If you've been following this crazy series, a merry quarantine hitsmas to you. If you haven't, the short version is that I'm trying to 100% the entirety of HITMAN 2, and have already successfully tackled the version of HITMAN 2016 contained within HITMAN 2. That meant Escalations, Bonus Missions, Patient Zero DLC, everything. The toughest of these challenges is The Classics on Master difficulty, which allows only one save, and I make it even harder on myself by trying to pull off Suit Only/Sniper Assassin/Silent Assassin all in the same run. For HITMAN 2, I've decided to have some fun with the "Suit Only" portion of this. Having unlocked virtually every outfit for 47, I've decided to start in something suitable (ha) for each mission.

For Nightcall, the game's opening tutorial-ish mission, there was only one choice, and that was the Midnight Black Suit. Starting in the office made for a nice time-saver, and with the secret room right there featuring all kinds of fun toys and the security system to easily zap all the cameras, I was set. Alma Reynard and her boy toy eventually path upstairs into the bathroom and have a silly convo about the nature of their relationship in which passive-aggressiveness and insecurity are on full display. It makes for an amusing way to pass the time as I wait in a nearby closet. The guy hops in the shower, which conveniently steams up the glass, at which point he meets the briefcase. Bop. Alma is busy at the mirror in the bathroom, and then she also feels the wrath of my Samsonite. I then assemble my trusty sniper rifle from said briefcase and blast her in the face from point blank range. Target down. I hide both bodies in the closet from whence I came and exit out the back door of the bedroom. This leaves 47 overlooking the lone guard by the garage. A fling of the briefcase downwards knocks him out and also leaves the briefcase below to allow for scaling the pipe down without having to abandon the briefcase doing so. I hide the guard in the garage closet and proceed to sneak into grassy areas. This part is made a little tougher than usual on Master due to improved AI vision, but it's nothing that a little patience and general awareness of your surroundings can't easily conquer. I make my way over to the boat, which has the trio of mercs guarding it. I heave a frag grenade over to their right, they clear out to investigate, and I hop in my stealth dinghy for my getaway. This one felt rather easy, but it was a tutorial mission, after all.

Bienvenidos a Miami. I was tempted to go with the Pitbull look because it seemed fitting, but I actually can't stand Pitbull, so instead I chose the tourist getup, replete with fedora. I had a pretty good plan here. I started at the Marina and quickly snuck into the nearby office to acquire the speedboat key, because what better way to depart Miami than in a ridiculous boat? Exit strategy secured, I focused on taking out Sierra Knox. I was aware that you could snipe her in her supercar, and I figured the overpass with the race marshals was a good spot to do exactly that. A quick pick of the lock by it allows for access to the overpass, with only a pair of marshals there to deal with. One of them is busy staring through a camera, so you can easily dispatch the other without even being particularly stealthy about it and then walk right up behind the camera guy and blast him with a crowbar. Having this area all to my lonesome now, I pulled out my rifle and waited for Sierra's car to come around. Having the ability to slow down time with the half-trigger pull here helps, and a well-placed shot sent Sierra's car spinning towards the wall, where it spectacularly shattered into many pieces. It's one of the game's better deaths. I strolled out of the overpass area back into the Marina Park and checked on Robert Knox, who at that very moment happened to be standing there on a balcony in full view. I was tempted to whip out the rifle, plug him right there, and book for the speedboat, but there was a litany of things that could have gone wrong with that plan. Besides, it's typically more fun to get up close and personal.

I recalled from the aquarium escalation that it was rather easy to access the "secured" areas via a stairwell near there. There are a few cameras to deal with, but then you're on the second floor by the shooting range test area. There are a pair of patrolling guards here, but they're easily avoided, and you can sneak right into the room behind the shooting area, which contains a useful robot arm and access to the patio where Robert Knox paths to take in the view. There is a sneaky camera there that can spot you through the glass door, so that needs to be shot out of view of the test lab scientists, but once that's handled, you're pretty much home free. Robert Knox came by shortly after (his path is mercifully short), at which point I distracted his guard as he was leaving and then bonked him with the robot arm. Another adjacent room features a closet, so I hid him in there and awaited Knox's return. I flung that robot arm at Knox's dome, plugged him, and attempted to hide him in the same closet, but discovered that it only allowed for one body. I was confident enough that no one would path through that room in time to discover him, so I just booked it back down the way I came. Two workers complicated the area behind the showroom a bit with their presence, but a thrown robot arm into a wall sufficiently distracted them to allow me to sneak back into the public area. I ran out to my speedboat and motored out to sea. Again, this felt a bit too easy. Some thoughts began to creep into my head. Have I gotten too good at this? Was HITMAN 2 just not designed as well? These questions would soon be answered.

Santa Fortuna already struck me as one of HITMAN 2's better maps in my previous playtime with it. There are a ton of semi-hidden passages, several rather varied areas, and quite a bit of depth. It's the Sapienza of HITMAN 2. I dig it. I went with the Freedom Phantom outfit because looking like a guerrilla seemed appropriate. (Freedom Phantom is a great collection of words, BTW.) My plan involved starting at the Shaman's hut and first taking out Jorge Franco, as he seemed the most entrenched of the targets. Sneaking through the coca fields is the right kind of tense. There are enough patrolling guards, cameras, and various NPCs to keep you on your toes. They're all fairly alert to too much movement in the shrubbery as well. Dealing with the cameras proved to be challenging, as it's tough not to be spotted by someone as you peek out to shoot the cameras, and all hell breaks loose if the guards happen to notice the bullet impact. Paths go out the window and they randomly patrol the area, which is no bueno. Anyhow, I managed to sneak back to the far left house where Franco eventually enters. There's another NPC there, but he's easily lured out by switching off the power, at which point he's simple enough to bonk and hide in a crate behind this shack. With now a clear shot at Franco, I snuck into his shack and hid in the box there waiting for his return. I sniped him and tossed him in the box I was hiding in. One target down.

I then headed through the tunnel nearby leading to the mansion grounds where Rico Delgado was. Feeling mildly exhausted from sneaking around, I went ahead and popped the one save. In retrospect, this was probably too early to do so, but taking out Franco seemed theoretically the least repeatable of the three targets. Delgado actually isn't that tough to take out with the process I chose. It requires a well-timed and quick sneak behind the pool area, followed by bolting up the stairwell to the second level. There is a guard there, but he seems content to overlook the balcony for eternity. It is possible to sneak under the camera there, at which point you bypass a maid and a butler who comes over to have a conversation with her. This butler becomes problematic for what I wanted to do, so I entered the adjacent room and tossed a briefcase within earshot to get him to come investigate. Bonk. Butler down and hidden in a nearby closet. This allows for a relatively clear shot at Delgado, who paths near the adjacent restroom. His wife comes into the room where I dispatched the butler, and I went ahead and took her down and tossed her in with the butler just to be on the safe side. Delgado can be enticed into the restroom with a thrown briefcase, at which point he's easy to snipe and hide in the bathroom closet. Two down.

At this point, I was feeling pretty good. Andrea Martinez paths into a house that isn't that well-guarded. I walked around the building checking for access points, and after coming around the back side along the water on the lowest level, I discovered a stairwell up to a gate with only a guard and a handyman in the area. This wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I shot the camera there, and I wasn't sure if I could sneak by the handyman unnoticed, so I threw a wrench to bring him on the investigation, then did it again to lead him below the house by some bushes for a handy place to hide the body. Bonk. I did the same with the guard. With now a free path on the side of the house, I was able to unpack my sniper rifle and strap it to my back to climb the pipe, which allows for dropping down to a room by which Andrea paths to have her conversation. I waited for the guard to be all by his lonesome and brought him into the room with a thrown wrench, then used that same wrench to take him down and stuff him in the closet. From there, it was just a well-timed distraction of Martinez as she enters the house. A wrench to the dome and she was out for the count. Point blank shot to the face with the sniper rifle and I was home free.

Except, I wasn't. There is a couple that is taking photos and talking about P-Power, who will stay that way forever unless you walk by them. Once you do so, they start walking the perimeter of the coast. Unaware of this, I passed by them on my way out. I was strolling to the bus exit pleased with my SA/SO/Sniper Assassin, and literally two seconds before I reached the exit, the photo couple on their new coastal stroll happened upon the guard and handyman in the bushes to ruin everything. Fuuuuuuuuuuck. This meant redoing 2/3 of the level, and I encountered all kinds of random adversity doing so. I accidentally turned on the water in Delgado's bathroom once, which brought the maid in to investigate and discover my carnage. Then I got noticed sneaking through the coca fields as I left the Delgado mansion. I was getting pissed at all the wasted time and went ahead and tried something bold for Martinez, which was to simply time a sneak up the earlier pipe with the sniper rifle strapped to me and hope the guard and handyman wouldn't notice. This surprisingly worked, and left no bodies to be found by the goddamn photo couple. I took out Martinez as before, and walked out down the same stairs I came up, again making sure to get the timing right. I walked by the photo couple and resisted the very real urge to murder them both for spoiling my earlier run, and left via the bus stop. Success.

Mumbai proved to be quite the challenge. I had grand plans of using the Kashmirian method to try and lure out one of the targets by calling one after I murdered the other. Naturally, I decided to sport the Cashmerian suit for this, and I started there in the chawls for easy access to him and his accessories. I wasn't sure if having the Kashmirian snipe Dawood for you would ruin my Sniper Assassin or not, so I couldn't risk just reenacting that opportunity. Honestly, Dawood wasn't really my concern yet anyway. The Maelstrom seemed like the most difficult target, both because you have to first find enough clues to identify him, and because he doesn't really path much out of high visibility areas, making it tough to take him out. My first goal was to identify him, so I set out to do that by heading down into the Crows' hideout. It's actually not that difficult to sneak in via the beach if you use the generator as a distraction to take out the two guards, at which point you have easy access down to the hideout via a stairwell. I recalled that there was a photo of the Maelstrom down there, so I dispatched of one of the guards there, picked up the photo, and discovered an item called "colored smoke". Intriguing. I stowed it for later, and set off to fully identify the Maelstrom as he walked about the slums. Annoyingly, there are enforcers throughout that make this a bit of a hassle, but I eventually identified the Maelstrom. Having identified him and cleared out the ground and upper level of the Crows' beachside building, I had a spot where I planned on taking out the Maelstrom. Thinking this would just be an exploratory run, I went ahead and saved.

Now, in an earlier playthrough, I had used some chained distractions to subdue a pair of NPCs by the Crows' beach house, leaving an area where the Maelstrom meets with one other NPC. A distraction chain on this NPC had given me a free shot at the Maelstrom. Well, Master difficulty altered these NPCs and the Maelstrom to ignore any and all distractions, so that plan was out. The Maelstrom kept frustratingly doing his loop in the slum with little to no opportunity to take him out, so I remembered my little colored smoke discovery. I first tried just throwing it on the ground to see if that did anything. Poof. No joy. I reloaded and tried throwing it at an NPC. Hilarious, but again, it didn't trigger anything like I suspected it might. Then I remembered the metal shops. What if I tossed it into the fire? Diana's voice notifies my that the smoke is about to do something. Thinking that the Maelstrom might meet up with one of the targets, I watched to see what would happen. Disappointingly, it brings out both Vanya and Dawood for a meeting, which sounds good in theory, except they both brought a significant entourage of guards with them and met out in the open. This didn't really help me, and the Maelstrom didn't seem to care. I tried tailing both Vanya and Dawood to see if this opened up good chances to take out either of them, and it really didn't. I reloaded my save and despondently tucked away my colored smoke. However, finally some luck would come my way.

After enough time passes, the Maelstrom comes up for a meeting on the hill. Having cleared out the beach house, the hill is accessible via some rooftops if you simply take out one guard. Done. There is a much easier way to kill the Maelstrom here that I was unaware of until afterwards, which I'll get to in a second, but I'll tell you how I did it. I hid the knocked out guard in a container on the hill, and another guard has a brief conversation with the lady the Maelstrom comes to meet. I set a gun down by some bushes and threw an object to make the guard come investigate and then go to pick up the gun. This made him easy pickings, so I knocked him out and put him in the nearby container, then went to the window and threw an iron at the lady's head and stuffed her in the closet. The Maelstrom eventually enters, remarks about the missing guard, and comes in the room to look for the lady. Bonk. Sniper bullet to the face, and I hid him in the closet. Success, but I later discovered the easy way to take him out. You unpack your sniper rifle at the base of the hill stairs on the right where you can scale up to the rooftops adjacent to the hill. If you sneak around back, all you have to do is take out a few guards on the top level which are distracted by a radio, raise the flag, and he shows up. You don't even have to identify him beforehand. Ugh. A guard even brings your fucking sniper briefcase back up to you (just don't let him spot you). It's so annoyingly, stupidly easy.

Anyway, having taken out The Maelstrom the hard way, I focused my attention on Dawood Rangan. The highrise is most accessible via a damaged part of the fence. On Master difficulty, it has a camera there, but it's not difficult to shoot the camera as long as you check your surroundings and make sure no one is close by to see or hear you do it. From there, you can scale the fence and head up the right side of the front entrance. There is an NPC there and a camera, and shooting the camera will cause her to briefly investigate the second floor, but then she paths back down and turns her back to you, at which point you're free to head up to the second floor. From there, I unpacked my sniper rifle, as it was time to scale some ledges. If you exit the window and scale the ledge towards the right side of the building, there is a support beam you can climb up two floors right above the film shoot. Scaling back left brings you to an area you can reenter the highrise, with a guard who paths near an elevator shaft and another halfway down the stairwell below. Resisting the urge to shove the guard down the elevator shaft and spoil my Silent Assassin, I instead snuck around back of the stairwell and threw a fish to bring him over to investigate. Bop. I didn't want to take any chances with the guard midway down the stairwell, so he met the fish as well. I hid them both in a container behind the stairs.

It's Dawood time. He paths into a room right across from the stairwell to make a phone call. There is a guard there who must be dealt with, but he is easily dispatched and hid in a nearby chest. Dawood will come by shortly after, and there's a temptation to take him out when he does, but he has a trailing bodyguard who will happen upon you if you try that. However, distracting that guard is simple and allows you a perfect opportunity on Dawood once he's dealt with. Dawood paces around in a circle while on the phone call, so you have to mind that, but he's fair game from there. I gave him a speedy fish delivery, sniped him, and tossed him in the crate. Just to be on the safe side, I dragged the knocked out guard from earlier over behind the stairwell where I was confident no one would path by and discover him. Happily, this held. I exited the same way I came in and didn't have any issues there. With only Vanya left, I considered my options. I remember the railyard area being kind of a bitch, so I wasn't keen on that. I briefly attempted the Kashmirian strategy of calling Vanya now that Dawood was dead to see if that would trigger a meeting. However, I didn't have a coin on me for the phone call, and looked around for one for a bit until I got annoyed with having to constantly evade the enforcers in the slums. I also wasn't sure if I needed to have the actual Kashmirian outfit on for it, and reading up on later suggests that the Maelstrom can't be killed before making the call anyway (although I never officially confirmed that).

I thought back to my colored smoke. What would happen if I tossed it in the fire now with both Dawood and the Maelstrom dead? I did so, and Vanya returned to the area with her entourage of two guards and another lady. A thrown distraction behind the beach house brings the lady by her lonesome to investigate. I took this opportunity to take her out, because this was one fewer follower to deal with. I hastily dragged her inside the building and left her on the stairwell down to the Crows' hideout. Here's where things got a bit trickier. Vanya's guards on Master difficulty refuse to investigate any distractions, although Vanya herself will. The problem is that both guards try to follow her anywhere. This is when I got cheesy. Using the proven strategy of nudging one guard to delay his path and separate him from the others, I barely managed to create enough of a window to take him out without anyone noticing. I quickly dragged him down into the same stairwell and proceeded to attempt the same thing on the last remaining guard. I wasn't paying enough attention and forgot to pick up the weapon the first guard dropped. At first I thought this would be a welcome development and that he'd go take it somewhere far away and abandon his guard duties. Well, the place he decided to take it was through my stairwell full of unconscious bodies. Fuck fuck fuck. I had to sprint up behind him and barely knocked him out before he discovered them. I stuffed him in the same stairwell, and Vanya was now all alone.

I thoughtlessly tossed my briefcase as a distraction and hid inside the beach house, expecting to easily knock out Vanya when she turned away. Having forgotten that NPCs will gladly pick up my briefcase, Vanya did just that and headed towards my repository stairwell. I had to scramble to the other side of the room and somehow wasn't seen by the slimmest of margins, at which point I was able to sneak behind and subdue Vanya to then snipe her. I left her with the others on the stairs, and with my heart rate finally returning to normal and all mission objectives complete, I headed back out to the beach. I avoided the slums at all costs to reduce the chance of potentially being spotted to ruin all this work, and I booked it to the exit by the main entrance. Boom. I rather enjoyed this one. It's not that difficult to execute once you figure out how to do it, and there are surely some simpler ways than I did it, but it was tougher than usual to come up with my plans, and I was extremely pleased that I found and successfully utilized the colored smoke during this playthrough. It's rare that I learn some new trick on my own in the middle of these Master runs, so it was a fun surprise to have that discovery be intuitive enough for me to parse out mid-run. Good stuff.

Another Life is a fun map with some quality easter eggs, but I found myself wondering how it would translate to a challenge on Master difficulty. It's a fairly open layout, and a large portion of the mission has you infiltrating various houses to find clues on the secretive Ark Society that plays into the game's story for the next mission. Chasing around these clues and uncovering the secrets of this seemingly quiet neighborhood is enjoyable the first time, but returning to this map is sadly underwhelming. It's the one I least want to replay, not because it's particularly bad, but because the map itself is very straightforward. This mission leans heavily on the story bits, so once you've found enough clues to proceed with the game's overarching narrative and discovered the seedy underbelly of this community, there isn't much left. I was hoping that on Master difficulty, Another Life still had some secrets to show me or would throw some challenging new wrinkles. Alas, this was not to be. I will still love it forever for giving me muffins as a melee item, which we'll explore further later on.

I decided to be a clown for this one to crash the BBQ. I first focused on knocking out the clues for the Ark Society. Two are located near the Batty property, which are the lawsuit in his shed and the cigar box that can be dug up in the frog sanctuary. A third can be found via a photo in Janus' basement, which was where I planned on taking Janus out anyway. The house with a boat out front features a secret tunnel that leads straight into the Janus basement. There is a guard there, but he's easy to take out and stuff in a closet. I checked the photo for the final clue. Janus paths by the stairwell, and it's possible to entice his guard Gunther Mueller down the stairs a bit with some thrown objects. He is somewhat resistant to checking out distractions, almost like he's battling the game's AI, but with enough coaxing, he does eventually investigate your nonsense. It's mildly tricky to pull off the throw for the KO and not be seen doing so, but hugging the side of the stairwell and staying crouched will get the job done. Then it's simply a matter of doing the same to Janus. I dragged him into his tunnel for summary execution.

Now there was only Cassidy left to deal with. He is extremely easy to take out in his garage. All that needs to be done is to follow him and his guard into the garage, throw a distraction on the other side of the car, and then bonk both him and the guard. Both can actually be taken out in one go as long as it's done in quick succession. You can even close the garage door to ensure no passersby discover the bodies, at which point you're home free to drag them around to your heart's content. Handily, there is also a box to dump them both in. A sniper bullet to Cassidy completed my mission objectives, I hid them both in the box, and then strolled out of the garage. This was all too easy and therefore a bit of a letdown. In retrospect, I wish I'd tried for a tougher or sillier method on Janus or Cassidy, but honestly, I feel like the game should have done a better job making these targets more difficult to kill. Especially considering that Janus is supposed to be some ex-super-spy and Cassidy is former military turned Secret Service. This felt like when you go into some supposedly hard boss fight overleveled and just wreck said boss. It just wasn't very satisfying, but hey, they can't all be winners. If I'm being honest, not having to bang my head against the wall in trial-and-error isn't so bad once in a while anyway, and the game's final non-DLC map would soon bring the pain.

The Isle of Sgail is an excellent closing map. The setting is fairly epic, as an island castle secret meeting of a societal elites. There are loads of secret tunnels, a dungeon, valuable artifacts replete with an adventurer hilariously named Blake Nathaniel, a silly coin fetch quest, and some appropriately absurd rich people shit. In my incessant aim to make things more silly and to close out HITMAN 2's core game in style, I decided to bring along three blueberry muffins for an added challenge of hilariously blasting The Constant and both Washington twins with a blueberry muffin. I was tempted to sport the tuxedo, mask and gloves to fit in, but given that this was an infiltration to an island fortress, I decided on an homage to The Rock and went with the tactical wetsuit. In retrospect, I probably should have chosen the Keep as my starting location given that the North end of the map is where I ended up doing most of my damage and it would have allowed me to skip the helipad, but I started at the Chapel. This mission requires a ton of scaling, and you're trespassing virtually everywhere anyway, so I went ahead and just strapped the sniper rifle to my back for the entirety of the level.

The helicopter pad I had to make your way through (or around) is a real bastard. There are nearly a dozen people there looking every which way, with multiple patrolling guards. I tried a variety of paths through this, and while it's technically possible to stay on the surface level of the helicopter pad and sneak through it, it's not easy and not repeatable. I had stored my beloved muffins in the security room of the Chapel, so I had to time a careful sneak in through the window to retrieve them. Muffins secured, I proceeded with my quest. After a great deal of trial-and-error, I finally settled on using the outer edge of the helipad. You have to mind a pair of patrolling guards and another NPC, but if you time it correctly, you can sneak around behind the helicopter. There is another NPC to worry about, but if you wait until he isn't looking, you can sneak around to the back of the warehouse area, where 47 can then climb all the way up to the roof where Jebediah Block hangs out. Nothing is of use here for a suit-only run, but sneaking around to the opposite side has a pipe you can take down and scale across to access the main building.

Sophia Washington paths by a room adjacent to the stairwell down. There are four NPCs there to deal with, but all can be attracted into the room by a radio. They can be taken down one by one as long as you're careful to hide the bodies behind the couch so no one notices. You can do the same to Sophia's guard and eventually Sophia. I took this opportunity to heave a muffin at Sophia. The best part about the muffin is that it doesn't knock them out, but it does knock them over. They get up confused as to what happened, but otherwise don't panic. In 47's world, sometimes you just get hit with a muffin. Once Sophia resumed her course and turned off the radio, BLAT to the skull with the sniper rifle. One down. Here's where things became tougher. I think The Constant's pathing broke, because he's normally walking around all over the map, but in this run, he refused to leave the Hyperborean Showroom. This area is crowded as shit, which made my muffin plan tougher. Scaling around the edge of the building leads into a room with a camera and a lady monitoring a laptop that controls the lights for one of the exhibits. The camera can be shot from an adjacent room, which she will notice. I waited on the ledge outside for the panic to end, and then took her down when she came back in and hid her in the room I shot the camera from. Turning off the lights is a good way to take out most of the showroom, but there will still be several guards and The Constant who don't care what you do with the lights.

What occurred next was both glitchy and great. Despite the exhibits being transparent glass, they seemingly obscure the vision of the guards. This allowed for me to enter the showroom and very publicly bean The Constant with a muffin for maximum humor. The guards temporarily freaked out, but no one saw me do it. Perfect. Given that The Constant can't be killed, I considered this part of the mission done. Yes, you can optionally extract him for Lucas Grey, but I had no clue how to pull that off suit only. Walking up to him to have the necessary conversation with him when you're trespassing and to escort him to an exit in your suit seems extremely difficult, and dragging his knocked out body to an exit in your suit seems borderline impossible. It wasn't an undertaking I felt necessary, especially since I'd added the bonus muffin objective and know what happens later with The Constant in the narrative anyway. Blasting him in the face with a muffin in the brightest goddamn room on the map in full view of multiple guards was incredibly satisfying anyway, so I happily moved on to Zoe Washington. Her path does not allow for many opportunities to take her out. There is really only one good spot, and that is on the grassy path leading to the morgue. I should note here that this is one of those times when the NPCs having uber-hearing on Master difficulty becomes an issue. It wasn't that difficult to attract NPCs into the grass to take them out, but bonking them with something often attracted other NPCs to the sound of said bonking, which created this fucking Benny Hill chain of me having to rapidly drag bodies away to take out the next one who came looking.

While stressful, this did also rapidly clear out the area below the funeral. I got more and more panicked each time I had to bring an NPC over, though, fearing that eventually one would spot someone's foot sticking out of the grass or an NPC that was stacked on top of another. This somehow didn't happen, but that didn't stop me from agonizing about it for the better part of a half-hour as I efforted to create my shot at Zoe. I finally got enough NPCs out of the way to where her trailing guard was able to be drawn into the grass, and with him taken out, all that I had left to do was bop Zoe with a muffin and shoot her. I waited for her to path back through and brought her over. Muffin splat. I snipe her as she rises to her feet. Whew. Done. Oh shit, a guard heard and is coming over. Quick, drag her into the grass! Don't see me or the body pile. Please don't. (holds breath) Ah, what luck to watch him return back to his post at the funeral, none the wiser. There is an exit nearby if you sneak around the backside of the funeral. As long as you're cognizant of two patrolling guards there and wait for them to turn away, you take a stairwell down to an area just above three guards. This is scary because you have to take a ladder down, but there is only one guard that looks towards the ladder and it's easy enough to time it and bolt for the exit. Fuck yeah.

Having Mastered the main missions of HITMAN 2, it was time for the DLC. The first of these maps is a bank map set in New York. I decided to be Santa because people often associate NYC with Christmas. The Golden Handshake is a decent mission, as it tosses in a wrinkle of having to escape with either the visible illegal item of the data core or to collect three backup drives on three key NPCs in the mission. Breaking into the vault seems like a must in a bank mission, so I went with that option. I also made it way easier on myself by bringing along the electronic key hacker to ease my path down to the vault. From the main entrance, I headed over to the left by the guard who seems mostly content to look out over his counter towards the bank lobby. I picked the locked door by him, which allows for sneaking into the room behind him. The area by the vault is accessible via door on the left that takes you down a stairwell dropping you near the security room. There are only a few guards here to deal with, and messing with the A/C brings one out by himself for an easy pacification. It gets slightly trickier luring the others out of view of each other, but closing doors at the right times ensures that no one sees a KO, and you can leave several knocked out guards in the adjacent room, which also features the security system that can be erased to make the rest of the mission easier.

The main security room is really a treasure trove. You can manually break into vault with a crowbar if necessary, but once you've cleared out the security room, there's also a keycard right there in a cabinet for a cleaner entry. The vault itself has a neat opening animation and makes an appropriately bass-heavy chun sound as it unlocks. There are security lasers in here, and it's not that difficult to see the pattern and time it without 47 needing to do any Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment shenanigans. Better yet, if you have the vault keycard as you should, you can simply disable it with a swipe. There are some silly valuable items and gold bars everywhere to where you can load up on objects to throw for the rest of the mission, but we're here for the data core. It isn't something you can be seen with, so I brought it back to the room adjacent to the security room and left it with a few sleeping guards for now. They'll keep an eye on it for me. Accessing the upper levels gets a bit trickier. Returning up the stairwell that brought you down allows for access to the second floor where you can do the job interview opportunity normally. This isn't an option for suit-only, so it's sneaking time. On the right side of the room, there's a guard who does a really shitty job of guarding. You'll be trespassing once you pass the velvet ropes, but he doesn't really look that way at all. There's one patrolling banker, but you just have to wait for him to turn his back and you're clear to sneak into the hallway beside the room.

At the end of this hallway are a pair of people watching a television. The sneak by them is scary because of how close you have to get to them, but it's plenty doable. This leads into a break room that allows for you to sneak behind two security guards facing the other direction. I'm not sure if you actually need to take them out, but I closed the break room door to the TV viewers and enticed the guards in there to be dispatched. The reason I bothered doing this was because this would make for a potentially easy exit if I could leave this trespassing area and just walk down into the lobby. In my experience, that moment of transition from trespassing to not when done right in front of a guard, can often go bad, so I didn't care to risk it. I hid them both in the break room closet, and I went ahead and used my one save. Behind them is the area by where the sweater guy Athena fires is busy talking to a security guard. Again, this opportunity doesn't really help us in suit-only mode, so I proceeded up the stairwell behind them. This area is filled with NPCs. There are only a few you have to worry about, though. One is a high-security NPC that I think has one of the backup drives. He has a lengthy path, so it's not that likely that he'll be there, but he does come through the area so you can't just leave a body on the stairwell. I just let him pass by. An NPC I perhaps should have taken out is this one frenetic dude who constantly goes in and out of the bathroom. Not only does he book it on his route, his loop is short. He's arguably worth pacifying just to make the next portion easier.

The security room just to the right at the top of the stairs is surprisingly not that secure. There is a seated guard who stares incessantly at a computer screen, and another who patrols around the room a bit. A bit of patience allows you to see his pattern, at which point it's fairly easy to crouch-sneak behind him and right by the computer guard. There is a keycard door there and a stairwell up to Savalas's office level. At the top of the stairs is a guard and a receptionist who you have to be careful of. Both are looking at your area, so a quick sneak is necessary, and you can then hop over to sneak behind the receptionist area, which brings you into a break room beside Savalas' office. We're getting closer, but the area in which I wanted to dispatch Savalas was all the way on the other side of the office in her private room. This bit is somewhat difficult. My strategy was to wait for Savalas to leave the office and take her personal guard with her, which leaves two guards. They are both facing your direction, but tossing a commemorative token to the left corner of the room distracts the closest guard, and if you're quick enough, you can sneak between them while the one guard investigates your handiwork. Back by her office now, it was time to lay in wait. She comes through with her guard in tow. There may be a way to take her out without her guard noticing, but I didn't want to risk it, especially considering the occasional uber-hearing NPCs have on Master difficulty.

I waited for Savalas to leave, and then distracted her guard to where he was all by himself in the room. being careful to not dispatch him in front of an open door, I took him down and stuffed him in a crate. From there it was just waiting for her to return. I regret not picking up a hamburger to throw at her first, but I shot her in her little viewing room and dumped her in the crate. I snuck back out the same way I entered. I had to be mindful of frenetic bathroom guy, but that was about it. I was able to stroll back down into the lobby without those two guards there. Still, I had to go pick the data core back up and escape. Obviously bringing the data core into the lobby (or really anywhere on the map where an NPC can see it) presents issues, so my escape route of choice was the security truck. This is locked by default, but the keys aren't that difficult to obtain. They're located by a sleeping guard in the safe deposit box area. I had to be mindful of a pathing NPC and a few guards in the central area between the safe deposit rooms, and there are some NPCs ambling around in the room next to the sleeping guard that will spot you if you aren't careful, but it's not that tough to sneak up to Officer Snoozy (do NOT accidentally bump him, though) and make off with the keys. After you have them, all that's left is to pick up the data core and drive off into the sunset in a Brinks truck. Woo!

The game's final mission in Haven Island proved the toughest of all. I decided to be a pirate as a nod to Caribbean history and because pirates are just plain fun. Also, they stole shit from other people. Strategically, I think I got tunnel vision on my plan because I started in the Shark Hut, which presents you with a prime kill opportunity on Ljudmila if you can obtain the USB drive for her. I also recalled that in this same server area, there is a surveillance system hub, so I committed myself to knocking out two birds with one stone so I could set up the Vetrova kill and walk around without worrying about cameras. This sounds great in theory, but is incredibly difficult to pull off. After meeting with Vetrova on the pier (which takes way too long), I headed over by the villa where Tyson Williams is, which happens to also be above the server room. This villa is a motherfucker. I initially tried accessing it via the back side, which requires ditching your briefcase and scaling around the pool. You can do that, but you need to hide the sniper rifle in the briefcase to be able to exit the villa area with it, so that was out for me. The easiest way to access the villa is to the right of the main entrance, which has a broken section of the fence that you can scale. Things don't get easier inside the perimeter, but once you're in, you can sneak around the right side through the bushes and make your way over near the ramp that will allow you access to the server room area. There is a tech that comes out this door to go grab a drink at the bar. While it's technically possible to hide right next to the door and not be seen by him, it's not worth the risk when his loop is short. It's much better to just hide behind a nearby crate and take him down when he heads back down the the ramp with his back to you.

There is a closet in the room to hide him in, and now you have an access card. Taking the next stairwell down brings you to the backside of a control center of sorts. There are three techs there. One of them is on a path between two monitors, and another will eventually move over to the right. These are the most oblivious techs in the world, as you can just wait for the guy to move to the right terminal and then bonk all three of them in succession. The only tricky bit is that there's a guard in the room below who takes a long path to the back of the server room and can potentially see them get taken out, but he's not hard to check on and you have a large window of time to pull it off. No one ever comes up to this room, so I left the three of them in a pile by the center console and exited to the right. You can snipe the surveillance system across the room from here. Cameras down. Unfortunately, the next part completely sucks ass. There is a guard who patrols on a line below you, and there is also a break room with multiple security guards in it and the USB thief, who almost never stops moving. The guard on patrol is the first that needs to be handled. Throwing an object over to his right is enough to distract him, but the hard part is hiding behind a box where he can't see you while also not getting seen by the USB thief. Then you have to do it again on a guard in the break room to be able to sneak by. Then you have to either take out the USB thief or the guard in the locker room. I lost count of how many times I got spotted at some point during this and had to do the whole thing all over.

I eventually managed to get the elusive USB drive, and was very tempted to save right then and there, but I also wanted to clear out a path to Tyson. I had a good plan for this part, which is very low-risk, but also time-consuming. So I held onto my save and proceeded to try to figure out how to get over to the other side of the villa. My initial plan was to hop back over the fence where I came in, which sadly only works one-way. I had to re-think my strategy and returned to the ramp where I first took out the tech guy. I strapped the rifle to my back and left the briefcase by the stored jetskis there out of sight, and scaled around the pool on the back side of the villa. Entering the side door of the villa normally has two cameras there on Master difficulty (the second one is sneaky), but those were already dealt with thanks to taking out the surveillance system. Now to take down some maids. There is one immediately near the back side of the villa, who faces away from you. She is no trouble at all to deal with and hide in the bushes below. There are two more by the stairs above, who have a brief conversation about Tyson and then split up. Tyson and his guard path in a room nearby, which is what we're after, but as long as you keep an eye on them, it's easy to take out both maids, drag them down the stairs, and hide them in the same bushes as the other maid. This left a guard and a woman fixing the hot tub in the room Tyson and his guard come through. At this point, I went ahead and saved.

Boy, am I glad I did. The handywoman is very tough to get to a place where you can take her out, because the whole room has an all-glass window with a small door, so it's a pain in the ass to get in the room with her to be able to bonk her with something. After several failed attempts, I actually found that the best strategy was to wait for the guard to go outside, knock him out, quickly run back around, distract her with a thrown object, sprint back around and throw something at her from behind. This sequence was very dumb, but was also the most effective. It's tempting to dump them both in a nearby closet, but I went ahead and just put the guard in the closet and dragged her down into the maid pile in the bushes. Now we're down to just Tyson and his guard. Tyson's path through the room is rather quick, so it's tough to take out his guard in the other room, and again, the glass windows make that very difficult anyway. The better plan is to leave the rifle from the earlier guard in their way, which the guard will take away to give you a clear shot at Tyson, literally. He goes over to the mirror to talk to himself, and he's easy pickings there. Stuffing him in the closet really leaves only Steven to worry about, as Lyudmila wants that USB bad enough to hold a private meeting with me to get it. She's as good as dead. Steven, however, wasn't, and I didn't really have any great ideas as to how to have a chance at him. I did still need to escape the villa with my briefcase and rifle, which meant sneaking around the pool again, concealing it, and heading out towards the private island.

There is a guard over by the seaplane, but throwing an object into the bushes nearby and then throwing something at him there leaves him knocked out and hidden. The next part isn't easy. The island is accessible through a shallow area, but there's a guard there and some dude who does yoga. Both can easily spot you if you let them, but timing it correctly and hugging the far right side of the shallow area on a full sprint will get you onto the island, barely escaping being noticed. Here's where I think I got lucky. Steven jogs around this island, typically with a guard close behind him that he's telling to keep up. For whatever reason, this time he was all alone, so as he ran by, I threw an apple in the bushes, which he came to investigate. I threw the briefcase at him, as I was afraid simply shooting him would send his body out into view of some nearby guards. I then walked up right on him and shot him. Two down, and seemingly only a layup of a kill left. Still, I had to get off of the island undetected. Going back the way I came was risky and would have required some untested shenanigans to get out of the villa with briefcase and rifle. There are only a handful of people on the island, so I was careful with my surroundings and snuck under the middle part of the island over to the other side. There is a lady there, but she leaves to allow for sneaking into some bushes. You can stay in the bushes and sneak all the way past a bunch of guards, which is scary, but safe as long as you take it slow.

There is one patrolling guard by the main access bridge to the island, but if you head around a bit further and check your map, the shallow area extends far enough away from the larger cluster of guards, and the patrolling one's path ends at a point where you can sneak straight across when he turns back on his route. Now I was back in a safe area where I wasn't trespassing and still had my briefcase and rifle. This is right by the spa area, so I strolled in and dialed Lyudmila, who was already in the spa and came out to meet me. I followed her into the private room, gave her the USB, and she turned her back to overlook the water. I pulled out my sniper rifle and shot her in the back of the head, catapulting her over the railing and hidden in the water below. Fantastic, and a fittingly brutal kill. I packed my rifle back into the briefcase and walked out of the spa. Remembering Santa Fortuna, I then went on a full sprint towards the nearest exit, which happened to be a dinghy. I happily became the pirate captain of this majestic vessel and sped away into the ocean blue.

This has been one hell of a journey. I still have a few challenges left here and there to 100% HITMAN 2, but the hard part is over, and I think it's fair to say that I've literally Mastered it. Looking back, I think the Isle of Sgail is probably HITMAN 2's best map, followed closely by Santa Fortuna and Haven Island. It remains a fantastic game, and I maintain my opinion that it's better overall than its incredible predecessor. This silly pursuit has made for a very welcome distraction during quarantine, and I can't recommend the game highly enough for anyone willing to put some time into it. I'm not sure I can endorse playing it as crazily as I did, because that time-sink of trial-and-error is only enjoyable for precious few, but I had a blast doing it, and I'm not yet done with my time in HITMAN 2. Still, I'm probably nearing the end, and I'm done chronicling my exploits in it. I hope this made for a fun read and maybe gets a few more people to give HITMAN 2 a shot, but I hope even more that whatever you duders are doing to keep yourselves occupied during the craziness that is 2020 is safe and fulfilling, even if it's something as dumb as what I've been doing. Cheers, all.