Game review: Hitman Episode 5
is all action
The fifth episode of Hitman sees a change in tactics as well as location, as Mr 47 goes up against an American militia.
For a while now we’ve been holding up Hitman as the best example of how well episodic content can work for non-adventure games. It seemed an odd idea at first, to split the game up into individual maps that are released months apart, but that’s allowed the developers, and gamers, to make the absolute most of each one, exploring and exploiting them in a way that would never have happened if they’d all just been released at once. The problem is though, that that’s not the main reason that was given for making it episodic.
According to developer Io-Interactive the primary reason for making Hitman an episodic game is that it allows them to take in feedback from fans and adapt subsequent maps accordingly. Which is fair enough, as Hitman fans haven’t always agreed with the direction of the franchise. Except what most of them are saying at the moment is that Episode 2 map Sapienza was by far the best one, and everything since then has been slowly getting worse.
Actually that’s a lie, Episode 4 was the worst. But releasing so close to Gamescom we never had a chance to formally review it. Although you can click here for reviews of Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3. This new map is a slight improvement from Bangkok, but it still doesn’t seem to be learning anything from the game’s best moments. And we’re beginning to think Io should just stick with their own instincts.