Shack Chat: What's your favorite moment from the Hitman franchise?

The Hitman franchise is full of some pretty crazy moments, as Agent 47 trots the globe taking out countless targets. With Shacknews contracts dropping this week in Hitman 3, we decided this was an excellent moment to reflect on our favorite moments from the long history of Hitman games.

Question: What is your favorite moment from the Hitman series?

Pretty in pink - Donovan Erskine, silent but deadly

The true charm of the Hitman games is that they’re a wonderful sandbox puzzle, giving you an extensive number of ways to solve any given problem. I had originally skipped out on the 2016 Hitman reboot, but ended up picking up Hitman 2. During the mission in Miami, I assassinated one of my targets while walking around as a big pink flamingo. It was the absurdity of that sequence that made me buy into this new era of the franchise, and led me to go back and play through the first game.

Fields of death - Blake Morse, Co-EIC

I haven’t played much of the Hitman series, mostly because I’m very bad at sneaky-sneaking, but I have given it a go a few times in my life. One moment that will always stick out to me is the time I was at a press event getting some early hands-on with a build of Hitman: Absolution, if I remember correctly. There was a strike team looking for me in a wheat (or was it corn?) field. I somehow managed to alert them by jumping up and going guns-a-blazing. As I desperately tried to escape, one of them lobbed a grenade near where I was standing and took me out. Unfortunately for me, the game happened to auto-save right around the same time, so the game would keep reloading to the moment right before I died. Each consecutive restart became its own death puzzle as I tried to dodge what was basically inevitable. Even when I did manage to survive, the blast had done enough damage that I was easy pickins for the enemies surrounding me. It was all fairly amusing, but it definitely is a fine example of my masterful stealth skills.

Knives Out - Sam Chandler, Murder she wrote

One of the most enjoyable moments in games for me is when the developers manage to take an established genre, and change it or add something to it to make it feel different. For the Death in the Family mission in Hitman 3, it was kind of exciting to slink into the role of a PI, trying to solve a suicide that was actually a murder. It felt like I was partaking in a scene from Knives Out. Even though it wasn’t critical to the main objective, I found myself getting lost in the roleplay within the game.

Miami Grand Prix Paddock - Chris Jarrard, Better Opinions Than Other Staff

I’m not a big Hitman person, so I don’t have any real affinity for the series, but I did find the Miami stage in Hitman 2 to be entertaining because of the backdrop of the Formula 1 race festivities. This level granted a unique look at the inner workings of a race day in the world’s most popular motorsport. Yeah, I guess killing people is cool and all that, but look at the detail on those toolboxes!

Diana and 47 in Mendoza - Bill Lavoy, Silent Assassin

I’m not sure where to begin. I’ve been invested in the World of Assassination trilogy since the tease of Paris prior to Hitman (2016) being released. I know that we can choose any moment from any game throughout the entire franchise, but I’m going to stick with the last three games. Spoilers ahead.

For me, Mendoza from Hitman 3 stands out because of how it involves Diana in a role that’s more than just the voice of a handler. She’s in the level and can have a major impact on how things play out from several different angles. There’s the walk-in freezer kill, the sniper setup, and the conclusion of the wine tour. In fact, Agent 47 can kill targets in front of Diana and players can still maintain their Silent Assassin rating.

To focus this even further, the most memorable moment for me speaks volumes about the relationship between Diana and 47. When Diana is taken by Don Archibald Yates to be killed, the clock starts ticking. She never wavers. After being saved, Diana tells 47 she was beginning to worry. When 47 asks if that’s true, Diana simply says, “No.” Moments from death and she never questioned whether her own personal assassin and friend would come through. But, this isn’t a damsel in distress; Diana has pulled a lot of strings over the years to put 47 in a position to succeed. This time IO Interactive let players see it play out in a sandbox, and it was badass.

Tragedy at the Opera - TJ Denzer, knows how to get 47 to make the news

The first time I ever played the Hitman franchise was Hitman: Blood Money, and there’s a mission in that game in which everything clicked for me and I fell in love with it. The set up is that there is a famous opera actor/singer and an accomplice American ambassador involved in a sex trafficking ring. Your job is to ice them both. The ambassador has an armed entourage and watches the singer’s rehearsals from his private box, so getting to him is pretty tough without raising alarms.

The best “accident”-style setup is this: the singer is performing a scene in which he faces a firing squad and you can replace the prop pistol with a real pistol found in the map. They rehearse the firing squad scene, boom, he dies, and that’s one down. The ambassador, shocked by the accidental shooting of his accomplice, will come running down, and it just so happens you can rig an overhanging chandelier to drop on him when he does. Boom. Time to make a hasty exit.

This stood out to me because it represents one of the funnest and most elaborate ways in which the Hitman series allows you to stage death like it was just a horrid twist of fate. It helps that these two are complete and horrid sleaze bags. However, I also love the prospect of these characters being so connected that one accidental death will allow you to set off the other. That’s the elaborate murder puzzle that is the Hitman franchise and I’ve been hooked ever since.

King of Chinatown- Hitman Absolution - Dennis White, Community Manager

I figured I may put Paris or some of the other amazing moments from the current Hitman on this list but I’m fairly sure my co-workers have that covered. Instead I gotta talk about Hitman: Absolution which was actually the first Hitman game I played and one I had the pleasure of streaming the entire playthrough of at the same time. Much like Splinter Cell Conviction tried to change up the stealth gameplay, I found it interesting how much the game focused on story with the character.

I had so much fun walking through the streets of Chinatown and seeing waves of people run from my panic inducing antics was awesome. I spent an entire stream on this mission trying different scenarios which centered around finding a way to take out this “King” who likes to hang out in the center of Chinatown. At one point I put an explosive onto a parked car causing mayhem and managed to create a distraction big enough to hit the guy in the head with a fire extinguisher which made the stream chat go wild. After playing the new trilogy, I definitely enjoy them more than this game but this mission is pretty memorable to me simply because it was the start of me understanding the hype behind this classic franchise.

If you've got a moment from the Hitman franchise that really stands out, we would love to hear about it. Also, be sure to check out the three Shacknews contracts in Hitman 3, available now!

Shack Staff

Shack Staff stories are a collective effort with multiple staff members contributing. Many of our lists often involve entires from several editors, and our weekly Shack Chat is something we all contribute to as a group.