Just finished-up Story Mode for Hitman 3 (2021) from Xbox for PC Game Pass, a bit earlier today.
It's basically more of their World of Assassination Trilogy games, basically - i.e. Hitman (2016), Hitman 2 (2018) & now obviously Hitman 3 (2021). So, you know mostly what you're walking into here, if you've played those games - and have a good idea of what your walking and stealth-ing your way into. More huge sandbox-y levels (mostly); more ways to kill enemies and targets; more unlocks; and/or more things of that sort - and if that sounds good to you, you're going to like this game.
Game looks stunning, provided you have RT-based hardware; no surprise. And at times, in some levels, it can be really stunning with how many NPC's they have packed all over the place, populating a level. I ran it mostly at Maxed-out settings with RT On & DLSS On at 1080p, often in the 60fps range. One level though, had to drop the RT down to Medium (Vineyard level) just to get it to 60fps, as it was easily splitting performance in half w/ so many NPC's in the world & with so much going on there.
As usual per modern Hitman games, you're scored per level against your Friends and also the Global Leaderboards - so, you'll likely want to try to play as Stealthy as possible, kill as few enemies as you can (best off killing namely your targets only); explore & find all of the areas; utilize cool and unique puzzle-style & puzzle-solving ways to kill targets in special ways; and/or things of that sort. It's up to you how to do this, of course, as combat still feels really good & very smooth here - so in some instances, when need be, you can shoot your way out of the level when necessary and then try to find an Exit ASAP. As usual, you can unlock new weapons, items, disguises, exits, and whatnot - once you actually finish levels...which is going to keep the replay value of this game going for fans of these games & this WoA Trilogy.
Though, unfortunately - like most Hitman games since Hitman (2016), you're going to need to be online to keep all of this progress, as you'll need to be tied into the IO Servers for this progress. I wish newer games would stop this trend, in case I want to play some of those offline in case something goes wrong on my end for Internet access, my ISP's end, or IO's servers on their end.
Though, taking a few cues from Hitman: Absolution here - there's a few though, there's not many of these missions or specific parts of missions - where there are very specific & special goals (i.e. missions you can kill enemies, for example and get points for that...if you want to); and they also do much more story elements even within levels that tie directly into the main story, besides just knocking off targets. Regardless, it feels like mostly all killer & no filler, like many of the earlier and great Hitman games, such as Hitman: Blood Money.
After almost 10 hours of so of spending time here, it feels like this epic World of Assassination Trilogy (WoA Trilogy) here that began since Hitman (2016) has finally concluded & is indeed nothing short of Hitman awesome-ness. Not only that, but this is a satisfying conclusion to the WoA Trilogy. Play this game; IO Interactive has yet again killed it here...with yet another really good Hitman game.
