For me, the thing I like about Hitman is also the thing that sometimes intimidates me into not playing it and doing something else. Starting a new mission and seeing 400 objectives, some as big and interesting as "kill target with their favourite vape" and some as small as "put on the janitor costume" is always so overwhelming every single time. It's honestly hard for me to start a new Hitman level.
...However, once I do, the impeccable design turns that negative into a positive. It's why I love mission stories; not just the fact that they exist, but specifically that they have that "hand-holdy mission tracking" option for them. Doing a mission story is like a tour of a small section of the level. Typically, the very good stories will show you one key part of the level each. So, if you have a target who never seems to leave his house and one of your objectives is "kill target by dropping piano on him from roof", that seems like a huge mystery that needs to be solved. But odds are, one of the mission stories will show you - while tracking a story to kill a different target sometimes - that if you do something that stresses them out, they need a smoke and head outside. Kill opportunity. Obviously, this is 100% possible with the "hand-hold" feature turned off, but it simply removes a barrier that would make the game just a little less welcoming for me at the outset.
This is the bread and butter of Hitman to me. Investigating a level, sometimes by way of a mission story and sometimes just by your own exploration and learning the triggers that make the different cogs move. The strange pocket universe that Hitman seems to exist in where every one follows a script helps this a lot, actually. Even after killing the lead actor of a movie shoot, eventually everyone just returns to their jobs like nothing ever happened. It feels like the universe itself wants these people dead, and 47 is just the agent of its will. When thinking like this, Hitman GO makes a lot more sense to me, metanarratively. Anyway, where this meets up with the game design is this makes you feel like every attempt, successful or not, on a target's life is just information gathering, and then you reset the loop and go again, armed with more knowledge.
Maybe it's a little juvenile thinking of it in this abstract way, but it really does help me conceptualize how this game world works. The mission stories give you a hint of some areas where it might be a good idea to poke around a little, see what you can uncover. Maybe you just waltz into an easy way to pull off some unique kill, reload, use that knowledge to do something else, and so on and before you know it, you're nearly at 20/20 mastery. I start every Hitman level uneasy and feeling out of place, but this gameplay loop always carefully eases me into a comfortable mindset. Sometimes, I don't realize that I've nearly learned everything about a level until I go back to the level select and see my progress.
Then, of course, there's stuff like David Bateson's great performance as 47 and the great ambient dialogue. I mean, who could forget "somebody's doing something they shouldn't"?
I'm actually really happy Hitman has come back and gotten the success it has. Considering the fact that Hitman is such a rules-oriented game, and in some respects is very strict about the way it enforces those rules, I would have guessed more people would be like you and find it's just "not for them". Yet, as you've said, so many people love this series, and for a multitude of reasons; I couldn't be happier for it.
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