By Alec Meer on March 21st, 2011 at 6:00 pm.
And so begins the long, long road to actual information. Game marketing in the second decade of the 21st century is all about the drawn-out tease – we already knew Hitman 5 was in on the act due to news of an apparent alternate reality game associated with sharp-suited baldieman Agent 47, and now we have the results of said ARG. Screenshots! Screenshots of gloves!
So there you go. The next Hitman game will feature the lead character from the Hitman games. Shock! Also, guns and well-rendered gloves.
Also dug up by the cleverbrains on the Hitman Forum are the strong suggestion that we’ll see an E3 reveal for 47′s next murderous escapade, plus references to the CN Tower in Toronto. A level involving pushing corrupt businessmen or something off the top of a huge tower? Works for me.
Keep an eye on this thread for more revelations as/when/if they’re found.
21/03/2011 at 18:03 Hardtarget says:
so happy this isn’t kane and lynch 3 and io is finally making good games again
21/03/2011 at 18:33 Chaz says:
It’s a little bit presumptuous of you to say that they’re making good games again just because they’ve anounced a new Hitman game. For all you know this could end up being crap too.
21/03/2011 at 18:48 JohnnyMaverik says:
That’s if they still remember how. Kayne & Lynch 1 & 2 weren’t simply bad games on the merit of being Kayne & Lynch games, they were bad games due to some poor design decisions and unrealised scraps of potential.
As for “Also, guns and well-rendered gloves.” Looking at that screen shot, I very, very much doubt that’s in game. Way too much detail in both the geometry and the lighting. I might be wrong and if I am this will be a stunning looking game, but I don’t think I am.
21/03/2011 at 19:20 Mr_Hands says:
I suppose I’m alone in actually enjoying Kane & Lynch 2, then. I mean, okay, context: I’ve never really played too many 3rd person shooters with cover mechanics, so that’s probably the point of difference. I really liked the art style in that game, though. I think that’s probably what kept me going.
21/03/2011 at 20:11 wengart says:
I enjoyed Kane and Lynch 2 but I paid a fiver for it. If I would of paid much more I would have been much less happy with it and I really couldn’t say I could recommend it to someone. But it was a solidly average game
21/03/2011 at 20:40 Juiceman says:
I loved Kane and Lynch 1 and 2. They aren’t perfect, but they have some of the best characters in a video game, ever.
21/03/2011 at 23:17 Kadayi says:
Another K&L fan here. Not necessarily 10/10 great games, but I like the fact that IO try slightly different things. The nightclub level in K&L1 for instance, or the visual effects look of K&L2.
21/03/2011 at 18:07 Tyshalle says:
Wow, that is… quite a glove.
21/03/2011 at 18:08 Tyshalle says:
Oh, and hey, that’s a silencer! He’s putting it on a gun! At first glance I thought he was gently holding a knife! We’re learning so much about this game!
21/03/2011 at 18:11 mangrove says:
I hope Jesper Kyd is involved again. I absolutely adore the music in the Hitman games.
21/03/2011 at 18:14 Callum says:
I second this. The Hitman series has some of the most haunting, memorable music I’ve ever heard.
21/03/2011 at 20:03 outoffeelinsobad says:
Thumbs up.
21/03/2011 at 18:12 mollemannen says:
so no more kane and lynch then? good riddance. hopefully they take my advice and include coop multiplayer assassinations :)
21/03/2011 at 18:18 Coins says:
He also still wears a tie. I think this is vital information.
21/03/2011 at 18:33 Shih Tzu says:
He better still glower conspicuously at everyone. One of the best things about the series was how ridiculously murderous he looked at all times. “Hey Dave, did you get the name of the new guy? With the creepy starey eyes, who stood in the doorway and watched us all for several minutes and got way too close to me in the elevator?” “Naw, I dunno, but he was wearing the uniform, so it must be all good. Hey, didja hear about all the dead bodies, everywhere?” “Yeah, man, crazy shit.”
21/03/2011 at 19:57 Creeping Death says:
@Shih Tzu; Now you have me hoping someone will make a machinima series using the game engine based on these kind of situations.
21/03/2011 at 23:59 kregg says:
Shih Tsu said that, and I think he knows a little more about Hitman than you do pal, because he INVENTED IT! Then he used his Steam money to buy two of the games on Earth. Then he hearded them onto the Games list, and played the crap out of every single one!
21/03/2011 at 18:21 HermitUK says:
“A level involving pushing corrupt businessmen or something off the top of a huge tower? Works for me”
Not being able to drop people through the glass floor would be a wasted opportunity.
21/03/2011 at 18:25 Shih Tzu says:
Especially since there was a glass floor in one part of Blood Money already, and yes, you could take hilarious advantage of this fact.
21/03/2011 at 20:04 outoffeelinsobad says:
I think it was a jacuzzi? And yes, it was good fun.
21/03/2011 at 18:22 westyfield says:
Does anyone with a fancy-pants Android phone want to scan the barcode in the bottom right of that image to see what comes up?
21/03/2011 at 18:42 dragonhunter21 says:
Too small, too dark. If you can find a link to a bigger version, I can play around with it in Photoshop, but beyond that no way.
21/03/2011 at 19:04 NateN says:
Agreed on too small, too dark. It LOOKS like the numbers beneath it generate the same barcode in a code generator.
Numbers below:
110706-040147
For those playing the home game, the barcode on Agent 47′s head is:
640509-040147 (Birthdate of Sept 5th 1964 – 4th series, Class 1, number 47.)
So, I’d guess the first 6 digits of the new code are date, perhaps June 7th, 2011. Same date as E3 expo.
21/03/2011 at 19:30 Shih Tzu says:
My God, you’ve done it!
21/03/2011 at 18:23 Shih Tzu says:
All the press on this got me to drag out Hitman: Blood Money again. So good! I mean, the writing is uniformly awful, as is most of the acting, so that’s a shame. But it’s lovely to have a game completely unafraid to let you approach it from ten different directions. Maybe you want to steal a kitchen knife and slice the sorry bastard’s throat. Or maybe you want to climb on the roof and snipe him in the head. Or maybe you want to hide a bomb in his sandwich. Maybe you want to make his co-star accidentally shoot him with a real gun instead of a prop gun. Maybe you want to just kill the co-star and do the shooting yourself. Maybe you’re sick of this “silent assassin” business and want to just grab a human shield and start shooting everyone.
The fun isn’t in beating the level. It’s in observing the game world and contemplating how many ways you could beat the level.
Oh yeah, I also have Hitman 2 and Hitman: Contracts, but I haven’t played them much yet. Hitman 2 seemed a lot more touchy about its stealth, so much so that it seemed like an entirely different game. I think I prefer the Blood Money approach where you generally only blow your cover because you made a bad decision rather than because an NPC thought you were running too fast, but does anyone who’s played more have any other opinions? Are either of these two worth checking out?
21/03/2011 at 19:22 Sweedums says:
i would say hitman 2 is worth checking out more than contracts, but as you say, the stealth is very twitchy and really not as good as blood money. the guards really are SUPER suspicious (superspicious?) about everything you do, they seem to go by the theory that if someone is jogging lightly, they are an assassin and require death on the spot.
Still, they are both fun games and worth a try.
22/03/2011 at 02:32 Shih Tzu says:
Cool, thank you. Maybe one of these days I’ll drag them out again.
21/03/2011 at 18:24 Kotti says:
You can probably forget the CN Tower part, I believe it was only a clue in the ARG which is now finished. And don’t expect any new pictures anytime soon either.
21/03/2011 at 18:26 Hunam says:
Just be thankful it’s not more Kane and Lynch tbh.
(I know people would like Freedom Fighters but… well, I hate that game.)
21/03/2011 at 18:34 Linfosoma says:
Im hoping you’ll be able to wear better disguises this time around. 47 should wear male wigs, or at least some make up, a bald dude with a bar code tattooed on his head doesnt exactly blends in with the crowd.
That said, Im really exited about this new game, Blood Money was fantastic when played on the highest difficulty level whilst trying to achieve the “silent assassin” ranking (which is definitely posible, and requires leaving no evidence and faking accidents if possible).
Also glad to know it’s not another Kain and Lynch title.
21/03/2011 at 18:37 woodsey says:
He’s changed his gloves! HITMAN IS RUINED FOREVER!
I blame console gamers, with all their stupid glove-simplification. He’s sporting at least 23% less leather on those things.
21/03/2011 at 18:38 DrGonzo says:
I may be the only one who loved Kane and Lynch 1 and 2. Seemed refreshing in such a bland shooter market. And I really enjoy playing horrible characters that have no redeeming qualities. I just can’t take a game seriously that says you are the good guy, then has you go on to commit mass murder.
Still, very, very excited about Hitman 5, hopefully this time they don’t chicken out and try to justify your characters actions again. I just want to kill people for money, I don’t need to be saving the world!
21/03/2011 at 18:44 Kaira- says:
I liked K&L1, haven’t played 2. Although shooty-parts were a bit bad, it was nice co-op fun and dialogue was good enough to keep me in game.
21/03/2011 at 18:55 PearlChoco says:
Thanks for spoiling the game.
First DX3, now this.
21/03/2011 at 19:07 Grey_Ghost says:
There was a 4th Hitman game? Hmm, I only played the first two myself. Don’t quite recall why I opted out on the third.
21/03/2011 at 19:28 Shih Tzu says:
The third one (Contracts) was, I believe, a partial reworking of the first one. The fourth one, Blood Money, is the only one I’ve really played extensively, but I liked the direction they took it in.
21/03/2011 at 19:14 Nick says:
Hope his first mission is to kill Kayne and Lynch.
21/03/2011 at 20:51 Out Reach says:
is more then possible, the games are set in the same universe. (see some of the newspaper clippings in blood money)
21/03/2011 at 21:26 Gonefornow says:
Weren’t there two blokes, vaguely resembling Cane and Lunch, in the intro of Silent assassin?
I might be off here.
21/03/2011 at 19:24 reticulate says:
I am excited by this concept and wish to find out more immediately.
It’s been far, far too long since Blood Money, as awesome as it was.
21/03/2011 at 20:02 Erwin_Br says:
For a moment I thought this story was about You Don’t Know Jack. No idea why.
21/03/2011 at 20:21 bit_crusherrr says:
What are the bets they turn it into some sort of horrible corridor shooter to suit the Call of Duty generation?
22/03/2011 at 02:51 dragonhunter21 says:
If they do that, then they’ve already trained the myriad of Hitman fans in how to… remove them.
I kid of course. There’s no way they’ll dumb it down that far. Now, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised (although I would be terribly disappointed) if they dumbed down the stealth. Staying hopeful, though.
22/03/2011 at 09:15 Harlander says:
Is there really a lot of scope for ‘dumbing-down’ (*retch*) the stealth? It seems pretty elemental to me without a lot of parts that could be removed and still call it stealth…
21/03/2011 at 20:24 Jac says:
This could be the greatest thing ever. The potential is all there.
21/03/2011 at 20:45 Perkelnik says:
’bout god dam time!
/goes to earn some blood money
21/03/2011 at 22:28 P3RF3CT D3ATH says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSU43H1LYGs It’s great to do business with you again Agent 47.
21/03/2011 at 22:45 Ian says:
Gloves? SOLD.
21/03/2011 at 23:35 Multidirectional says:
If this sticks to the original formula and is in no way “streamlined”, “evolved”, “more immersive”, I’ll be happy as a little kid at Christmas time. It’s just scary to hear about any sequel except new GTA (it has a formula that is very appealing to masses so it’s safe) coming up. I hope we won’t start hearing how it has regenerating health and cover system to make gameplay “more visceral” or something of the sort. Hitman is one of those rare series that kept improving, please let it stay that way.
22/03/2011 at 03:31 Birdman Tribe Leader says:
Come on, no need to worry guys. IO experiments with their other games, but the Hitman series has only made minor changes, and all positive changes, since Hitman 2. It will have Jesper Kyd, it will have awesome open-ended stealth playgrounds. It will have some hilarious ways to kill people. They know what they’re doing and they know what’s fun about those games.
There are really only a few complaints you can have about each game (okay, I guess you could have other complaints; these are just mine). Hitman 2: The AI was too touchy about people running or walking close to them, the Japanese missions where you didn’t kill a target were boring and had unfair AI, it was lame that the last mission wasn’t really a stealth mission. Contracts: A little too short, too many rehashed levels from Hitman 1, lame of them to use one of the Hong Kong maps twice. Blood Money: Sometimes too easy (letting you buy a second sedative syringe takes some of the fun out it), too many contrived things to drop on people (although some of them were hilarious and great–dropping a piano on a lady assassin dressed as a bird comes to mind).
Hitman 2′s level at the embassy party is still my favorite. Many ways to get in, many ways to get out (tricky because you have to smuggle a briefcase of nuclear secrets out), a beautiful setting, a rival agent trying to steal the secrets. Hitman 2 takes a fair bit of (deserved) flak due to the improvements in the later games, but the Sicily mission and the four Russian missions are awesome. The demo of the Sicily mission instantly sold me on the series. It had the best music, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZzK_mI3WvA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elERKB4D3Hs
Also, Freedom Fighters ruled. Or at least its soundtrack (also Jesper Kyd) was so good that it seemed like it ruled. If you never played it, check out the soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg1__cp9698
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MD_fGgyjsg
22/03/2011 at 07:57 Bodylotion says:
Been waiting for this for a while. Blood Money is a very good game anyone should play.