Hitman 2 drops Agent 47 into Miami and India, and it mostly earns its keep. IO Interactive’s follow-up to the 2016 reboot trades the snowy mountain setting for sun, heat and a new kind of target list, and the result lands somewhere between a puzzle box and a theme park.
Trailer, via HITMAN.
Miami and Mumbai
The game splits its time between a drug lord’s mansion in Miami and a political crisis in Mumbai. Both locations are built with the same dense attention to detail that defined the earlier game, and both offer far more ways to get in and out than the original ever did. Players can swim, drive, disguise themselves, or simply walk through a crowd, and the game rarely punishes curiosity.
The Indian mission in particular stands out. It asks players to move through a crowded festival street, a hospital corridor, and a government building, and the shifting crowds make every approach feel like a live test rather than a scripted route.
Tools and Targets
Hitman 2 adds a new gadget wheel and a wider range of disguises, and the two work together to let players solve each level in almost any order. The game rewards patience over speed, since the best solutions often involve waiting for the right moment rather than rushing in.
“The camera gap is real but the battery is what will decide this.”
That line, used here to describe the difference between two gadgets, captures the game’s whole approach: the tools are impressive, but the choices matter more.
- The gadget wheel lets players switch between tools mid-mission without losing momentum.
- Disguise options grow far beyond the first game’s limited wardrobe.
- Contracts mode returns with a larger pool of player-made challenges.
- New weapons and tools add to the existing arsenal.
Where It Falls Short
Not everything holds up. Some missions repeat familiar tricks from the first game, and the pacing suffers for it. The Mumbai mission, in particular, drags in its middle stretch before the payoff arrives.
The load times between levels are also noticeable on some platforms, which can break the flow of a carefully planned approach.
Hitman 2 is at its best when it trusts players to explore freely, and worst when it forces them down narrow paths. The game’s strengths — disguise variety, gadget freedom, and the sheer size of its locations — outweigh its weaknesses, even when those weaknesses show up in the same mission.
The score for Hitman 2 is 8.2 out of 10.
