Hitman 3’s trophy list was released recently and before I go into spoilers later in this post I’ll give a TL;DR: one of the levels in Hitman 3 is going to be 5 mastery levels instead of the usual 20. If this is a deal breaker for you I would recommend not getting the game day one
The trophy list disappointed me for two big reasons. Number 1 is storyline nitpicking. The majority of targets mentioned in this trophy list are people that weren’t mentioned in previous games. This would be fine but my main concern is that unless the final level has both The Constant and Grey as targets it’s very possible that they could be killed off in cutscenes. If this is the case it’d be very antithetical to Hitman’s very nature. Almost every antagonist, even in Absolution with Dexter, was killed by you the player. It’s entirely possible that from the screenshots showing 47 waking up in hospital equipment that it’s a homage to Blood Money where 47 kills the antagonist after waking at his funeral. But that’s me speculating, it could very well be that there are no targets in this level since there’s no trophy relating to it
My second problem is actually important for people who are more casual Hitman fans or looking to get into the series. A hardcore like me preordered the deluxe edition regardless, it could have been a mod for Simpsons Hit and Run labelled Hitman 3 and I would’ve got it. But the trophy list revealed that the last level has only 5 mastery levels and that is a big deal for me when recommending this game to other people. Because not only is this game got less new content than Hitman 1 and the Hitman 2 gold edition, but it’s also very sneaky of IO to have marketed the game without mentioning this, and they’ve done it twice
For non-fans who are eyeing up Hitman 3 mastery levels are an indication on if a mission in this new Hitman trilogy is a proper large scale sandbox or a more intimate puzzle box. 20 mastery means the level is going to be big and take an hour to beat the first time, 5 mastery it might take 20 minutes for example. This isn’t an inherently bad thing but these games package themselves in 6 level chunks now, and they market them as having an equal amount of content. Hitman 3’s gameplay trailer marketed the six locations as having “20 mastery tiers per level”
They did this with Hitman 2, even a year after release the game was advertised as having eight sandbox levels. I don’t mind them including the expansion locations, Hitman 1 was pretty much six episodes of DLC piecemeal anyway and I wouldn’t say that game only had one location. But it wasn’t eight levels, it was seven levels plus a prologue (or whatever the equivalent phrase would be for something that bridges the gap between the end of the first third of a story and the beginning of the second). Like how this game is five levels plus an epilogue. I don’t mind having five new levels if they’re big and massively replayable, and these levels all look great even the final one. I just don’t like being lied to as a customer in the advertising, it shows a lack of faith in the product to me
So if you’re a new customer to this series I would still recommend Hitman 3, but only if you plan on getting the legacy DLC and playing everything in order. When you play these levels sort of staggered, in 5 level chunks every release, it’s a little disappointing to get less overall content than the first game for the same price. So I would recommend trying to get the first two games as cheap as possible, and then buying the standard edition of Hitman 3. That way you can play a huge glut of good Hitman without worrying about judging your purchase on a level by level basis like the hardcore does. If you’re a fan of Hitman that owns the last two games and really liked them, but aren’t like obsessed with knowing what’s next, I’d recommend waiting for a sale since you already have a lot of Hitman to play through. You can transfer progress when you get Hitman 3 so just play more of 2 to get all the unlocks in the interim
I’m not going to go all butthurt “don’t support IO” because I’m not someone who thinks a company or person wanting money is evil. I still think IO’s level designers deserve a paycheck so I’ve already gotten this game months ago. I just want them to advertise their products honestly and can’t recommend a fellow customer that might be on the fence to pay full price for something that has less overall content than its now-cheaper predecessors