Post Script

The unexpected pleasures of Hitman in VR

Should you be in any doubt that being a five-star holiday destination simulator is key to the appeal of Hitman, and especially this World Of Assassination trilogy, then the decision to deploy VR as Hitman 3’s only new mode has surely put that to rest. With the headset on, we quickly find ourselves racing back to Sapienza to bathe in the golden sunshine of the Amalfi Coast. It doesn’t disappoint, even if the fidelity is a long way from the version available in the core game.

Only available on PSVR, and thus only on PS4 – PS5 owners will have to dig out some old kit, order a camera adapter, and fire up the back-compatible version of the game – this mode visibly pushes the hardware to its limits. Larger crowds manifest and evaporate in clumps, details pop in at alarmingly short distances, and levels with longer sightlines slather an awful lot of Vaseline on the lens. This hurts some levels significantly more than others. Chongqing is a particular victim, its rain-slick neons and distant skylines pared right back, its streets quiet even for a city early in 2021. Elsewhere, though, the slight patchiness of the illusion doesn’t stop our brain from sinking into it fully. We find ourselves instinctively nodding to security guards as they wave us past, and along to the techno bouncing off the walls of Berlin’s warehouse nightclub. Agent 47 – committed roleplayer that he is – would surely be proud.

Even at a significantly lower resolution, playing in firstperson offers a new chance to appreciate the spectacle of each location. VR is uniquely good at conveying a sense of scale, something that really pops as we scoot across the exterior of Dubai’s skyscraper. But it’s in the little details, too. Wandering old favourites for the hundredth time, we notice things for the very first – was that bicycle frame really always there, rusting in the shallow waters of Sapienza? We lose long minutes to examining Dartmoor’s unique paintings, the ornate detailing of its wood panels. And even in Chongqing, we find ourselves blessed with a hastily scribbled passcode that is almost indiscernible in the normal over-the-shoulder view.

What’s most remarkable, though, is how VR changes the way we play. Minus 47’s observational superpowers – the HUD minimap, the Instinct vision mode that highlights targets and sees through walls, even the picture-in-picture popups introduced by Hitman 2 – exploration becomes a slower, more considered experience.

There’s a sharper sense of danger, too. By now, the sound of gunfire in Hitman has been fully internalised as just another audio cue that our plan has gone awry.

The only threat is another trip to the load screen. But in VR, simply bobbing your head out of cover and seeing a guard turn your way is enough to raise a sweat. It helps that the mode disables auto-saving, meaning that you’ve more to lose if things do go sideways.

A perhaps unexpected result of all this is that we let go of the idea, drilled in by years of playing Hitman,

that true success doesn’t mean completing a level but doing so in Silent Assassin – never spotted, no bodies found, never killing anyone except the target. That’s not really an option here, and so we find ourselves loosening the red tie and untucking the shirt for some more rough-and-tumble fun.

In part this is through sheer necessity. The motion controls use the DualShock’s accelerometer and light bar rather than the Move wands, so don’t expect the precision of a game such as Superhot VR, let alone Half-Life: Alyx. You’re about as clumsy as you would be dropped into these situations in real life. (With apologies to any professional assassins reading this magazine to blend in as you eye up your next target.)

It’s a common experience to carefully sneak up behind a potential victim, reach to put our hands around their throat, and accidentally deliver a soft slap on the cheek instead. It quickly becomes obvious why this mode defaults to the easiest difficulty setting – there’s enough challenge in simply surviving to make reaching the end of a mission feel like a victory. Even if getting there involves the kind of chases through hallways and bathrooms that demand a Yakety Sax soundtrack, and a body count higher than we’ve racked up in entire instalments of Hitman in the past.

There’s a slapstick joy to all this, one that helps soften the voyeuristic weirdness of putting your face unnaturally close to a stranger’s, knowing you’ll soon be pointing a silenced pistol at the back of their head. It’s certainly not a superior way of playing Hitman,

and we wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as an introduction to what VR is capable of. But as yet another way of adding variety to the game, of milking even more value out of these locations, it’s undeniable.

It makes for a novel way of experiencing Berlin for the first time, really cranking up the sense of vulnerability and disorientation, and of working through Dartmoor’s detective story. For other missions, VR is a perfect tool for revisiting spaces that are already familiar, making them new again. If – for any reason – you find yourself wanting a break from reality right now, we can absolutely recommend booking a trip to Sapienza, or Mendoza, or perhaps a stop at Hokkaido’s spa resort. You don’t even really need to murder people – just grab an all-access costume and let yourself sink into the role.

Minus 47’s observational superpowers, exploration becomes a slower, more considered experience