line, but I just didn’t have the guts to do it. Yeah, I sort of, I am the same as I was in part one, except now I’m dressed as like a waiter who’s gonna choke a guy to death. Yeah, there you go. So Matthew, you have played more of Hitman 3 than me. I’ve played about 20 hours of it. I don’t feel like I’ve mastered all of the levels. I haven’t finished the last level because the Hitman 3 servers went down when I was playing the game last night. So, why don’t you talk me through your overall thoughts about Hitman 3 and how you feel about this game compared to the other two. So I feel like a few alarm bells rang when Hitman 3 was approaching because there was a lot of talk from IO about the story, and this being the end of the World of Assassination trilogy as if the trilogy story was anything anyone cared about. Maybe there are people out there who do care about the overarching story. I do not, and I was a little worried that the last time they went sort of deep into story, it all went a little bit Hitman absolution. So I had some fears of like, are they gonna like mess with the formula? And then I played the first two levels, Dubai and Dartboar for preview and I was like, actually, these are pretty great levels. You know, I’m kind of confident in this, but having played the whole thing, I do think it is, I think there is a noticeable increase in the amount of like narrative in the game, both around the levels and within the levels. What I think is interesting is that actually it doesn’t really derail the levels as much as they thought it was going to. In fact, some of it’s quite strong. I think some of the story beats, particularly in some of the mission story stuff are pretty neat and pretty fun mix of like classic Hitman and slightly more kind of scripted guided experiences. Fundamentally around those, I still feel like it’s, you know, everything I love about Hitman 1 and 2, like it’s the classic sandbox levels, it’s the unlockable challenges that give those levels this sort of huge replayability. But yeah, so generally, you know, I feel like the thing they were adding this time was a bit more like narrative heft rather than any mechanical tweaks. For the most part, it was fine. I do think, I think the last level was a real duffer. I think it actually ends on quite a bad note. I was quite annoyed by that, but I was having such a good time with levels one to five that it hasn’t like derailed the whole thing for me. So it’s like a little black mark at the end, but generally speaking, I think this was like a pretty kind of coherent collection of levels. You know, we’ll talk about some of the individual levels later, I’m sure. Did that sort of gel with what you made of it? Yeah, for sure. So I remember when we spoke before Christmas, you had played the preview code and you’d played the Dubai and Dartmoor, like you say, and you said, I think they’re gonna be less replayable this time, just based on your sort of first impressions. And I think that is true in the case of some of these levels. That’s not to say that I think that the narrative has spoiled anything about them. In fact, what’s really interesting about this game is that the narrative stuff only happens once in some cases. So you get a kind of narrative-based objective. It’ll be like a blue marker on your heart instead of the red markers for the targets. And once you’ve completed them and you replay the level, you don’t have to do those same narrative beats. You can just focus on killing the targets. Now that is a real like, you know, you can actually have it both ways. Here is the level, the sandbox level that you want as a traditional Hitman fan, but also here’s a story that we’re quite invested in telling you. And like you say, it yields some fairly interesting stuff in level the first time around. Out of level, I mean, I’m so sick of that beardy guy just going, we’re gonna sneak into this bank. Well, I’m not going to, you are. And I was like thinking, I just, I was so sick of that guy. Just what a jebend, just like appearing in cut scenes and being like- Is that the Lucas Gray, is that his name? Yes, that’s it, yeah. Yeah. And so I, yeah, it does, I would say that that stuff is better than it is in Hitman 1 and 2. Like definitely. They have tried harder to do it, even though I think the cut scenes look a little bit ropey. Oh, they’re, so the weird thing was, Hitman 1, the cut scenes were quite like flashy. I think, you know, they’re quite, I think they’re actually the best the cut scenes have been in the trilogy. Hitman 2, it used like static character models. They weren’t animated. Then they’ve animated them in three and I was thinking, ah, they should have stuck with the static models. Like, I wonder if they went with the static models because, you know, it was just easier and like cheaper or whatever. And, you know, we obviously don’t know what the kind of financial dealings are behind this game. But because they’re self-publishing it, I wonder if it’s under sort of tighter kind of budgetary constraints. But the cut scenes themselves are like, they’re quite bad by modern standards, I think. Like, technically. They’re just, they don’t quite make sense next to the very high production values of the levels. Well, that’s it, the levels look better. I don’t know why they don’t do all the cut scenes like in Engine, because they just look nicer. Yeah, I agree with your point, though, about narrative in the levels, too. Like, you hear a lot more sort of ambient conversations that aren’t necessarily related to mission critical stuff, but they are there to basically help set the scene more of what’s going on in the level. And I got a really nice, I replayed one of the levels, the Chongqing level set in China, and I started in a different point to where you start the level when you’re playing it through the first time in mission. And there’s a really nice conversation with this between Agent 47 and this woman who’s meeting her friend. And she’s like, oh, you got that too, yeah. I mean, it’s great. Yeah, this is a really charming touch. And I think that it’s that weird thing of like, how Hitman has such a clear personality in game, but never manages to make that work in the cut scenes around the game. And it’s a very strange dichotomy, how storytelling can be so strong while you’re playing it, but then outside of that, not at all. It’s a very bizarre little thing with this. Yeah, and I said this in my review of it. I was criticizing the story, but I don’t think it’s a badly written game at all. Like, it does, the writing does so much heavy lifting in the levels, like the NPC dialogue. It establishes the location, it establishes the targets, like their given reputations. Because it basically, you know, at the start of every level, you have your kind of handler explaining to you why they’re total bastards and you have to kill them. But in the level, that story is like told and reinforced, where people are like telling anecdotes about the horrible stuff they’ve done, or everyone’s scared of them because they’re like going to go mental and like throw a guy off the top of a roof or something. And there’s a lot of character there. I also think like the world building’s really well done, like with references to other levels, names you’ve heard, businesses you’ve heard, like the actual, you know, the idea that you’ve been picking through like the elite of this world’s population, and they all know each other, and they’re all kind of like, oh yeah, my lawyer is that guy you killed in Bangkok in level one or whatever, in Hitman 1. It all kind of comes around. It feels really consistent. There’s a lot of good, like fun incidental payoff for fans of the trilogy. Yeah, I completely agree with you. Like you hear that odd name where you’re like, oh yeah, I pushed that guy off a roof, or a guy sniped him because I tricked another assassin into killing him, you know. Yeah, it does that really well. And like, yeah, it just kind of builds a sort of overall fiction. I was curious, Matthew, so one thing I noted between the different levels in this game is that I think they’re more interested in vertical levels in this game. There are, in most cases, so many floors, different floors, to explore when it comes to the levels in Hitman 3. There’s like basements upon basements, loads of kind of hidden areas, that sort of thing. This is particularly prevalent in the China level, but. Oh yeah, God, there are so many levels in that. There’s a building that goes up to level five, and then there’s like a building that goes down to like minus level four or something. Yeah, yeah, and so it’s quite bizarre, but it doesn’t just apply to that. Like Berlin is quite similar as well. That’s got quite a lot of going up and downstairs to get to different sort of levels. And yeah, and it doesn’t apply quite so much to Dartmoor, but even Mendoza, the Argentina level, that is also got quite a lot of like going up and downstairs and finding, basically just exploring the level in more of a kind of vertical way. And that presents these kind of weird puzzles of like, actually, how do I get to a place? Because I’m not entirely sure where the staircase is to this place I’m supposed to go. And that was the kind of running thread I picked up on in this set. Yeah, it’s, so Hitman 2, like if it had a theme, it was just massive levels. Like Hitman 2 is defined by sprawl. Like they are, the actual like, the meter square area of the level is vast for most of them in Hitman 2. I don’t know if Hitman 3 has like any level that is nearly as big, you know, in terms of spread. Like maybe Argentina, the sort of Mendoza vineyard is a pretty big level, but it’s pretty sparse at the same time. A lot of it’s just like fields, you know, chonking is like, could have had the spread of like Mumbai, but actually it goes up and down rather than out. The whole game felt a lot more condensed to me and it’s sort of stronger for it in a way. Like I feel that the levels are like more immediately entertaining. You know, after playing through three, I went back to replay some two for our rankings and some of the levels I was just like, oh man, how did I ever get my head around this place? Like, Mumbai is vast and the map is so confusing. Like there’s so much going on in that level. Like there are basically, you could fit three Hitman 3 levels into Mumbai, I think. Yeah, the thing is I think Mumbai is one of the levels I got truly obsessed with in Hitman 2 and I think I got my time on it down to about 10 minutes. God, blind me. I really quickly learned in sequence how you can very quickly kill the woman in the train car by pretending to be the dressmaker or whatever and then you can slit the throat of one guy while he’s having a haircut and then the movie producer guy, I kind of figured out a way to choke him out very quickly and hide him. So yeah, I figured out a way to do it but I agree with you that felt like, oh, I’m in like a rock star open world game or something because it is enormous. Yeah, but three sort of, I don’t know, they’re kind of, each level makes its point a bit more, a lot more quickly and there’s sort of almost less going on. You know, in two, there are a lot of locations which actually when you pick them apart are kind of three separate levels. Like there’s not much interplay between them. While here, like, you know, Dubai’s kind of got this split of like the kind of public area and then the kind of penthouse. But it’s pretty consistent. It doesn’t take, you know, it’s one staircase that links them and it all kind of makes sense that there’d be a penthouse there. And then you’ve got the Dartmoor Manor, which is just obviously a house, quite small. I mean, it’s once you get your head around it, it’s probably one of the smaller levels, I think, weirdly. You know, and then Berlin again, like it looks massive and scary from the outside, but it only takes about 20 minutes and then you’ve kind of got the feel for the place and it’s kind of one main building with a little hideout out back. I just felt like you can make inroads a lot quicker and start digging into some of the more interesting stuff in three than you could in two. It just felt like, in the way that the cinematic stuff is maybe a bit friendlier, because it puts quite a flashy face on it, so too do the general levels feel like they kind of, I don’t know, you kind of cut the meat of them a lot faster. Yeah, I think that’s probably true. I personally was slightly disappointed by the fact that this game has fewer mission stories per level than any other game, any of the other two games. So that’s like, the mission stories, just for those who don’t necessarily know Hitman that well, these are basically like guided narrative opportunities to kill your target in the game. You’ll listen to a conversation, usually you’ll take the role of someone else, and then you will find a way to access your target. And they were quite controversial at first, but to like traditional Hitman fans, because people want to find their own way how to do it, and they don’t need to be told what to do. But I personally really enjoyed them because I’m sure you did too Matthew, just for the dialogue you get from Agent 47 and the different kind of like fun scenarios that it throws you into. This game has, in most cases, I think, three mission stories per level. I think Mendoza has maybe four. But yeah, what did you make of that? Because I personally felt like I had fewer reasons to replay because I like hoovering those up as a player. Yeah, I think it’s kind of misleading because I think on paper, yes, there are fewer, but there were lots of assassinations and opportunities in the level, which when I was doing them, I felt like, oh yeah, this could have easily been a mission story. There’s enough phases to this, for this to be a mission story. I felt like they almost, they put them in for some, these are the big story beats you should not miss in this level. But everything else you can find for yourself, some of them, I’m still sniffing out some of the opportunities, some of the assassinations and signature kills, so I haven’t really worked them out. But I think the more you play it and the more you dig into it, you feel like you worry about the mission stories less, I think, with this one. But the initial reaction, mine was very similar to yours as it is now, like you do feel like, oh, is that it? And you have to kind of dig in. They’re good though, some of the mission stories. I think they’re generally better told. And, you know, some of them are massive, you know, obviously the Dartmoor one is the big sort of standout because the Murder Mystery Investigation is one of the mission stories. And it kind of dominates so much of a level that you wonder maybe if it’s just harder to do more mission stories, because so much of what’s there is designed specifically for, you know, this central murder investigation. Yeah, so I think that the beefy kind of narrative content on that first play through does kind of make up for the fact that you don’t have as many of the traditional mission stories. And so, like you say, Dartmoor is probably the strongest example of that. So Matthew, let’s go through the levels individually then. So we start with Dubai. And this level I thought was very much like similar to kind of Paris and Miami in terms of its archetype, populated kind of party setting. What did you make of it? Yeah, that’s fair. It’s sort of funny now that when you play these, you do try and slot them into like what’s come before. And you’re like, oh, this is Paris meets blah. Yeah, I like this one was quite packed in. I guess you’re getting Paris because like the art installation is very Paris and the kind of back area of that. But then getting up to the penthouse. I don’t know, I like this one. I just, I like, I think visually, I just really like looking at the windows and seeing all the other buildings popping out and all the hot air balloons. Like, I think the sheer wow factor gets you over the fact that it’s kind of another hotel and you know, you’re breaking into the behind the scenes area of an art installation. So that there’s lots of technicians and scaffolding and everything. And you’ve seen a lot of these individual parts, but you know, you get to climb up a drain pipe outside in a tux looking like James Bond. So you kind of, or Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, probably better example. So it doesn’t really, I don’t know. I think that the actual visual setting carries it a lot for me. Yeah, I think that, I don’t think it’s bad by any means. I think it’s actually quite good value in the sense that it is quite a good tutorial for the game in terms of how the narrative element of that level plays out. It does guide you through, you know, do this, do that, and then basically locks you onto a path to finishing your target the first time through. And then obviously you can enjoy as a sandbox level afterwards. So I think you’re right, the spectacle makes up for it. And I would rather have this than Hawke’s Bay, I think, which is a level I like, but there has more going on as a first level than Hawke’s Bay did, you know? Yeah, definitely. So Mission 2, Matthew, this is the Dartmoor level. You told me about this before Christmas, and you described it as the, you know, the knives out level, which I think a lot of people have been comparing it to. So fundamentally, you are, basically just have to kill the matriarch of this family, but there’s this weird element where the matriarch of the family has already been reported that she’s dead and they’re holding a fake funeral for her. But also her brother, who is like a recluse who lives in this mansion, died the night before. So a lot of murder going on. And one element of the story is obviously you kill the target, the matriarch. You are also trying to figure out what happened to her brother. And that is where the large sort of detective aspect comes into it. You can take the place of a private eye and look around. So doing this, Matthew, you said to me like, you can only really do this mystery once. And you’re right. Once you know who’s done it, that’s kind of it. But what an amazing experience to go through the first time, right? Yeah, it’s great. It’s just so weird being in a Hitman level where you can basically go anywhere. I think there’s like two rooms in the whole house that the detective isn’t welcoming. So you can just drink it all in. Like, you can drink in the other levels, but there’s always an element of stress involved in certain places. But here, it’s just like, oh, and it’s like going to a National Trust house, except it’s going to a National Trust house. Except, you know, at the end of the visit, instead of going to have a delicious piece of carrot cake in the cafe, you’re going to get to murder an old lady. So it’s like extra special. Yeah, and it’s like, it’s very well observed. Like, you know, the mystery isn’t complicated, but there’s a cast of quite fun characters. You know, you exchange a few lines with them. You get to hear Agent 47 do his incredibly sort of stilted dry delivery, which I really like. I’m a big fan of any level that gives him a chance to say a lot of stuff because it’s just, it’s such a weird vocal performance. It’s so kind of key to those games. And it’s so ridiculous that it really works. You know, and there’s a bit of fun where different bits of evidence, you can kind of pin the murder on two people, or you can kind of uncover enough evidence to kind of accuse the real person. So, there’s a bit of variation in the end and what happens and, you know, the mystery takes you all over the house. Yeah, it’s fun, but, like you say, once you’ve done it once, you feel like you almost want to have a permanent save file once you’ve collected all the clues, if you ever have to go back to that level, because you just don’t want to ever do it again. In terms of like, oh god, am I really going to collect all that stuff? I’ve boiled it down to an art now where I know like there’s literally two clues I have to pick up to finish that entire storyline. And that’s what I do, just if I need to get out to see Alexa really quickly. Yeah, this level is kind of an amazing looking place as well. So it’s this, you know, Dartmoor Manor in the middle of like a countryside. It’s misty in the grounds outside. Off to the left, when you arrive at the manor, you’ve got this kind of like, well, what is the term for that area off to the left? Is there a little graveyard there? Yeah, it’s like a chapel and the family graveyard, yeah. Yeah, and then behind the mansion, you have like a greenhouse and like a maze. It’s really just a beautiful place. And then inside the manor, it might remind you of the Paris level in terms of how ornate the setting is, how lovely the ceilings look, lots of lovely ceiling textures in this game. But I agree with you. I wouldn’t want to repeat the detective element of it, but I was kind of like so entranced by the detective element, even though there’s one tool you get given in Hitman 3 that’s not in previous games, that’s actually quite important to this mystery. And it took me about an hour and a half to figure out that that was the case. So that extended how much time I was spending looking into the mystery generally, but I didn’t ever mind being in the level. And a friend of mine, James Peckham, who I work with on TechRadar, uncovered a way that you can take out the target that I had no idea was in the game. And when he told me about it, I was like, holy shit, that’s amazing. To do with how you present the evidence, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, it’s just an old timer. Would you play a whole game that was just like a detective game built around these kinds of levels, Matthew, do you think there’s enough mileage in that? Yeah, I think it would need a few more detective mechanics because really all the game is is collecting clues. And once you’ve got enough clues, you know, Diana says, oh yes, it’s time. You know, you’ve got enough clues to pin it on so-and-so. And that’s fine. Like, you know, I didn’t expect it to have like a matching the clues to statements, kind of Phoenix Wright style contradictions. I mean, God, I’d love it if like the Phoenix, you know, if there was a Phoenix Wright game where the investigation portion was in a 3D world as beautiful as this. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love walking around locations and investigating. And it’s the kind of production values that like the Sherlock Holmes games can only sort of dream of. But yeah, it’s not like, it’s not really a detective game per se. What you’ve got here is, you know, but that would be unfair expecting it to be, I think. Yeah, for sure. And what is here is amazing. Like you say, it’s a house of absolute bastards as well. Like it’s just some real like awful characters that you meet along the way. And I expect that doing the escalation missions in this mansion would be lots of fun. I’ve not tried them yet, but I read the premise of one of them and I was like, that sounds pretty cool. So yeah, lots of fun potential to take out the different members of the family. Yeah, it’s an interesting one because outside of the detective story, the level is like completely hostile. Like Agent 47 just shouldn’t be there. So actually as a stealth challenge, it’s pretty pure. It sort of, it goes from like one extreme to the other. There’s like the ultimate costume that basically gives you access to everything. But outside of that, suddenly like the level is way harder than it maybe initially looks. Trying to do like a suit only run on this, I think is going to be one of the harder ones. I haven’t done it yet. Yeah, I’ve not, I don’t think I’ve done a suit level, sorry, suit only run in any of the levels in the three games. So maybe that’s something I can do. I’ve done Silent Assassin on pretty much every level apart from our next one actually, which is Apex Predator, which is a level set in Berlin, primarily in a nightclub. Now, this is an amazing setting, Matthew. What did you make of this level? Yeah, I mean, I feel kind of bogus saying like how accurately it captures this environment because anyone who knows me knows that a thumping Berlin nightclub set in industrial estate is not really my stomping ground. But even I, you know, I’ve watched films. I know the deal with clubs, you know, it’s loud and you get inside and it’s incredibly loud and then you get outside and the sound kind of carries. The audio in this level is amazing. Also, absolutely disgusting bathrooms, which is reflective of the very few club experiences I’ve had. Like no toilet seats, no doors. I mean, how are you meant to take a shit with no seat and no door? I guess it’s implied that you take a shit before you go to the nightclub. Well, you might eat some food. I don’t know. You’re gonna be there a long time, aren’t you? Yeah, I mean, it does seem to be in the middle of nowhere as well on the outskirts of Berlin. Well, that’s it. I mean, the toilet situation at that place is dire. What’s funny- The toilet and train spotting look quite nice. What’s funny though, Matthew, is that in the last like five or six years, I’ve only been to one setting that I would describe as nightclub-ish, and that was with you in Germany, and we did dance to a DJ called Baby Man. So I think you’re giving yourself not enough credit here, you know? That was one of the wildest evenings. I always remember turning up to that place, and there was just a piece of A4 paper on the door, and it said, Baby Man, 10 euros. And I remember looking at it and thinking, are we baby men? Is that what it’s saying? Like all the baby men coming, like adults, 10 euros. You are the baby men. But no, it was sort of an experimental jazz dance act called Baby Man. I do like that you thought that it’s like, baby man was some kind of metaphor. You find the baby man. I just thought it was a tariff. It’s like, oh yeah, you’re a baby man, 10 euros. You’re a baby man, 10 euros. Not you, you’re a sound. You can come in for free. Well, without getting too into that, I remember the next day thinking, if I vomit, I will never live it down because I am the editor of PC Gamer, and that will be extremely embarrassing. But anyway, I will continue with our discussion of the Apex Predator mission. So we’re trying not to spoil the different levels here, and I don’t think we’re going to, but there is a cat and mouse element to this where you don’t know who your targets are, and you have to figure out who they are. And I found that this was quite flawed. I found three of the five targets fairly easily, and I think the game flags them up for you. But the rest, I found the process of getting them to be a bit arbitrary. What did you make of this level? Yeah, it took me a while to click with it because I didn’t really know what I was looking for. I didn’t really know what the trigger was to kind of identify someone as an agent. You know, at first I thought, do I just have to look at people and then start killing them if I think they’re agents? I mean, that’s a dangerous game because I’m glad I didn’t do that because it wasn’t true. I won’t say what it is, but they have some sort of tails which then mark them. And once you know who they are, it becomes a bit easier. I actually preferred this level, playing it repeatedly down the line because once you play it a second time, it actually does reveal the location of everyone on the map. And then it just becomes like this huge, like quite weird like murder puzzle because there’s so many potential targets, so many different ways of getting all of them. You know, if you’re into the kind of high score chasing element of the game where you’re trying to basically cut time off to get to a higher rank, I think this level is going to be, it’s quite an ingenious challenge from that perspective. But it maybe lacks, it’s probably the lowest like narrative content of all the levels because the agents are quite anonymous. You know, you don’t really know much about them. They’re basically just names. And so I didn’t feel as satisfying kind of actually hunting them. Yeah, I think that’s probably fair. But, you know, as you mentioned, like the fact that you can replay it and have the narrative element entirely removed is quite the gift from IO Interactive because if that was stuck in the game every single time, it would be a real pain in the arse. But when you trim it out, it basically becomes just a pure stealth challenge. On a side note actually, Matthew, I was wondering if you thought that if IO Interactive was to take another pass at Sapienza, would they cut out that last bit where you go down and mess with the sample in the cave below the mansion? Because I thought playing this, that if that was a Hitman 3 level, on a replay they would take that out so all you had to do was kill the two targets. What do you reckon? Yeah, yeah, 100%. That is like, the most important lesson they’ve learned is don’t force people down a linear corridor at any point in the level, because it’s just, it runs counter to what the games are. If anything, I would say, I would also have the target revealed in Mumbai, the third target, the maelstrom. Like I wouldn’t make people have to sniff him out before he appears. That would be another change I’d make. And also at the end of Whittleton Creek, I wouldn’t make people search for the clues about the agent. I’d just have kill these two dudes. I’m actually sort of surprised they didn’t retroactively tweet those levels, because, you know, why not? They’ve shown that they can do it in this one, and the levels are fine, because you just force people to do it the first time. But yeah, that’s like easily the smartest move in this game, because Chongqing, I think, would just be a disaster if it made you do the optional objective every time, because it’s so boring compared to the rest of the level. Yeah, so let’s move on to that one then. So yeah, Chongqing in China. So you have basically, they showed off these lovely screenshots of this, you know, amazing street with neon lights and rain. And there is like one street of that. But most of the level is not that. Most of the level is an underground facility, or kind of like a big sort of decaying building where there’s some medical experiments going on. Your two targets are quite interesting, I think. And they have an interesting relationship that you can sort of play around with in one of the mission stories, which I really liked. But I thought the narrative ending to this level was the worst thing in this entire trilogy. But I have not played the last level, Hitman 3, yet. But I thought, even though you only have to do it once, I spent so long doing a meticulous silent assassin run that I was forced to kind of drop because the story wanted me to do some bullshit, and that really annoyed me. What did you make of it? Yeah, basically the same. I mean, it was a real… That’s a real Hitman absolution level. The end stretch of it is a real like, oh man, this is so obviously not what people want. Like a kind of forced action thing. And you can sneak through it, but it’s messy and it’s like stressful and chaotic. Yeah, it’s the end of that. When I first played it, I was like, oh man, this level blows because of this. And then I played it the second time, and a level has never gone up in my estimations. Then when I saw, you know, you didn’t have to steal it. I mean, it’s interesting actually, because Dartmoor does have an objective that you always have to do. Like, there’s no getting out of it. And I think they probably counterbalance that with the fact that there’s only one target, and it’s quite a small level. So it doesn’t feel as sort of egregious that you have to steal this file in the level every single time. But yeah, Chongqing, Man Alive, it’s, yeah. Once is a godsend. Yeah, there’s, so revisiting the level, I did enjoy it more. I do think that this really fits into the Mumbai and Marrakesh archetype of having two targets. Obviously there are three in Mumbai, but two targets who are quite far away from each other. And if you can, you want to get them to meet, so you can make life easier on yourself. But I think that Mumbai was a better version of that personally. This didn’t quite do it for me. And I can’t also deny that that opening in the street is so amazing, and there’s so little of it in this level, relatively speaking, that you can’t help feeling like a sprawl in that environment would have been amazing. Not to be too much about what the game could have been, but the underground facility is not a very interesting space really. It reminded me a bit of Hokkaido with some of the different sort of like door keys that you find and stuff. Yeah, that’s their attempt to try and make your hacking camera relevant throughout. There’s just not enough levels to introduce a big mechanic and then ramp it up in that time. So this is the level where it goes all in on the camera. But up until that point, you’ve had to maybe use the camera like five or six times, and suddenly having to scan everything to activate it, and it just feels like, I don’t know, a bit of a clumsy level-only gimmick. I don’t know why they just didn’t use the gimmick from Hokkaido, which is the clothes are the key or something, but who knows? The camera very much smacks of like, it’s the third game in the trilogy, we’ve got to put something new in there. And it didn’t really need it. And yeah, this level didn’t do much for me. So Matthew, Mission 5 in the game, The Farewell in Mendoza, Argentina. So what did you make of this level? I think it’s phenomenal. Yeah, this one’s an absolute stonker. And it’s weird because it isn’t actually the most replayable level. It’s pretty easy to clean it out in terms of the big signature kills and everything. The actual challenges on it aren’t that deep. But as a setting, as a place where great stories happen, it’s so cool and suave. It feels like the finale to the game in a way that the sixth level doesn’t for me. It feels like an ending. It hinges… I won’t spoil the exact gimmick, but you get some in-level assistance from another character at points, which just feels very different. Narratively, it’s very satisfying. One of the exits to the level is just pure class. This was the closest the trilogies got me to caring about the kind of characters and thinking, oh yeah, they’re all right. It just looks as a location. Amazing, this ultra-elite vineyard and winery. Just walking around it is just such a treat. It’s such an unusual place. Yeah, so I would compare this one to Sapienza just in terms of… I don’t think the opportunities run as deep as they do in Sapienza, but I do think that as a setting to just enjoy and the way in which there are different parts of it that feel like individual zones connected together in a really nice way is just a wonderful place to be. It felt like a lap of victory to me by IO. It’s like, this is everything that you love about Hitman in one level. Yeah, and I thought it was phenomenal. Definitely. This is also there. I mean, obviously they already had the license before this game came out, and I imagine it’s been long in the works, but if ever there was an audition for a James Bond license, this is it, because it is so classy, it is so Bond-like. Everything about it is exactly what it is. If there was one level you could just replace Agent 47 with Bond, this would be it. I think there’s an underground layer element to it. There’s a fantastically cinematic villain introduction. If you take one of the paths through a level, it’s quite interesting. There’s one of the mission stories becomes another mission story halfway through. I don’t know if you’ve got that one yourself. Yes, I did. It’s really exciting. Weirdly, it takes it into quite linear cinematic territory, but I actually think it works really well. I thought this level was just absolutely superb. I feel like every possible amusing situation you can envision happening at a place where wine is made happens in this level. Every kind of wine-related mishap you can think of is put in this game so beautifully. It’s such a funny level as well. There are so many funny bits in it. The wine tour is just like… It’s the first time I’ve laughed out loud at just an onscreen button queue because this chat basically says, what do you want to look at in the wine factory? And everything just sounds so violent. I saw the names of the things. It’s like, well, we’re obviously looking at that. It’s such a good level. And also another level that’s got some really good ancillary characters who just play a minor part in the overall story of it but just really bring it to life and loads of great conversations to listen in on. Yeah, I love this level. But Matthew, I’ve not actually played the final level because of the aforementioned server issues. So why don’t you tell me a little bit about it? So it’s the Carpathian Mountains, which I saw the name of it and was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I won’t spoil the exact nature of it. I mean, it’s out there on the internet, but I figure it’s kind of a reveal within the level, the actual nature of the level. It’s an incredibly linear A to B journey. I mean, literally, the level is kind of a glorified corridor. And it just doesn’t deliver anything you want. It’s the closest the game felt to me, like a big interactive cutscene. There are a few challenges. You can still try and do a stealth run, but the level gives you permission to shoot your way through it if you want. It just says, yeah, this is the end of the game. Everyone here is a baddie, so you may as well murder them. But the person you really want to kill is at the end of this long corridor. And I just… As an end to this trilogy, this thing which has just been building and building and building and teaching you how to deal with these sandbox spaces, for it to veer so aggressively into this linear place, it’s just not like any of the other levels. It’s really disappointing. Weirdly, I think if it was at the end of an action game, it would be fine. It’s quite nicely done. It looks fine. It’s not broken or anything, but it just… None of the skills you’ve learned are put to the test. They just don’t know what it is as a mechanical challenge. And they’d probably say, well, it’s not. It’s a big narrative ending. It’s the big payoff at the end of the game. And you’re like, well, I don’t know how many people have been playing this series for that purpose. So to suddenly lean into that crowd and try and give them their happy ending or their big ending just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s the end of a Bond game is what it is. It’s not the end of a Hitman game. That’s my slightly dour take. But I’ve seen other reviewers seem to be more into it. But the assumption that it only has five mastery levels compared to 20 and the others, which is the same as Hawke’s Bay, the first level Hitman 2. But that level, it’s tiny, that little house on the beach, but you can play it lots of different ways. And there’s still a lot of high score potential where this, I really didn’t feel it. So it kind of bummed me out. But then I played level five again and was like, you know what, I’ll just imagine this is the end of it and it’s fine. Yeah, like that feels like a true finale to the Hitman, the Hitman style that I like, I guess. Yeah, and then maybe you start asking questions of like, well, if it’s only got five proper levels, does that diminish it somewhat, you know? Because there are some people who just look at Hitman and go, wait, 50 quid for six levels? And you’re like, yeah, but they’re amazing levels and they’re like levels within levels. And trust me, you won’t feel like they’re just six levels once you’ve connected with it properly. But that argument is slightly harder when one of them is like exactly what you think, you know, a level is in a game. Yeah, exactly. Which is just, I don’t know. And I didn’t go hard on this because, you know, it’s not like I had any particular suggestions, but it’s notable that 3 doesn’t add any, like, major modes. You know, 2 added the sniper assassin mode. You know, it had a lot more mechanics going for it. I still feel like 2 feels like the biggest game in terms of, like, if you bought a game off the shelf and it’s got all these features and bullet points on the back of the box, 3 is a little bit like, here’s some levels and some more story, I guess. But it doesn’t have as much to offer as a complete thing, unless you’re into VR and PlayStation, I guess. Yeah, and even then, I hear that you have to install the PS4, if you’ve got a PS5, you have to install the PS4 version of Hitman as well to play the VR stuff, which… It’s just a bit of faff, but like I said, we were saying at the start of this podcast, the idea of it being more than some of its parts, like it just felt like a big, satisfying ending. I liked most of the levels enough, some I really loved, and so the whole thing kind of, I don’t know, just kind of clicked and worked for me. I didn’t feel too sour by the end of that sixth level. So very briefly then, Matthew, what do you think this does tell us about IO’s James Bond game? Without repeating ourselves too much of what we discussed on the previous episode, I wondered if some of the heavier narrative elements were hinting at, like, this is what you might see in a Bond game made by this studio. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, as I think we’ve suggested on this episode, where they have more intrusive narrative bits, they actually work better in this. Like, when the game does switch to linear, apart from that last level, there are some great sequences that feel like Bond sequences, particularly in that Argentinian level. One of the stories can end with quite a dramatic objective you have to achieve in not a lot of time. And actually, that felt very Bondy to me. It didn’t break the rules of Hitman. You could still approach it from stealth, or you could go in all guns blazing or whatever. I thought this maybe hinted at, or showed a team that was a bit more comfortable, blending excitement and their stealth rules in a way which I think could be quite good in Bond, is my read on it. I think that’s probably fair enough. I think I was most worried that, I guess in my head, I want this James Bond game to always let you play in stealth. I don’t want a shootout to be the optimum way to play. And I wonder if that actually fits, because every James Bond film, modern James Bond film, has a big shootout in it. You can quite clearly see that’s just not what they’re good at. That was my only note of caution from this. If they’re going to make a Bond game that’s got some heavy action sequences, they need to get better at that stuff, because stealth is what they’re good at. But there’s some of the introductions to the levels, which looked like a huge amount of work was involved, in terms of they basically build some areas which aren’t really in the level. You walk around them before you get to the level proper, and then you can skip those cinematic, playable areas. They felt like maybe a warm-up for bigger levels in Bond. Before you get to Chongqing proper, you’re walking along these kind of walkways in China, and you see the city ahead of you, and it plays this amazing music, and I was like, oh, actually, this feels a bit more like the kind of linear scene setting, a lot of very filmically framed. That would go well in Bond. Some of the music in this, I think, is very Bondy and good as well. Yeah, I’ve still got high hopes. Yeah, for sure. And the effort they’ve put into some of the exit sequences as well feel very, very Bond, even more so than previous games. Yeah. I share your enthusiasm for their next project, Matthew. Yes. So, we’re going to take another brief break, and then we’re going to run through our ten best Hitman levels across the World of Assassination trilogy. So, look forward to that. I need to use the bathroom. So do I. Hey, oh, sorry, you don’t need to use the bathroom. I think I meant in real life. No, no, I just said that as a joke. Do you actually need to use the bathroom? Yeah, I do, sorry. And I completely did not twig. Maybe we should keep this in the podcast as a kind of easter egg. There was actually one small thing I forgot to mention about Hitman 3 that I will keep in the recording, the one that we put out. And that is it’s so funny that the guards have never changed. Like, their voices are still the same. I’m like, I’m in Dartmoor in England and there’s a guy saying, sorry buddy, gotta pat you down and I’m there thinking, I bet like 10 Americans ever have been to Dartmoor, you know. Have you heard the Bond Mission Impossible line? No, I haven’t actually, what’s that? One of the guards pats you down, he says, I bet you think you’re in a James Bond or a Mission Impossible film. Okay, very good. Well, on the nose, but you know, it tells the story very well. Okay, now I will take an actual break and go to the bathroom. Matthew, welcome to the final part of the podcast. Nice. Yes. So we’ve killed two people, is this on the run now? Yeah, this is completely arbitrary, main objective, steal a file, and then get in a speedboat. You know. Yeah, so Matthew, we decided to collectively rank our top 10 Hitman levels. Before we do that, which are the worst levels in the Hitman trilogy? The Carpathian Mountains. Yeah. My apologies to those still playing Hitman 3 and yet to reach that, but they stink. I think everyone rails on this one a bit, but I’m not mad about Colorado. Yeah, I hate Colorado too, and it’s telling that it’s got too many targets basically, and the opportunities, some of them are okay, but it’s just kind of a field with a few houses. But that’s it, it’s like, it’s notable, because it’s probably the most hostile area. You know, it’s a bit like Dartmoor, it’s an area you can’t get in without, you know, you need a costume to be, you know, to be anywhere in it. And it also ends with that terrible bit where you have to make the mask of the man’s face to get into the door. And also, there’s like three paramilitary guys, and basically the dude from Halloween. Really strange character. It’s like totally, it’s very odd that the fourth person you have to kill is this like weird, freaky dude in a mask who’s sort of torturing someone in a basement. Yeah, that is… I don’t really remember this level that well, but I felt like I spent the entire thing in the basement of a house, just waiting for dudes to come in while I choked them out. And yeah, I don’t think anyone really reflects on it fondly. I didn’t really replay it all that much, whereas every other main level in the Hitman games I did. Yeah, one thing that it does have going for it is that the Patient Zero, which is a DLC campaign that repurposes some of the levels, the Patient Zero version of Colorado is entirely from a sniping tower, and it basically becomes a sniper assassin level, which is quite interesting, because then you’re trying to shoot people to set up traps and things, which I quite like. So it redeems itself slightly. To own up to my own shortcomings as a Hitman fan, I have not played the escalations in most of these missions, and I have not played the… I think there are three additional campaign bits you can play, and it’s very cool that they exist, because they do just give you reasons to replay these amazing levels. But yeah, that’s my kind of apology in advance, I suppose. I’m not the biggest Hitman fan, but I feel like I know these levels fairly well. Oh yeah, yeah. Are there any others that you don’t think are very good? I’m not wild about Santa Fortuna. Mainly because, again, it’s a bit flat. It’s a huge spread, and it feels like several individual levels. I maybe like them individually, but I don’t know if there’s much interplay between the building site, the drug farm, and then the drug mansion. I quite like the drug mansion because it’s got all this weird… It’s got a museum of all the notorious shit the guy’s done, which is quite fun. But individually, I like those areas, but the whole thing… But it’s not a disaster. The gulf between that and Carpathian Mountains is vast. It’s still… I mean, I actually… Doing this list, I found it quite hard. Once I got out of my absolute… These are the few I genuinely love, love, love. A lot of them I really like, so it’s quite hard to pick them apart. Yeah. I like Santa Fortuna because it has… It has not made our top 10, I should say, but it does have, I believe, a place where you can kick a dude into a pool and he’ll get eaten by an animal. It’s like an alligator pit. Yes, and that is surely one of the better opportunities. It’s a really fun one, really silly. I like that. There’s that one where you get to play in that band, which is ridiculous because they’re all in sombreros and things, and you are obviously not one of the band. I like any assassination where Agent 47 suddenly pulls off an amazing feat of musical ability that we didn’t know he had. When he takes out the drummer in Bangkok, then he comes in and plays this huge drum solo for the album, and everyone’s like, you are one of the world’s best drummers. And you’re like, no, he’s not. He’s just some psycho. Yeah, I like that that’s kind of like the Santa Fortuna is like a sequel moment to that. It’s like, oh, you’re the new like superstar supporting player in this band. That’s your job now. Now, I don’t really like Bangkok all that much as a level, but I remember that opportunity is phenomenal. Yeah, really, really fun. I don’t really have many others to kind of dunk on. I was surprised by the quality of some of these. And another thing I wanted to ask you, Matthew, was are there any honourable mentions for levels that didn’t make the list here? Because I was thinking of a few. Like, Hawke’s Bay is a really good intro level as a tutorial and a standalone level. And I’m pretty sure that it inspired the introduction to The Invisible Man, the recent new version of that. The house that the dude lives in is very similar, I thought, in terms of setting and lighting. Yeah, actually, I can see that. Yeah, and that dude definitely likes games, the director. Yeah, I like that level. It’s a great little time attack challenge. It’s so small. It’s quite a fun one for, like, if you’ve got mates who are into, like, the leaderboard stuff, that’s quite a fun one to, like, mess around in. I actually, like, I quite like the tutorial level, the ICA facility, because I like the concept that it’s, like, a couple of famous hits, but kind of recreated on a film set. And, like, so it’s all kind of fake. You’re not really hurting anyone. They’re all actors, but everyone’s kind of milling around, and it’s all made out of plywood. Visually, I really, really like that level. I think it’s really good fun. And you kind of get two weird levels for the price of one. And you get to eject a guy through the roof from a plane, which is fun. That is good. That boat, actually, in the ICA training level, it’s hard enough that I think, like, it put me off the game initially a bit, because there are a couple of opportunities that make it very simple, for sure. But it’s quite dense with people, and it feels slightly intimidating as a tutorial level, I would say. But I also like it. I also wanted to give a shout out, Matthew, to the New York level, the bank level, that’s the Hitman 2 DLC. I played that recently, and I thought the opportunities in that were fantastic, and your target is such a dick. And I really enjoyed that. I also enjoyed playing Hitman. In Hitman, Agent 47 will occasionally assume the role of a Mr. Reaper. And in this case, he was going into a bank to try and get a loan in a meeting, and he’d go into this room with frosted glass and then choke out this bank manager, and you’re like, this is pretty great. It’s a small level, but a really, really solid meat and potato sort of Hitman level. Yeah, it’s good. Yeah, I almost voted that a bit higher in my overall list, but having to rob the actual bank again is a bit of a pain. It’s not as much of a pain as the end of Chongqing or having to destroy the virus in Sapienza, but it’s not got quite as many options as the hit itself. And that’s a bit of a… Well, you’ll see across my pics, that’s a bit of a deal breaker for me, those elements. Yeah, absolutely. So Matthew, we’ll get into the list very shortly, but what’s our criteria for this list? For me, I put down environmental design, opportunities, memorable moments and replay value. And I think that’s… I’m sure that’s probably your criteria too, right? Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I like for there to be some great hidden assassinations, like not mission stories, but things that feel like big signature kills that you kind of have to work out. I really like when there’s interplay between the targets, where you can manipulate them to get them together, or they don’t just feel like two levels, kind of chopped, set in one location. I like it when there’s a bit of a crossover. Absolutely. So, Matthew, let’s start with number 10. So how we did this was, we had like a kind of 1 to 10 sort of choices basically, and then we kind of put them together, and whichever level got the kind of highest score from the two of us combined, that’s what you’ll find higher up the list. So I explained that very badly, but it’ll make sense when you listen to the selection. So Matthew, number 10 is Mumbai, and I don’t think you like this one as much as me, right? I voted this higher than you. Yeah, I like the individual parts of this level has got some great takedowns. I love the actual setting, being in Mumbai is really exciting. The voice works great. Hitman 2 was a big step up on Hitman 1 because it actually had sort of local voice actors. So it wasn’t just English people voicing all the Indian characters. It just sounds really exciting and authentic. I really like the stuff with the Bollywood director. He’s a super obnoxious dude, like a great villain. I still, like I haven’t put as much time into this as some of the others, so I’m still thrown by some of the scale of it. I guess it’s one of my problems. There’s a lot of milling about. And it’s quite a hard level as well, I think, because even as Agent 47 there are guards out to hunt you down. There’s like a kind of, not a cult, but like a secret kind of military in the middle of the city, which is kind of out to get you regardless. So it’s, I don’t know, it’s quite a challenge, this one, I think. Yeah, I think that it’s a level that actually feels smaller the more you play it, which applies to all of these levels to some degree, I think. But it is still pretty massive. Like, the fact that the Bollywood film producer is in like a kind of half a skyscraper, basically, and a load of floors, like, even though it is smaller than a real city would feel, it still feels massive. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, obviously, like you say, you have the element if you have to draw out a target. But I think this one’s just spectacular, just an amazing place to be. And I really, really like the opportunity where you kill your secret target by being the barber. And then, like, even though there are loads of people outside, you just kind of close the door, and then you, like, kill the guy while you’re kind of, like, you know, grooming him, basically. Yeah, it’s funny. There’s a few kills like this where you disguise yourself as, like, the person the target is coming to see. And the barber, I think I remember this right, he stands out the front of the shop, and you can basically turn away everyone who isn’t your target, so you can look at them and be like, not you, not you. And then this one guy comes along and you’re like, yes, you, which is the most fucking suspicious thing a barber could possibly do, in a crowd of three people go, no, no, yes, you, sir, that is a neck I want to shave. Which I found when you’re the waiters as well. It’s like, you’re not having a drink, you’re not having a drink, you are having a drink. And then the guy dies of poisoning and it’s like, hmm, that was suspicious. Yeah, that is quite silly, the sort of like bartering sort of element. Also, that kind of reminds me a little bit of doing Shenmue, where you try and like get people to play lucky hit or whatever. Like, yeah, just like say, hey, you, yeah, come over here or whatever. And it’s like, dude, you just take the business, you know, but yeah, I think that’s a really fun opportunity, but I must admit, I’ve not. I think that’s the only way I’ve ever drawn out that target, because it’s too much of a pain in the arse. Otherwise, I can’t remember if there is another way to draw him out. I assume there is, but there’s a thing. I think there’s a thing you can do where you put these like blocks of like burning, like smoke out of chin knees to like call someone. It’s a bit like when the Pope dies, except you’re trying to murder some gang member. So it’s quite different to when the Pope dies. I also think that the opportunity in this, where you come across an assassin who’s been sent there to kill the Bollywood producer, that’s like a phenomenal, you can go over and like listen to the assassin and you know, kind of get, then get your target closest to the window. What a beautiful, a beautiful end that is. Yeah, definitely. That is strong. Yeah, so that’s, yeah, that’s number 10. But number nine, Matthew, is the aforementioned Berlin level in Hitman 3. So yeah, you will like this more than me. And I will say that one of my problems with this is, like I say, it was trying to figure out who the targets were, but also felt like I was denied a couple of silent assassin kills from it. I will no doubt like rectify that when I replay it. But yeah, I do feel like I spent a long time in this being a bit more frustrated than I hoped. But I can’t disagree that the sense of place here is amazing. It does feel like being in a nightclub, even though I’ve only been to a nightclub like six times, you know. Yeah, exactly that. I think it captures the sense of place. I think the fact that there are so many targets you can pick from makes it replayable from a kind of leaderboard perspective in quite a fun way. There’s a really good signature kill in the level where you pose as a DJ and like fuck with some pyrotechnics and the crowd go nuts. Oh, there’s also… There’s a guard who’s one of the harder targets to draw away from his pattern. He’s like walking circuits of a dance floor. So there’s tons of people. There’s literally no way you can grab him. But there are these like industrial fans blowing like smoke into the crowd. And you can like heave a brick of cocaine into the fans. And it goes into the crowd. And it makes the agent sick. So he runs off to the toilet. But when you throw the brick into it, the crowd loses their freaking minds. Like they will start dancing like extra fast. That’s awesome. I didn’t do that. I did see the fans and I thought… It’s really funny. It’s just… Maybe I’ve overrated this one because of the fans, but I like that. The pyrotechnic thing is fantastic. Yeah, that is really, really good. And also, there is another… It’s not a mission story formally, but like you say, it’s a signature kill where you can basically pose as the owner of the nightclub. Wow, that’s good. Yeah, that’s really silly and really fun. Yeah, so I like this level too, but not quite as much as you. But maybe I’ll change my mind on a replay. That’s the other caveat, is that I haven’t played the Hitman 3 levels as much as I’ve played 1 and 2. There’s maybe a bit of recency bias, but I’m sure this list will stand the test of time. Number 8, Matthew, Haven Island, the Hitman 2 DLC. Talk me through the way you like this one. Yeah, so I like this because it’s a big self-contained area. It’s like a tropical paradise where people go to have basically their identities not removed, changed. You know, you can have plastic surgery or kinds of things. It’s this sort of like getaway for the rich, but with like a sinister kind of tech undertone to it. I like the fact that you have, you can go anywhere on these like little islands. Like the location is self-contained. You can go anywhere on it. It’s quite flat, quite wide. I guess it’s quite similar to some other locations. It’s another like hotel slash spa slash relaxation place. And I quite like all the levels in Hitman where you can go to the reception desk, then get a key to your hotel room and then go to your hotel room and like put on some other clothes. Just because nice hotels are a bit out of my price range. And it’s just that for me is an escapist fantasy. It’s quite a sad one, but going to nice hotels and getting to pretend that you’re checking in is quite nice. It’s got three targets. There’s some quite nice interplay between them. There’s a really fun opportunity where you can get two of them together in a jacuzzi and finish them off at once, which I really like. I like that there’s no extra guff objectives. It’s just kill these three people and then escaping the island. There’s boats all along the shore, basically, so you can get out quite quickly. It just feels like there’s a lot to do here and it’s quite fast moving. It feels like a more successful version of what Santa Fortuna was going for. I was just thinking of Santa Fortuna because obviously you’ve got a mansion area that’s siphoned off from the rest of the level, but also doesn’t feel like an entirely separate part of the level, right? Yeah, it’s slightly cut off, but it connects in some interesting ways, and I like the fact that the three targets hate each other as well, so there’s a little bit of trickery and some stuff you can do with that. Yeah, it’s just a nice… And it’s just a beautiful bright blue seas. It becomes increasingly stormy as the level goes on. I don’t know if that’s tied to who you kill, but the vibe of the level changes. I’ve never quite worked out how that works, but it’s just, again, someone having a lot of fun working out what are all the ways you can die in a tropical resort. Yeah, for sure. I read something on the subreddit for Hitman that was saying that this level does a very basic, old game design trick of placing trees in front of places you can go to make the level feel bigger. And it is quite a small location when you think about it. It’s like three very tiny, I think it’s three islands. And then like a load of connected sort of cabins and stuff. But yeah, I agree with you. The sense of place is really nice. There’s like a sunken boat off the shore, which is really a really cool touch. And considering the amount of space there is, there are some cool opportunities here. And good sight lines as well, because there’s no like, it is just trees in the way. You can kind of see quite long stretches of the island. So there’s some sort of fun, snipey businesses to be done as well. Yeah, plenty of territory to hide bodies as well. Yeah, just a really good level. I really rate it. I think a lot of people, probably of all the levels, haven’t been as widely played. Surely the Hitman 2 DLC levels are probably the least played of any of them, right? Yeah, it’s a shame because Bank and Haven Island are like, two of the best levels. I actually think they’re weirdly more like Hitman 3 levels now that I’ve played Hitman 3. They haven’t got the same sprawl as the Hitman 2 levels. The Bank is more in keeping with Dubai and Dartmoor in terms of size, I guess. They also, story perspective, they fill in the gap between 2 and 3, so they could have been the start to Hitman 3 in another world. Yeah, as it stands, I think it just reinforces what you say about how Hitman 2 is the most complete-feeling package of the three. Yeah, with some extra DLC on the side, but definitely it’s huge as a thing. So number 7, Matthew, is Whittleton Creek from Hitman 2. Another one I think I rated higher than you did. What’s your read on this one? Yeah, this is often seen as a homage to Blood Money, where you had another air level set in the suburbs, where you were trying to take off a target. It was under the protection of FBI, I think, or being watched by FBI, I can’t quite remember. So it’s just a big suburban neighbourhood, much bigger than the level in Blood Money. I mean, there’s a good, at least, six or eight full-sized houses you can explore, their back gardens, the roads that connect them. There’s a huge barbecue party going on in the middle. It’s just a brilliantly realised location, tonally, after the chaos of Mumbai and Miami, you’re suddenly in this very chilled place. There is a lot of security there, weird, around the targets, but a lot of the level you’re quite free to explore, a lot of very fun, silly, comedic opportunities. The only reason I ranked it slightly lower than you is, again, because it has this objective where you have to find some evidence to prove, to reveal one of the other characters for the overarching story, which is a bit of a hassle. If it didn’t have that, I’d probably rank it a bit higher. Yeah, this also has, I think, one of my favourite kills in the whole game, which is you can plant an explosive in a mole hole and then get the target to look inside the hole and blow it up. That’s a really fun, silly outcome. I really love this level. I think the sense of place is fantastic. I love that it’s this kind of Americana feel, but in all these prefab houses. Like you say, you can explore the houses, but the layout is deliberately always the same. But there’s actually quite a few secrets hidden in each of the different buildings. And that barbecue does feel really nice. There are a surprising amount of cool opportunities and characters whose role you can take in this one. And the colour palette is perfect. It’s just a really nice summer’s day. It really feels like a real place. But it has that slight David Lynch blue velvet thing of the sinister stuff that hides under suburbia. There’s some twisted stuff in some of the basements and things like that. Yeah, just a really… What are the best ones to explore, I think, in terms of rewarding your curiosity? So Matthew, number six is the Dartmoor level from Hitman 3. We talked about this fairly extensively already. I feel like I always know that I’m truly into a Hitman level when my intention is to blast through the story, but then I stop, and then within my first single save, I do every single mission story, and I explore every single part of the map. And before I know it, a day has passed, and I’ve just been playing that one level. And I definitely got that with Dartmoor. It’s just a really nice saying. Yeah, I’m constantly amazed by how many, like, every painting in the house is unique. Like, it’s just full of art asset. I mean, it really is. It’s like an astonishing thing, the interior of that house and the detail of it. For me, this is actually a level that came alive in the Escalation contract a bit more, because, like, I think as a pure stealth challenge, it’s quite an interesting level. And sneaking around it, like, actually trying to get through that place, you know, in, you know, your suit or a weird costume that’s given to you by the Escalation contract is quite hard. Yeah, but I won’t spoil the content of them, but there’s some good stuff with that one. Well, so number five, Matthew, is Miami from Hitman 2. This is one we’ve not really talked about much yet, but probably, like, closest to Paris, I think, in terms of it feeling like it’s a live event, and there’s a lot going on. Like you say, though, there is an element of it where the racetrack and the sort of, like, facility next door feel like quite different places, and then you’ve got kind of a sort of seafront area too. But I just really love this one in terms of, like, it’s actually quite a simple level. You can finish it really quickly when you know how. It’s the one I think I’ve probably, like, masked the most, like, run up a ladder straight away, then push one target onto the racetrack when the car’s coming around and kill both of them, and then you just leave. And it’s really, really simple. That’s one of my, like, all-time favorite kills in the series is the pushing the dad onto the racetrack so his daughter explodes into him. It’s like, that to me is the perfect, like, the interaction of the two halves of the levels. Like, you can, that you can do that. But there’s loads, and there’s so many ways to, like, mess with the race that’s going on. I like the fact that the target is kind of, she’s in the car until she wins, and then if she wins the race, you know, which you can manipulate through some means, you know, that takes her into this other kind of celebratory area. There’s a really, really good take down involving a game of, like, shot roulette where you’re drinking sort of, you’ve poisoned this sort of shot of tequila and they’re sort of spinning this wheel and you’re having to, like, drink a shot and then she drinks a shot and you’ve got to try and set it up so that she drinks the poisoned shot and so that’s really good. This has got some great hidden take downs as well. It’s just a really fun level. I like the fact that it’s really colourful. There’s that stupid flamingo dude all over the place. You can dress up as a giant flamingo. Yeah, it’s got everything you want. It also had the Sean Bean evasive target. Elusive target, yeah. Which I really enjoyed the way they sort of lent into this sort of unkillable Sean Bean meme. It was really fun. Yeah, I like sort of side note on that actually. I kind of wish that they would, now that the third one’s out, bring back all of the elusive targets as a kind of optional mode. Like, I don’t think they’ll do it, but all that extra content they’ve built, it would be cool to just enjoy it all. Yeah, that should be like the sign off to the series. Like, when they’re truly done with it, they go, have the lot, like, this is no longer a game of service, just have it. Yeah, there is, like, we have built, you know, at this point there is about 400 hours worth of stuff you can do in this if you want to. Yeah. No, I love that Sean Bean one too. I thought it was brilliantly realised. And again, like, even though it’s the same setting, you’re basically playing a different level, right? And, like, they recorded, like, voice acting for it and… Yeah. Yeah, very, very fun. That’s the other interesting thing. I now play levels in Hitman 3. I sometimes think, well, this area isn’t particularly used by, like, any of the main mission that much. I wonder if this is, like, an elusive target area. And I think by having fewer mission stories, there’s quite a lot of untapped potential in quite a few places in Hitman 3. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, I look forward to seeing what they do with that. But, yeah, that is my hope, because, invariably, I never have time to do the actual elusive target. So I’ve probably done about 5% of them total, you know? Right, yeah. Yeah, so I love Miami as well. It’s a beautiful level. And I don’t think I’ve even done that shot roulette opportunity. It’s good fun. Yeah. Also, just being the kind of in the pit stop crew for that and making the car crash, that’s just a really simple but great one. Yeah. So number four, Matthew, is Hokkaido, which I believe was your highest voted in our little Google search. Yeah. I love Hokkaido. I think it’s the perfect balance of size. It’s not that big, but it’s packed with some really fun characterful takedowns, some really quirky stuff. They did more ambitious stuff in 2 and 3. This is the last level of Hitman 1. But you’ve got a guy on a surgery table who’s been watched by loads of people. So you basically just have to mess up the surgery via lots of different means. And there’s a woman walking around this luxury spa, which is the kind of recovery area for the people in the surgery center. It’s all set in this absolutely gorgeous kind of glass spa atop this mountain in Hokkaido. I just love this area. I love the actual design of it. I love the location. Again, it ranks highest on my places I’d most like to be. A bit like with Haven Island, it ticks that box of Agent 47 gets to have a little room of his own, which I really like. I really like breaking into other people’s hotel rooms and stealing their shit. That’s also really fun. And you do that in a lot of levels. You do it in Bangkok, do it in Haven Island. But here you get to… I don’t know, here it’s like the perfect version of it. I love the twist that instead of keys, the costume, the disguises are like they’ve got like IR chips in them that open the doors. And so you have to have like the most powerful costume is also like a skeleton key for the level, which is just really fun. It opens up like it feels like certain costumes suddenly cause the level to blossom, which I think is what they were trying to do with the kind of key cards in Chongqing. But it doesn’t have the same excitement for me of kind of, you know, you start off in the very public area of the Hokkaido spa, and then you kind of punch through to the kind of industrial stuff. And then you punch through again to the kind of the medical center where, you know, it’s obviously, you know, there’s a super valuable target there. So there’s loads of security. I just I thought this was it’s just incredibly tight. It’s a level I’m really looking forward to replaying because I haven’t brought my progress into Hitman 3. So I’m just going to do it all over again. Yeah, I just it’s also it’s very bondy. It’s just like a beautiful base on top of a mountain. Like I expect Blofeld to live there. So maybe he will. Yeah, so I hard agree that this is much better in its execution of like the keys idea than anything in that level in Hitman 3. And I think that this kind of hinted at a more experimental level structure that I don’t think the rest of the series quite pays off. Like as the kind of closing level to Hitman 1, that was the impression I got from it. It’s like, oh, this is like, you know, this door mechanic isn’t that complicated to understand, but it is elegant and quite interesting and does give you a different way to explore the levels and think about how you explore the levels. And yeah, I think I really rate it as well just for being experimental on that level. I also really love that the exterior, you can go to the exterior, the snowy exterior, but then, you know, walk into this incredibly kind of warm, nice environment. It really captures that feeling of coming out of the cold and going into this lovely warm space. Yeah. And it’s beautifully lit as well. Yeah, yeah. It really benefits from the visual upgrade in Hitman 3 as well. Everything’s shinier, everything’s a bit more kind of polished. Yeah, I just really, really like this place. I mean, mechanically it does something interesting. The opportunities are there, not the biggest level in the trilogy, but just a really solid execution, a great last level as well, you know, to the game. Been a couple of years since I’ve done this, but I remember there being a great opportunity with a sauna and another one where you pretend to be a yoga instructor and push the target off a waterfall. Anything where Agent 47 gets to say funny words in his super dry voice, like yoga poses, is just, I mean, that’s gold. Okay, great. So our number three, Matthew, is Mendoza from Hitman 3. So we talked about this a fair amount. Is there anything else you kind of wanted to add on this level? Again, Agent 47 describing lines is very, very funny because it just sounds like, everything sounds like he’s describing murders, but he’s actually describing lines. You know, it’s classic. One small thing I really like about this level is that when you start it, you are on the outskirts of this party, and then when you approach, you can kind of head into the party or off to the left above where the party is taking place at this vineyard, there is the mansion where one of the targets is. And you can get a military disguise quite quickly and head towards there. And I like that whatever you kind of, whatever you pick, whether you just go with the kind of story mandated, like, oh, you’re the guest at this party, or whether you go off and be the sort of soldier off to the left. Like, it feels like there are two really different approaches just at the very start to, like, that experience, which I really like. I mean, for me, I didn’t even really get to, so the target Yates who’s up in the kind of, like, manchurian bit, I didn’t even get to that environment until much deeper into the level. And I really like that it was kind of, I don’t know, I think however you do it, you get to peel away loads of different layers to this level in a way that’s just really satisfying. Yeah, definitely. On an animation nod as well, the dancers on the dance floor look absolutely sensational. They’re dancing a little tango and you’re like, wow, you don’t actually see NPCs dancing like that often in games. It just looks really nice. Did you also hope that you could get Agent 47 to dance? I was looking around thinking, who is, like, there must be a woman on the outskirts going, damn it, where’s my partner? I’m meant to be tangoing right now. And then you just join in. I thought that would happen, did you? Yes, yes. I mean, there’s a bit of dancing in the level. So Matthew, number two is Paris from Hitman 1. So the one I’ve probably, I think loads of people have probably played this the most because it was the first one that came out. And so it was all you could play. But while I did play on PS4 at first, it wasn’t until I came back to it on PC that I really began to appreciate this level. There’s a weird kind of tension in Hitman between stuff that plays out as soon as you arrive in a zone and a kind of ticking clock that’s happening in the level generally anyway. So some events will begin and end while you’re exploring the level. And sometimes you’ll just flat out miss opportunities because you didn’t realize a thing was happening while you were there or that it would end. What do you think of that overall design element to the game? The idea that there’s some stuff that’s static and other stuff that’s always ticking down the clock. Yeah, I think it actually becomes less of a concern as the games go on. I felt like particularly in 3 there were a lot more fixed routines that would play out forever unless you kind of changed them some way. But I remember missing a lot of stuff. And I remember speed being more of a concern in Hitman 1. Like getting from A to B so that something happened in time or something didn’t happen in time where I think it got a bit more generous in that regard. But I think you’re right. There’s definitely a lot more of that tension and you feel it here. But this is just a great level and I think I probably rate it highly because it was the one which was like, wow, they’ve nailed this Hitman formula. Like, this is just gold. I mean, so much of the heavy lifting is done in this level and then they just have to roll this formula out again and again and again. I’d love to know which level they actually built first. I’m assuming it’s this one as it came out first, but as a proof concept. I imagine I’d love whichever level came out first and I’d have a soft spot for it because it delivered the Hitman fantasy. But this is a great level. The building is super old and has this historical edge. It’s probably closer to the Dartmoor house in a way. It’s very ornate inside, but it’s been taken over by this ultra-modern fashion show. So there’s this quite fun conflict between those two worlds. And then you have… The upstairs auction is like a classic Bond set piece playing out right there in the first level they made. And I like that you can infiltrate the kind of upper levels in your starting tuxedo just with an invitation because you’re dressed for the occasion. You can go in as Mr. Reaper and that’s just a classy touch. I really love this level. I think it’s sort of, like you say, the interior of the mansion is just fantastic. Again, the ceiling textures were just sort of off the charts. There are numerous opportunities and mission stories that are really, really fun. The one where you’re the model on the runway is… That’s just terrific. I really like it when Hitman leans into being super silly. That is a level that does it very, very well. I think that it probably was the first one they built because I first saw it at, I think it was announced at E3 2015. I remember seeing the demo there and they had the level fully built, more or less. I feel like this probably was the one they started with. It does have that thing of, it feels like a sandbox, even though you can actually finish it very quickly if you know exactly where you’re going or what you’re doing. I really rate it as well. Also, the exterior is really fun to explore as well. It’s just a nice place to be. There’s a fireworks opportunity in this. It’s really good too. Great level. Number one, Matthew, very predictable. It’s Sapienza from Hitman 1. We talked a bit about this before. Something I wrote in my notes here is that this has 10 mission stories that play out. It’s so ambitious in terms of the number of things you can do to take out your targets. I wonder if this led to them scaling back how much you could do in each level because it was just untenable to make every level as detailed as this. It is this little Italian seaside town with a big mansion and a small street. There’s a bunch of apartments you can go in. Then there’s even a church off to the side and a beach. It’s massive and it’s beautifully detailed. There are quite a few people on the Hitman subreddit who think that this level is a little bit overrated. I wondered, Matthew, if you were in that camp because you scored it a bit less than I did in our local. I think it’s a little overrated, but my big beef with it is just that all roads lead to that fricking cave destroying that virus. There’s so much interesting space and so much interesting stuff going on up above that that cave just doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t add anything. It doesn’t really interact with the rest of the level in any interesting way or any interesting way that I’ve found. Yeah, I just, I love the location. It’s so beautifully realized. It is a real escapist thing of just walking around this town and there’s just the level of detail in the shops and the props in the shops. You know, it’s mad. But just that ending for me is just, it just rubs me up the wrong way because I think every time I want to finish this level, I’ve got to do that. So all the experimenting I want to do with the two targets, I’ve got to do that. And yes, you get pretty ruthless at getting it done. But even so, it’s, I don’t know, it’s just, it’s a little bit of a hassle. Plus, there’s that incredibly English woman right at the start going, Rocco, Rocco, come down. The least convincing Italian character you’ve ever seen. Yeah, the repetition of doing that last part is the part that sucks. There’s no real like second choice to doing it. You put on the hazmat suit and then you kind of go in there, flip a coin, press a button and it goes, dip, dip, dip, destroy the sample, get in the boat and off you fuck. It’s just like, yeah, I agree with you that that’s not very interesting. I think that it might be too slight if you did just have the two targets. It might just be a bit too slight. I can sort of see why it has that objective. But yeah, I mean, the option to play without it would be nice, I think. Yeah, or maybe have it as a later mastery unlock. Like, you made it to level 10. You don’t have to destroy that shitting virus anymore. And you’re like, great, I’ve earned it. But I don’t want to take it away. It is amazing. Like, the famous example of you go into the ice cream shop and all the ice creams are different in this thing. That is mad. I mean, that’s just a team showing off, I think. But it’s a lot of fun. Like I say, I think this is just the one where they’re like, oh, we can’t make every level like this, or we will never finish the game. That’s my kind of read on it. But yeah, no, I really love it too. Like, it’s a sense of place. This is the one that did make me think, oh, it would be nice to play this in VR, just to see what it’s like. But yeah, that’s our number one, Matthew. I don’t think there’d be much to say. It’s not a controversial one. No, for sure. I’m glad Paris doesn’t often rate that high in these kind of lists. I’m glad that got a bit of love. Yeah, I think that is just because people played it too much. And like a lot of people, it was their first experience of Hitman, and they didn’t really come back to it. So yeah, no, I agree. I’m always having fun when I go back to Paris. So yeah, that was our top 10, Matthew. Fantastic. So just to close this out, we’ve got a few listener questions. So the podcast seems to be resonating with people, Matthew. We’re getting some good feedback. Yeah, people seem to like it. Two men trying to remember what happened 14 years ago. So that’s very exciting. But I thought I’d just fire through some of those, Matthew. One is from Matt Z on Twitter. This is a question for me. Serious question. I love Destiny 2 and I enjoyed the first DLC season pass, but then I stopped. Is it possible to jump back in? How slash will I understand what’s going on? The episode got me interested in revisiting it. So that was our Game of the Year 2020 podcast. And I can say, like, I don’t feel like I could sleep at night if I told someone to play Destiny 2 on purpose. Like, I don’t think I could live with myself because I think Destiny is something of, like, I don’t want to say sickness, but I do feel like it’s an acquired taste. And so, yeah, it’s like almost impossible to understand unless you’ve got a guiding hand talking you through it. And I had that with Destiny 2. I don’t know, if you picked it up now, it would be a bit more straightforward because they stripped out so much content. But I personally don’t feel like, I can’t necessarily recommend it. It’s like, if you’ve got two other friends who are playing it, it’s worth it. If you’re playing it by yourself, I wouldn’t bother. Matthew. Sounds good. Yeah. This one’s from Fox McButt on Twitter, Matthew. It may have been answered, but why The Back Page? I thought that’s more of a sport thing. Either way, love the podcast. Do you want to explain why the podcast is called The Back Page? Well, The Back Page in games magazines is traditionally the kind of, well, in our mags anyway, was like the funny back page, the one page where you just stuck some dumb joke. I think we probably will do an episode about back pages at some point because PC gamers were excellent and I’d love to quiz Sam about them. NGamers were mixed and I feel like I probably need to address some stuff. But yeah, I mean, I think we thought it sounded cool. And also it’s like, I don’t know, it’s a very print thing, if you were into print magazines, there’s a good chance you were aware of the back page of these mags. They were kind of silly and irreverent, quite hardcore for people who were into those mags, which is sort of the vibe of the podcast too, I guess. Yep, there’s also a kind of like an analogy element of like me and Matthew don’t work in print anymore full time. Oh yes, that’s a far more poetic and elegant way of looking at it. What you suggested the name Matthew, is that not what you’re going for? I don’t really know. Well, as I mentioned on Twitter, we could always revert back to our original title of the thick old Games Magazine Men Podcast, and that’s thick with two C’s. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So yeah, that was basically it. Back pages are kind of funny and we thought we might tell that story. But oh God, if I have to explain some of my PC Gamer back pages on podcast, oh dear, it’s going to be bleak, but quite fun. A few more questions here. We’ve also got like James Thompson who sent this through via Twitter and also sent us an email. So I’ve edited down your email here to make it a bit more, bit more quick paced. So first, really enjoying the podcast, well put together and enlightening, humorous retrospectives of games journalism past. Looking back through old N64 magazines, I realized just how much stuff was crammed into these in way of not only reviews, previews and editorials, but challenges, reader letters, reviews, etc. What I wanted to ask was, do you miss all that stuff, or was it always a chore to find things to fill out the pages? The other thing that struck me was that reading a magazine presents a different experience to articles on the web. Whereas now most games news I read is essentially scrolling down one long column followed by a load of angry comments. A magazine had a scattering of information across a page that you might dip into the box out summaries or details before diving into the main text. Do you think digital games journalism could learn anything from how things used to be done, or do you prefer the simplicity? So part one, Matthew, was it always a chore to fill out things on pages and magazines? I say yes. What do you say? I liked it. That was the kind of weird stuff where we tried to like differentiate NGamer and more NGamer than the other mags from other things out there. I love the idea that every bit of the page was trying to be entertaining, no matter how daft or unimportant it was. That was kind of drilled into me. Sometimes it’s a hassle, of course, and you make work for yourself by making a magazine that’s intended to be filled with all that mad stuff. But yeah, I was always a big fan, and there’s definitely a bigger episode into like the minutiae of like putting together a monthly mag that we can do where you can probably go into this in more detail. But generally speaking, the kind of the extra stuff, because everyone had news reviews, previous features, it’s the kind of weird stuff that around the edges that kind of made it feel a bit special. Yeah, I think that’s particularly the case with that kind of Super Player and 64 Lineage of magazines. Yeah. So that might be like you say it’s drilled into you and you have that kind of legacy. On Play Magazine, I found doing the box-outs always to be unbearable. On PC Gamer, there’s some really good box-outs on PC Gamer, and that’s because it was mandated that we never have just like a block of 100 words. It always had to be something visually interesting. We even created a PDF that said, these are all the different box-out types you could do. You could do a graph, you could do a sequence of images, you could do a timeline, that sort of thing. Digital games journalism learning from print. What do you make of that? I feel like they have, like they haven’t, because I haven’t worked on a site, specifically for a site. When I was on RPS, I was just doing video stuff. So the science of sites is a little bit beyond me, but I think the tastes of people seem to lean away. It’s very like, here’s the text, not a lot of guff, not a lot of gubbins, primarily because it probably slows sites down horribly. And it’s just needless faff, and getting people to do anything is a nightmare, let alone all the extra gubs. That’s why I still like reading magazines, is because I like all the extra nonsense. Not that there’s a lot of it about. Yeah, I would also say the types of mag writing that you find, you can find on websites if you go looking for it. So PC Gamer on there, we produce loads of news, but every article that ran in the magazine would eventually run on the site after quite a big delay to retain the value of the magazine. But you can definitely find very opinionated copy and stuff. I agree page furniture, which is what we call it in print, that sort of thing less so. But you can also find like gifs on, you know, as part of articles, which I find quite exciting when you see a gif that tells part of the story and then the story continues in the text below. So yeah, there are things that can like learn, but yeah, I think you can still make that personality come through. So yeah, good stuff. So Matthew, that was the podcast. And yeah, it’s been pretty comprehensive. If you like Hitman, I hope you found this podcast valuable. I definitely think my memory was a bit spotty on some of those older levels, but that’s only because I played them two years ago, and I’ve done two Black Fridays since then. So I can’t be held accountable for my recollections. But yeah, what did you make of it, Matthew? Did you have fun? Yeah, I love talking about Hitman. I hope we talked about it with enough variety that we didn’t boil to tears, but I enjoyed talking about it. I’m very, very fond of these games. And if you haven’t played them, I hope you listen to this podcast and then go away and play some of them because they are great. Yeah, it’s a much, I would say, like a much drier podcast, but me and Matthew are just so into Hitman that we just wanted to really give it like the episode it deserved, so hopefully people feel we’ve done that. But yeah, if you’d like to… And then we’ll do more Luigi impressions next week. Yeah, that’s what the people really want, Matthew. So, yes, next week will be our Best Games of the Generation Part 1. It will be divided into two episodes that we will record at two different times. Me and Matthew are settled on the top 30 games across the generation as a kind of manageable amount to do, so that should be really fun. And in the meantime, if you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m Samuel W. Roberts. Matthew, where can people find you? Mr. Basil underscore pesto. You can also follow the podcast, The Back Page Pod. We tend to just tweet when new episodes are coming out. And we’ll also pick out one funny clip per week, because I can do that on the podcasting platform, What We Pay For. You can also email us at backpagegames.gmail.com. If you have any thoughts on the podcast, let us know, and we’ll read out your questions and try and address them as best we can. But thank you very much for listening, we’ll be back next week. Bye for now.