Hitman - How the series Deconstructed and Reconstructed itself
Iâll be honest when I say Iâm not someone who grasps ideas quickly. So for a long time I didnât understand what a deconstruction in fiction meant. Because to me I thought the term just mean making something realistic, and I didnât understand it because most deconstructive pieces of fiction arenât realistic. In fact I find a lot of deconstructions to be even less realistic than a straight story. Thatâs neither here nor there though, my point is I known have a way of understanding in my head what a deconstruction is and I owe it all to Hitman
To understand what a deconstruction is I look for where I found it in works I enjoy and am familiar with, and I think the Hitman series provides a perfect example of a series that deconstructed itself and then undid that deconstruction in a clever way while keeping elements that were good points in the decon, otherwise known as reconstruction. So before I make my case as to why I think Hitman decon-then-reconed itself I will describe my personal definition of a deconstruction. I think a deconstruction isnât a realistic version of a work or a narrative device but instead is interpreting an element or elements of a work in a more realistic sense in the context of applying it to the fictitious events of a new work. So while what I will describe in this essay will sound bonkers to you, keep in mind the whole work is absurd itâs just small elements that are reinterpreted in a more realistic way while still keeping the amount of unrealism needed in fiction
So to begin with letâs roll back the clock to 2006. Hitman: Blood Money comes out and over time establishes itself as the definitive Hitman experience. The gameplay of the series is the same as ever with a little more polish. Youâre dropped into a map, you look for disguises and items to work your way into social spaces to find specific NPCs marked as targets with the intent of killing them and getting out without anyone knowing you are there. You play as Agent 47, a bald, barcoded killer clone working for a politically neutral assassination agency known as the ICA. 47 and his handler Diana in the course of the story get wrapped up in the ICAâs feud with a rival agency called The Franchise, who also employ a killer clone to help install themselves in the White House. The game however was noted by critics at first to not be a big leap from the previous two games in the franchise, scores were good but the series back then peaked with Hitman 2: Silent Assassinâs 87 on metacritic. However, with a six year gap between games and a fanbase that loved replaying it over and over, Blood Money thru fantastic word of mouth became the definitive Hitman game that others had to live up to
The story is told in flashbacks as the leader of the Franchise and main villain Alexander Cayne is telling an embellished narrative to a journalist about how 47 was captured by them and was left running scared the whole time. While your gameplay, if you play well, is deliberately set up to contradict the story Cayne tells. In gameplay you are meant to be untouchable, unnoticed and efficient. If you play well, like I said. 47 is a legendary assassin and stated in-game to be a myth. The Franchise only get 47 by the end because Diana betrays 47, and even then itâs a double-double cross to get 47 in the position to mow down all of the Franchise in the iconic funeral shootout
So now we have established what a typical Hitman set up is we flash forward to 2012 and Hitman: Absolution is released after a the longest gap and biggest change in direction for the franchise. And upon looking at this game and what itâs going for I think Absolution was trying to be a commentary on Hitmanâs more absurd gameplay and story elements. Trying to ground them in reality a bit more. Now the game is infamous as the worst Hitman game for its time, and the tone of Absolution is absurd in its own obnoxious, grindhouse inspired way, but I think reading it like this makes it more enjoyable and interesting to study even when the experience of playing or watching it remains the same
The setup of Absolution is 47 is hired to kill Diana by the ICA because she betrayed them. 47 finds out she did this to protect a little girl called Victoria who is like 47 - a clone being trained to be an assassin. So 47 - in what outsiders to the franchise characterize as a rare moment of sympathy for the character (but is incredibly common) - decides to keep the girl safe and go rogue from the ICA. He also ends up butting heads with a businessman called Blake Dexter who wants Victoria for himself and thereâs sort of a three way conflict between 47, the ICA and Blake and Iâll be honest I couldnât tell you what happens in detail because I didnât pay attention. What makes this story interesting for the purpose of this essay is not the characters or plot itself but the ways it comments on the previous games
Letâs use the already set up Blood Money as an example, specifically the elusiveness and physicality of 47. In Blood Money and the rest of this series 47 is the silent assassin. The elusive Hitman, a myth and legend that only conspiracy theorists believe in. Heâs a social chameleon that goes unnoticed in any situation as long as he has the right disguise. He can kill anyone as long as he sneaks up behind them with his trusty piano wire. In Absolution, 47âs identity is found out very early on by Blake Dexter when he tries to sneak up on Blakeâs bodyguard Sanchez, a man with gigantism brought on by experiments done in Dexter Industries. 47 fibre wires Sanchez but due to how big and buff Sanchez is heâs able to overpower 47 and incapacitate him. Like Iâve said this scenario in itself is also absurd, Sanchez is basically the Hitman universe equivalent of Bane, but the idea that 47 could fail in killing someone stronger than him with his signature kill method because he didnât expect them to fight back is realistic. While the scenario when played out in the cutscene makes 47 look like an idiot when he couldâve used a gun or knife from earlier in the level, if you imagine instead the same scenario but Sanchez unbeknownst to 47 knows martial arts or is pretending to sleep to trap 47 in place of having gigantism then you can understand what the devs were going for. In Blood Money, 47 always went after targets with the same kind of build and height. The targets could fight back but only with their guns, you never went up against anyone who had the raw strength or technique to fight against 47 strangling them. 47 also isnât an incredibly tough person physically, heâs buff but heâs not a hulking bodybuilder and when you get into combat in the games he canât take much more punishment than another human despite his enhanced genes. His strength is in his intelligence, his anonymity, his speed/dexterity and his skills at social observation. He does have enough raw strength to throw a brick one handed onto someoneâs head, but he can still lose in a fistfight with a typical guard if you lose a QTE
The second half of this is the elusiveness. In Absolution 47 is going up against the ICA, some of the only people who lived to know his identity up until now, and Blake Dexter, who now knows 47 is real and is after him. In the events of the game the ICA is able to track 47 down to his motel and send a group of female assassins called the Saints after him, who shoot an RPG rocket at his room, and when 47 tries to rescue Victoria at Hope County jail he is electrocuted in a trap and captured. He is able to escape from both of these scenarios but thatâs because the game is stupid. The idea of 47 being caught off guard, however, brings up a good point about how his anonymity is what awards him such success. People bring up two contradictory points about 47âs design being just a bald white guy and also that he stands out from every scenario heâs put in. I donât get that. Not only is 47âs design an endorsement of multiculturalism, he has five dads of various ethnicities including eastern european, asian and latino with him resembling Lee Hong more than the others, but heâs deliberately designed to be generic yet specific. His design could fit a bland business man type if he wore more casual clothes and softened his scowl, and his barcode has always been sort of like how the TARDIS works in Doctor Who. Nobody notices it. Not saying it isnât ridiculous, itâs part of the absurdity of this franchise that a six foot man who never smiles wearing a suit with a blood red tie is never noticed but at the same time if he was never caught, called out or seen at the crime by any witnesses or security footage thereâs no reason to be suspicious of someone with such an iconic look unless you were a conspiracy theorist. Which gives 47 some plausible deniability. This look becomes a disadvantage however when heâs going up against his employers who know that theyâre looking for a bald man in a suit with a barcode tattoo. So early on Absolution 47 has to cut off his barcode as a pre-emptive measure to avoid being more easily uncovered by the ICA. If Absolution is revealed by its writer to have always been intended to be a deconstruction this moment is an excellent metaphor for the gameâs entire philosophy. Cut out the defining traits of 47 so he can blend in, with both the crowds of Chicago as he makes his escape and in a real world context the gameplay and tone blend in with its contemporaries of the time
So Absolution deconstructs the idea of 47 being the perfect assassin by pointing out the flaws in his methods. As soon as he loses that anonymity he becomes easy to predict and if he doesnât get the chance to pick his battles he can be bodied by someone physically superior. In the context of the work if 47 isnât used to physical challenge and has never had to deal with the consequences of being known itâs realistic for him to be caught out by either ignorance or arrogance in this situation. Arrogance isnât a trait normally shown explicitly by 47 but he definitely has elements of pride in his characterization since he takes his work so seriously. If Absolution is trying to deconstruct the character it is realistic to show this pride blinding him
Now we get to the way the gameplay of Hitman is deconstructed. Absolution is the Hitman game most informed by its story, so this will be treading ground a bit because these mechanics are implemented because of the events of the story
47 is a master of disguise. He can dress up in almost any other manâs outfit in order to benefit from something like the access a worker can get backstage during a play or the social privileges of a VIP at a luxurious auction house. However, this idea has always been criticized for its absurd, gamey surrealism. Absolutionâs deconstructive approach is to imagine what itâd be like to try to sell your disguise to people in real life. Now when you pick up a disguise every person with that same role in the area will be suspicious of you. If you get caught you will lose silent assassin and if you stick around you will get guards on you. Pressing one of the bumpers will make 47 tuck his head down when walking in front of people to stop then from catching you, which depletes a meter called instinct, and 47 can also use certain spots to blend in using disguise specific actions which will also refill a a little bit of the instinct meter. As you can see this is a way more realistic interpretation of how someone like 47 would have to use his abilities to get past people. In Blood Money the right disguise is a free ticket to the target. In Absolution youâre still doing a lot of sneaking and avoiding sightlines itâs just that disguises mean youâre not going to fill the attention meter super quick, which is what happens when trespassing. The only respite you have from the new awareness of guards and employees is when you put on a one of a kind disguise. For example 47 disguised as the only chef in the mansion wonât get noticed by the targetâs bodyguards but house cleaners will notice if 47 dons one of their disguises. That particularly quirk does contradict some of the effort put into making the disguise system punishing and realistic but the rest does make sense for what theyâre going for
Another aspect of gameplay that is changed is the inventory. In Blood Money, every mission aside from the tutorial and the epilogue had a screen where you could pick out 47âs weapons and items. There was even a screen for customizing specific ICA-made weapons with silencers, scopes and dual wielding. In Absolution, 47 is now on the run from the ICA and the game is split into three parts with each part having one level flow into the next. So you now canât pick your own weapons to take on missions, instead you usually start empty handed except with your fibre wire and in some levels maybe you get a pistol. Of course 47 doesnât have time to pick out new weapons when his journey is so seamless, but where the game seems to be commenting on the previous entry is where this was also a plot point in Blood Money near the end. Itâs specifically stated that the missions in Mississippi in that game were done to buy time, and that by the Vegas missions the ICA is almost dissolved. Yet the ICA still has resources to smuggle in items for him and 47 still has time to stick around and get sent guns to use in his back-to-back assassinations. Absolution says this is unrealistic and instead has 47 procure most of his equipment within the levels, picking up bricks, knives, syringes and silenced weapons that he finds in the alleyways of Chicago. He even gives away his custom silverballers in exchange for information early in the game, until you get them back you canât rely on silenced weaponry to kill people
Finally, in Absolution you arenât killing very many people, and youâre no longer exploring large non-linear areas. This is one of the only parts of the gameplay that is explained behind the scenes as being because of the narrative-driven direction and technical limitations so this isnât a deliberate deconstruction. Thereâs a likely chance none of the game is an intentional one, but this next example is entirely unintentional. The deconstruction here can be argued that the Hitman setup of sandbox locations where people do the same loop for hours on end isnât realistic, so having smaller, more boxed-in areas where you have to react to more active situations instead of learning patterns to manipulate is more of a realistic setup that a Hitman would deal with. Whereas the old style was deliberately absurd to support the fantasy of being a super spy where youâre always welcome as long as youâre in the right costume. I think that, in conclusion, is an excellent summary of Absolutionâs approach to critiquing the series thus far. Itâs not a realistic depiction of how a Hitman like 47 would operate, and while Absolution isnât realistic either it does have a point that these elements of the series seem archaic and absurd and reimagines them to add tension and to try to bring the series to modern gamers that donât buy absurd, fantastical gameplay elements so easily. However, thatâs the flaw in deconstructions as a concept. You can tear something down as much as you want but it was built for a reason. Absolution tears down the seriesâ conventions in favor of a more modern style of game, but never once thinks that the lack of realism was the point. Hitman was made to have these weird, half-simulation half-puzzle mechanics from the get-go because thatâs what made it unique and fun. Hitman isnât Hitman when itâs made to be realistic and less archaic. 47 isnât 47 if heâs not ridiculously iconic and still treated like a ghost. The gameplay isnât as fun when youâre a real Hitman trying to escape from the police to your next hit. Itâs fun when youâre showing the guards your invitation to a party in St. Petersburg that you took off a drunk guy and then dressing up as a waiter to poison a general with a glass of champagne. Something that IOI realized and course corrected with their next Hitman project
The World of Assassination Trilogy needs no introduction at this point. It saved the franchise by taking it back to its roots, took the series to new heights of critical acclaim and started a boom of new fans that may only know Hitman thru this new trilogy. However, in a fit of irony, the trilogy owes its success to Absolution. The trilogy is built off the Glacier2 engine that debuted in 2012âs Absolution, but the engine was built over a long time just for Absolutionâs linear style of gameplay. So when Absolution was a disappointment and IOI knew they had to make a return to the sandbox gameplay of the previous entries, they had spent too much time on the engine to walk it back or make another one. So what they had to do was take the gameplay mechancis of Absolution and twist them around to accommodate a traditional Hitman framework. Luckily, this ended up making the perfect style of gameplay for the series. Innovating it from just have the traditional, maybe even stale Hitman formula but not having any of the flaws of Absolutionâs structure. The WoA Trilogy is a reconstruction of the series in both gameplay and even in story in the same sense Absolution is. Even if it isnât for sure intentional
The first element I will point to as a reconstruction is the disguise system. Blood Moneyâs philosophy to the disguise system is pure escapism. Put on a disguise and nobody questions it. Absolution said to Blood Money âhey, thatâs stupid. A disguise like that wouldnât fool anyoneâ and made everyone see thru your disguise. WoAâs philosophy is to tell Absolution while he had a point that itâs more realistic for 47 to have to hide from everyone to make his disguise work, thatâs not fun and thatâs not Hitman. So WoA reimagines the disguise system with enforcers. In the game when you put on a disguise while you can fool most people, select few NPCs known as enforcers are observant and will see thru your disguise. You can still use blend spots to avoiding being noticed but now you canât just push your hat down or rub your head. The deconstructive philosophy of making the series more realistic is reconstructed into a puzzle element to fit into the traditional Hitman gameplay
With the Trilogy the series goes back to a traditional loadout screen. The missions are all self contained, until the third act of the story, and 47 is back to being a myth again. Thereâs no rush for him to complete his tasks and heâs back with the ICA who are at the height of their power. That being said, some elements of the new loadout still take queues from Absolution to make it more believable to modern audiences. For example, smuggle points have descriptions which tell you how the item got smuggled there. In most levels itâs the ICA, with Hitman 3 it falls to Greyâs informants or Olivia. Thereâs also a progression system to your loadout, where leveling up a location will get you access to new places to start, new items to pick and new places to smuggle them. You even get to pick places where you can start with a disguise already on. These benefits are unlocked via replaying the levels, and while this is classic Hitman absurdity where somehow replaying the same event over and over gives you more and more different benefits the idea with it is that the more useful you are to the ICA the more they can spend to give you new items and aliases and provide more assistance to 47 on his mission. The idea is reimagined in a way that you can buy the ICA with the much power that they have would do this kind of stuff for their best agent, especially since because you can do any level perfectly with the resources you have on a first run thru it proves canonically 47 can do it without resources anyway. Heâs not relying on assistance. Thereâs even instances within the trilogy that prove this, as there are levels that take queues from Absolution and deliberately start you with no loadout. Hokkaido and Miami require a certain level of mastery to be able to bring in a loadout due to a heightened security presence. Dubai and Berlin are set in points of the story where 47 wonât be able to take a loadout with him and he only gets the option to when he unlocks other starting locations. Then the finale of Hitman III outright has no way of taking in external items, making 47 kill an entire train full of hostile Providence agents with no resources beyond what he can find onboard to throw, shoot or wear. Just like Absolution
Even the concept of NPC looping a routine for the entire day is reconstructed in a way. Anyone could be a great agent like 47 if people do the same loop forever. With the WoA Trilogy the levels keep their Groundhog Day set up but are made more complex with scripted mission stories and hidden triggers for NPCs to change pattern. With emphasis on listening in and manipulating these patterns the implication is no longer that 47 is just a great assassin because heâs the only person in the world who doesnât walk in a circle, like a deconstructive parody might imply, but instead just sees people as these simple animals of routine that he can socially manipulate into doing what he wants. The dialogue even supports this, 47âs deadpan delivery was always played for drama previously or at least was presented without irony, but now itâs portrayed as 47 being so confident and assured of himself that he knows heâs manipulated someone without them knowing. Hence his quips about food being to die for, his conversation to Vanya Shah about how he nudges people to do what he wants after giving a sniper a clear shot at her, or when he pretends to be a blathering idiot with a paper thin alias to Tamara Vidal in order to lure her away from Diana. Absolution deconstructed 47 as a flawed assassin who can be easily taken out if you expect him, the WoA Trilogy reconstructs him as using such predictable methods because other people are simply beneath him and he knows it. Blood Money made him a badass assassin, Absolution made him a bumbling idiot who has to get his groove back and the WoA Trilogy made him a mischievous trickster with a knack for social engineering
The biggest example I can think of in differing philosophies with Absolution and WoA is the mission Apex Predator in the final game/act of the trilogy. The story of the mission is essentially that 47 is ambushed at a nightclub by ten or eleven ICA agents after him and side character Olivia Hall. All the ICA agents are enforcers and you can hear them telling people to be on the look out for a guy in a barcode for them. So itâs like Absolution: we have the ICA on the hunt for 47, a group of people are expecting 47 to come after them and 47âs barcode tattoo is once again singled out as a noticeable trait for the first time since Absolution. Except this time the ICA gets their ass kicked. Itâs not even a contest, he kills half of them at least and depending on player choice either lets the survivors tuck tail or dispatches of all of them before they flee. Not even out of necessity, itâs stated in the objective itself that itâs only to send a message to the ICA not to fuck with him. The WoA trilogy asserts that even if 47 had no loadout, no help and is being hunted by people who are competent agents like he is he wouldnât be caught and incapacitated just because he no longer has the element of surprise
This is not to say Absolution is completely stupid and the WoA just shits over every point it makes in the name of bringing the seriesâ gameplay back to its signature of fun, simulator silliness. The idea of 47 being fallible and emotional is great and I supported that aspect of Absolution. I just think the gameâs attempt to make 47 a more realistic character also made him look stupid and not like a legendary Hitman heâs supposed to be. Thatâs why I think the WoA Trilogy, for all its storyline faults, actually gave 47 some great emotional beats. For example in Blood Money 47 thinks he is betrayed by Diana when she comes to his hideout and jabs him with a fake death serum to give him to the Franchise. This might be kicking a sacred cow here but I think this betrayal is actually less emotionally effective and makes 47 look more Marty Sue-ish than in WoA because it makes it look like he only gets outsmarted by mere surprise rather than his own mistake. In WoA 47 follows Diana to Mendoza, lets her touch his hand which she has laced with neurotoxin on her glove and then after the mission follows her to the location she specifies because he trusts her that much. Sure in that cutscene he points a gun at her because he starts to suspect her but for a very long time heâs left to stew with his decisions. He couldâve not went after Diana, negotiated a different location or even disobeyed her orders to kill Yates and Vidal but he didnât because he has always loved and trusted Diana. An aspect of the characters and their relationships Iâve always liked and will laud Absolution for trying to make deeper, paving the way for WoA. The two have always been friends but you would expect them to be absolute besties given they seem to only talk to each other, so a flaw in Blood Money is that 47 doesnât have a vulnerability in this friendship and he doesnât make a bad decision on his own to trust her. He doesnât feel like he had a choice in Blood Money, so he doesnât feel flawed. In WoA he makes this stupid decision by himself after having ample time to consider it, so the character feels more well rounded. An excellent combination of Absolutionâs more fallible 47 with a plot point ripped from the more straight story of Blood Money. A reconstruction
The final note on WoAâs story I want to say is I would say Absolutionâs deconstruction of the ICA as a corrupt, flawed organization is almost played completely straight in WoA and isnât really reconstructed at all. 47âs relationship with the ICA is pretty much portrayed as thankless aside from Diana, not only does training director Soders not like him but after 47 leaves the ICA they are hired by Providence to kill him. The ICA is portrayed as politically neutral and especially in WoA this gets critiqued to hell and back because it lets them get manipulated pretty easily, especially by the Elites. The organization has turned corrupt, been hunted down and unintentionally aided supervillains so many times thru the course of the series. Ort-Meyer used them, Sergei used them, Soders used them. So itâs a long time coming that 47 ends his relationship with them permanently by destroying them completely. Leaking everything theyâve ever done, only erasing mentions of him and Diana so he can remain the anonymous assassin. I would say the only reconstructive element of the narrative is portraying 47 as a figure of good, itâs pretty refreshing if weird that a Hitman who kills only evil people is outright portrayed as a good thing but I like it. I also like that the ICA is destroyed. Itâs a status quo change that makes sense but isnât really a major status quo change. We donât have much attachment to the ICA but we know it means a lot to 47 and Diana, we can recognize itâs a status quo change and enjoy that things will be different without changing the series forever like what would happen if, for example, 47 retired or Diana died. It also leaves the franchise open for reinterpretation once more. Maybe weâll get another deconstruction of how this was a bad decision because of unforeseen consequences, a further reconstruction where 47 is even more heroic or just a straight story where we kill people. None of those opportunities are boxed out by that decision
Summing all this up I would say The WoA trilogy takes what Absolution did to deconstruct the franchise and then reconstructed it with elements of gameplay, tone and story from the Hitman games of the past to be more believable, more self aware and more fun. As much as Absolution does wrong I think it should be remembered and praised for how much it influenced WoA for the better. The trilogy is often seen as Blood Money 2 but in both story and gameplay it also aimed to be like Absolution when that game was at its best, in making the series less avaunt guarde and less impenetrable, and then aimed to avoid being that game in every other aspect, the cringe storyline and shuttering of classic Hitman level design as an example of Absolutionâs biggest mistakes. We owe it to Absolution more than I ever even thought before. Like it, love it, hate it, indifferent, we have to respect it. We also learned that sometimes deconstructions are flawed and stupid, but they can also bring up good points and can themselves be picked apart. The pieces of a deconstructed deconstruction and a deconstructed straight story can be combined to create a culmination of a franchise. Reconstruction is king
