Hitman episode 4: Bangkok (and Bonus Summer episode)

One town looks very like another when your head's down over your target, brother.

So far, Hitman has taken us to an exclusive fashion show in a Parisian mansion, a secret lab located under an Italian seaside resort, and the Swedish Embassy in Marrakesh, so a hotel seems a little... ordinary? Certainly, it's the first location where an ordinary person could find themselves without being a high-flying international assassin for hire.

But the Himmapan luxury hotel is no ordinary venue; this is, after all, Hitman, and that means plenty of backroom areas rife for exploration and exploitation.

Hitman: Marrakesh

Another month, another exotic, sun-drenched location to explore; IO Interactive only just managed to get this one out in May, but they are just about managing to keep to their one-a-month “schedule”, and Marrakesh is yet another change of pace from what’s gone before. Where Paris was contained clockwork, and Sapienza was sleepy and flexible, Marrakesh is tense and claustrophobic.

The targets this time around are a banker, currently holed up in the Swedish embassy, and an army general looking to use public unrest surrounding the banker’s paramilitary-assisted avoidance of prosecution to build up support for a military coup.

With violence brewing, 47’s sent in to prevent the fall of a government… or, more specifically, the building contracts that said government has awarded to the ICA’s construction-company client.

Hitman: Sapienza

Six and a half weeks after it launched, I've still not done everything there is to do in Hitman's excellent inaugural mission, Paris; so of course, here comes episode two, set in the sunnyAmalfi coast town of Sapienza.

If I didn't manage to rinse Paris yet, I don't think I'll ever see everything there is to see here - Sapienza is colossal. Aside from the villa that acts as a sort of focus for the new Story mission - which itself feels almost a third the size of the Palais de Walewska in Paris - there are winding streets, apartments, offices, a beach, boat docks, sewers, and more to explore.

And of course, there are loads of NPCs to choke unconscious before stealing their clothes.

Hitman (2016)

Hitman is not an action game. Despite its title, it’s not really a “murder simulator” either, though I don’t doubt there are some who’d call it that, pearls firmly clutched; no, after a lot of hours spent exploring the cavernous mock-settings of the ICA training facility, and the opulent, baroque Parisian palace, I’m pretty sure it’s a puzzle game. A huge, sprawling, complex puzzle with dozens of solutions - and, yes, okay, quite a lot of murder.