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It's a murder simulator, right? IO is, quite literally, simulating murder, albeit of the professional variety. But Agent 47 isn't some kind-faced Jean Reno with a plucky Natalie Portman by his side. There are no redeeming features to the bald, bar-coded clone, and yet we still thrill to be placed a few feet behind his head. Disguising, strangling, sneaking and blasting our way through mostly civilian locations to kill whoever has the bounty on their head, along with a sizable handful of their personal entourage.It should be vile. It kind of is. But it's also absurd, and that takes the edge off. Without Mardi Gras, with its giant colourful crow outfits, or the Heaven and Hell club, where everyone wears horrifically over-styled angel and demon masks, it might cut a little too close to the bone. But Hitman's world is not ours, and that's IO's smartest move.
The first two Hitman games alienated you with language, placing you in locales that took English away from you and left the majority of the NPCs as foreign nationals. It takes away a good deal of empathy when you can't understand what someone is saying, but it's never going to make you dislike someone. Blood Money was the game that made you actively want to end the lives of almost everyone you come across.
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