Hitman Episode 2 has finally arrived. After the restricted sandbox experience that Episode 1 was, the next mission of Hitman brings a welcome change of environments. Called World of Tomorrow  – the next chapter in the Silent Assassin’s story does not disappoint.

HITMAN EPISODE 2 – A TRIP TO SAPIENZA

GAMEPLAY

Episode two drops Agent 47 in the town of Sapienza, an Italian coastal town filled with opportunities. This time around there are multiple objectives to accomplish with various way to tackle them. The game does not confine you to your goals and it is in your hands to take advantage of the opportunities presented to you.

Where this level really impresses me is the ability to enter in most buildings in town, discovering hidden paths or elements that reveal opportunities for you to take down your targets. The level designs in the second episode far surpass the first.

The difficulty of the game is much more elevated in comparison with Paris. In World of Tomorrow, your targets are living their lives and are not prepared for anything out of the ordinary but as you get close to your goal, your enemies become more and more suspicious, leading you to change tactics and profoundly affecting the way the level plays out.

Opportunities are in every corner of the map and provide you with freedom in how you choose to take down your targets. While the mission itself is noble – preventing a potential bioterror weapon from coming into existence, the freedom of being a mass murderer, should you choose it, still remains.

You can take down all the guards in cold blood or simply take down your targets and vanish without a trace. You can be a mindless murderer, an assassin, sightseer, or the countless other identities that you can take, each providing you with a new approach to the mission. The replay-ability this time around is far more compared to the previous episode.

GRAPHICS AND OVERALL PERFORMANCE

As far as the graphics go, I have no complaints. Sapienza is filled with sunny landscapes, beautifully designed buildings, narrow streets and a lively atmosphere, making the experience magnificent. The residents of the city, working and talking to each other, brings the environment to life, while giving Agent 47 the opportunity to find events happening in the city and take advantage of the circumstances.

Thankfully I did not encounter any game breaking bugs and it was an overall less bumpy experience compared to Paris. The loading times have improved and I experienced far fewer disconnections to the server but they are still there. Also, the frame rate was much smoother on my system, the ASUS STRIX 960 coupled with 8 gigs of RAM and the good old FX 8350. I managed to keep my FPS mostly at 60 with slight dips to 50s on 1080p and a mixture of high and normal settings.

The AI still is a bit buggy and there are the occasional graphical glitches here and there, but this did not distract me from having an overall enjoyable time in Sapienza.

[review_bank review_id=11]