Hitman 2

Overview

Hitman 2 is an action/adventure game developed by IO Interactive and published by WB Games for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. It is the follow-up to 2016's Hitman.

The game introduces several new gameplay features, such as NPCs spotting Agent 47 in mirrors, guards being alerted if illegal actions are performed in front of surveillance cameras, and the ability to hide in tall grass. These features carry over into the levels from the previous game, which are available in Hitman 2.

Hitman Legacy Pack

For owners of the previous Hitman game a pack of downloadable content was made available for free that contains all the previous episodes of the game. There are two available options depending on which version of the game players owned. One is the base game pack and the other is the Game of the Year Edition pack. Both of these packs can be purchased for players of Hitman 2 that did not previously own the previous Hitman.

Destinations

Campaign

Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Available Missions:

- Nightcall

- Search the house for intel on the Shadow Client

- Eliminate Alma Reynard

- Locate Exit

Serving as the tutorial mission for Hitman 2, 'Nightcall' tasks players - as Agent 47 - with infiltrating a beach house and acquiring data on the identity and operations of the 'Shadow Client', the figure responsible for the series of contracts first depicted in Hitman (2016).

At this time, the ICA (International Contract Agency) (including 47 and Diana) are acting on behalf of Providence, an Illuminati-esque secret organisation. While this goes against the ICA policy of neutrality in such matters, the 'Shadow Client' is proving difficult for both groups to handle seperately. Moreover, Providence's controller (known as 'The Constant') has secretly promised Diana details of 47's past (as seen in the ending cutscene for Hitman (2016)'s main campaign.)

Upon finding the information, 47 must evade the house's returning occupants before eliminating one of the 'Shadow Client's' lieutenants, Alma Reynard, then exfiltrating.

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Miami, Florida

Available Missions:

- The Finish Line

- Eliminate Robert Knox

- Eliminate Sierra Knox

- Locate Exit

Data recovered in the previous mission indicates Robert Knox - CEO of robotics developer Kronstadt Industries - and his daughter/heir to the company, Sierra Knox, were Providence members until recently. Both have since defected to the 'Shadow Client''s side. 47 is sent to assassinate father and daughter at the annual Global Innovation motor race in Miami, Florida.

Meanwhile, Providence is able to identify the 'Shadow Client' as Lucas Grey, former head of security for deceased Providence key-holder, Eugene Cobb (mentioned in Hitman (2016).)

Grey himself is working with hacktivist Olivia Hall, believing they'll need 47's help to defeat Providence, once and for all.

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Santa Fortuna, Colombia

Available Missions:

- Three-Headed Serpent

- Eliminate Rico Delgado

- Eliminate Andrea Martinez

- Eliminate Jorge Franco

47 travels to Santa Fortuna, a remote fishing village in Columbia, overlooked by the Delgado mansion and located near to the Delgado cartel's Coca fields. His three targets are drug lord Rico Delgado (a relative of previous targets Don Fernando Delgado and Manuel Delgado, seen - and eliminated - in Hitman: Blood Money), marketing expert and 'face' of the cartel, Andrea Martinez, and brilliant chemist-and-cook, Jorge Franco.

Eliminating all three will destabilise the cartel enough for Grey and his militia to lose access to the cartel's smuggling network, preventing them from traveling around the world in a quick and virtually-invisible manner.

Upon the conclusion of this mission, Diana reports this success to Providence while visiting her family's grave plot in Surrey, England. It is revealed she witnessed her Parents' deaths via a car bomb when she was younger, following their attempts to take the company responsible for her brother's death to court.

- Embrace of the Serpent

- Eliminate Blair Reddington

- Retrieve Reddington's Black Book

A 'Special Assignment', available with Hitman 2's Expansion Pass, 'Embrace of the Serpent' remixes a few elements of Santa Fortuna while introducing a new target: Blair Reddington, a wealthy big-game hunter and member of The Lodge, an elitist hunting society who exclusively hunt endangered animals.

47 is required to eliminate Reddington and retrieve his 'Black Book', the latter containing names and details of all of The Lodge's members.

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Mumbai, India

Available Missions:

- Chasing a Ghost

- Find 'The Maelstrom'

- Eliminate Wazir Kale

- Eliminate Vanya Shah

- Eliminate Dawood Rangan

Following the events of 'Three-Headed Serpent', Grey steals an item from the Ether Corporation. Through a hostage situation orchestrated by his militia, the existence of Providence is revealed to the wider world.

47 travels to Mumbai, where he is tasked with the elimination of three individuals associated with a street gang known as 'The Crows' - 'The Maelstrom', a former pirate; Vanya Shah, the present 'Queen' of the Mumbai underworld, and Dawood Rangan, a Bollywood director who uses his films to launder money. This group was involved in the killing of a Providence operative in Shanghai - and 'The Maelstrom' is one of Grey's top lieutenants.

Upon eliminating the trio, 47 heads to the ruins of the Ort-Meyer asylum in Romania. There, he encounters Grey, who reveals he and 47 were to be raised there as assassins for Providence. 47 recalls Grey as 'Subject 6' - and that, as children, the two boys vowed revenge on those who turned them into assassins (which 47 achieved, in part, through killing Dr. Ort-Meyer at the end of Hitman: Codename 47, in the mission 'Meet Your Brother'.)

- Illusions of Grandeur

- Eliminate Basil Carnaby

A 'Special Assignment', available with Hitman 2's Expansion Pass, 'Illusions of Grandeur' remixes a few elements of Mumbai while introducing a new target: Basil Carnaby, an infamous magician and hypnotist who robbed London's upper-class in the 1960s through proxy, hypnotising their impressionable children to do it for him.

47 is required to eliminate Carnaby.

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Whittleton Creek, Vermont

Available Missions:

- Another Life

- Confirm an existing connection between Janus and The Constant

- Reveal a date they would meet

- Eliminate Janus

- Eliminate Nolan Cassidy

Following the events of 'Chasing a Ghost', Diana and 47 go to meet Grey and Hall in Berlin. Grey reveals that Dr. Ort-Meyer was a member of Providence. He also reveals Providence is controlled by a figure known as 'the Constant' and three executives, known collectively as 'the Partners'.

47 and Grey had attempted to kill the Partners in the past, but failed. While 47's memories were wiped by Ort-Meyer, Grey was able to escape with his own memories intact.

In the present, Grey wishes to capture the Constant, as he is the only person who knows of the Partners' real identities. 47 - or rather, his lost memories - may help to uncover the location of this current Constant, since 47 knew the identity of the first Constant. Grey gives 47 a memory restoration antidote (the item he stole from the Ether Corporation earlier on), which the latter takes. 47 then recalls the first Constant was a Cold War spymaster known as 'Janus'.

Diana files a false report with Providence, implicating Janus as the 'Shadow Client' while adding that Grey was only one of Janus's lieutenants. While she does this, 47 infiltrates Whittleton Creek, a sleepy suburban neighbourhood in Vermont. His aim is to confirm whether one of its residents - a now-elderly Janus - has a connection to the present Constant. If so, he is to establish when the two will next meet. Finally, 47 must eliminate Janus and his Providence minder, Nolan Cassidy - the former's funeral giving him access to Providence's upper echelon, and the latter preventing any contradiction of the 'Janus is the Shadow Client' story.

During the mission, the trio come to learn that Janus is indeed in contact with the current Constant; that Janus was planning to take a helicopter to an annual event held by 'The Ark Society', a plutocratic survivalist group, among which are many high-ranking Providence members, including the Constant.

Janus's funeral will be held at the group's next gathering. 47, Diana, Grey and Hall set off for its location - a remote island in the North Atlantic, the Isle of Sgàil.

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Isle of Sgàil, North Atlantic

Available Missions:

- The Ark Society

- Eliminate Zoe Washington

- Eliminate Sophia Washington

- Do not eliminate The Constant

- Help Lucas Grey extract The Constant (Optional)

The final mission of the original Hitman 2 campaign, 'The Ark Society' follows on from the events of 'Another Life' - with 47 and Grey arriving at the annual Ark Society gathering, and 47 infiltrating as one of its many masked guests (this is the default starting location - as with other missions, more can be unlocked.)

47 must eliminate the mysterious group's two current chairwomen, sisters Zoe and Sophia Washington, both of whom possess 'kill-switches' for the poison chip implanted into The Constant's neck (a fail-safe, should the latter be compromised.) He can then extract The Constant in a variety of ways - either through leading him to the island's docks, knocking him out, or leaving him active once the sisters have been eliminated (in the case of the latter two, Grey will capture and extract The Constant off-screen. The player is not required to participate in any way beyond what has been previously mentioned.)

Upon the conclusion of this mission, 47, Diana and Grey interrogate The Constant. Diana points out that The Constant is expendable to the Partners, since he's been captured. In turn, The Constant reveals the names of three families - of which, three individual members (one from each) serve as the three Partners of Providence: the Ingrams, Carlisles and Stuyvesants.

47 and Grey head off to find the three families. While this happens, The Constant taunts Diana about how little she really knows of her Agent's past. We then cut to a flashback experienced by 47, wherein his restored memories reveal he was responsible for the car bombing that killed Diana's parents.

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New York, USA

Available Missions:

- Golden Handshake

- Eliminate Athena Savalas

- Obtain data on the identities of the Providence Partners (either through stealing the Bank Vault's Data Core or three backup disks from three individuals (comprising a full 'image' of the data.))

The first Expansion Pass mission for Hitman 2 (excluding Sniper Assassin maps), 'Golden Handshake' directly follows on from the events of 'The Ark Society'.

Grey's associate, Olivia Hall, tracks the names of members of the three families mentioned by the Constant - the three Partners. But it's a dead end...literally, it seems, as obituaries for all three have suddenly appeared online.

But the Partners aren't dead. They're transitioning between identities. And the trail hasn't gone cold just yet...

The Constant tells Diana they should 'follow the money'. 47 and Grey head for the New York branch of Milton-Fitzpatrick Investment Bank, a key Providence asset, with which the Partners all have active accounts. The Partners' transitions to new identities are recent enough that their bank records have yet to be updated - but all will be, remotely, in a matter of hours.

To acquire the current bank records, 47 must either steal the Data Core from the bank's vault or complete an image of the data via acquisition of three partial backup data disks (held by Branch Director Athena Savalas, Security Director Mateo Perez and Accounts Director Fabian Mann, respectively.) He must also assassinate branch director and Providence operative, Athena Savalas, in order to sever the final Providence tie to the bank and keep the Partners from discovering the data breach.

Upon the completion of his objectives, 47 leaves the bank, only to be informed by Grey that Olivia has found something 'interesting'. When 47 asks where they're going next, Grey replies, 'to paradise'.

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Haven Island, Maldives

Available Missions:

- The Last Resort

- Eliminate Tyson Williams

- Eliminate Ljudmila Vetrova

- Eliminate Steven Bradley

The second and final Expansion Pass mission for Hitman 2, 'The Last Resort' directly follows on from the events of 'Golden Handshake'. It is the final mission of Hitman 2's story campaign.

Hall decrypts the data recovered from Milton-Fitzpatrick by 47, isolating three transactions made by the three Providence Partner accounts to Haven. A 'reputation management service' to the rich and famous on its surface, Haven's real earnings come from the covert reconstruction of identities of wealthy criminals. Haven can make people disappear...for a price.

Haven's headquarters in the Maldives doubles as a luxury resort; a place for current and potential clients to lie low and enjoy themselves while Haven does its work. Beneath the resort is a hidden server farm - upon which, the leads to the Partners. But Hall is unable to hack into their servers: Haven's owners attend to the safety of their clients' information personally through manually resetting the access keys every ten hours.

As such, 47 must infiltrate the resort and eliminate Haven's owners - founder and CEO, Tyson Williams; client recruiter and handler, Ljudmila Vetrova; and head technician and designer of Haven's proprietary software platform, Steven Bradley. Doing so will allow Hall to eventually break into the servers, acquiring the Partners' identities in the process.

Upon the completion of his objectives, 47 leaves Haven Island to meet with Grey in a nearby cave hideout. Elsewhere, with Diana standing by, Hall hacks into Haven's servers.

Hall notes something isn't right - that Providence's controlling shares aren't going to the new Partner identities, but a different source altogether; an individual. This leaves the Partners with no control over Providence...rather, it's being given to one person, Arthur Edwards.

Recalling that this is the true name of the Constant (a detail implied in a previous mission, 'The Ark Society', by documents found in the Constant's safe), Diana rushes to the room in which the Constant is imprisoned...only to find he's escaped.

During this time, Grey receives a text message from an unseen source. He tells 47 it's a message from Hall; that everything is going to plan. They have the Partners' identities and locations. He tells 47 that it's 'time to fulfil our purpose', to which 47 responds, 'To take them all down.'

The screen cuts to black.

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Sniper Assassin

Hitman 2 comes with a single Sniper Assassin location (the Expansion Pass adds two more.) This mode can be played in single player (as Agent 47) or, in a new addition to the series, online co-op (with a choice between Agents Knight and Stone.)

Unlike the main campaign, Sniper Assassin is played from a single vantage point on the map. The player(s) - armed with a suppressed sniper rifle - receives fifteen minutes to eliminate their targets, along with bodyguards. Emphasis is placed on scoring (including combos and multipliers; the latter attained through completing challenges. In multiplayer, additional points are available through 'Synchronized Kills' - requiring cooperation to achieve.) It is also possible to attain a 'Silent Assassin' rating through stealthily achieving one's objectives (i.e. nobody is seen getting shot, no bodies are found, no civilians are killed) - which, in turn, grants a big boost to the player(s) total score.

Using the rifle in creative ways to eliminate and conceal enemies is encouraged (for example, drawing a guard away from others through disabling a junction box, or pushing a corpse into a body of water with a series of shots.) To facilitate this, players are given a variety of ammunition types:

- Body-Piercing Ammo - 'High pressure, body-piercing rounds' (Unlimited supply)

- Wall-Piercing Ammo - 'Wall and body-piercing titanium rounds (Limited supply, dependent on Agent and Mastery.)

- Shockwave Ammo - Rounds which produce a shockwave on impact (Limited supply, dependent on Agent and Mastery.)

In single-player, the player has access to all three types of ammunition and can switch between them at will (should the ammunition be available to do so.) In multiplayer, each character receives one of the two 'specialist' ammunition types along with their standard ammunition - with Knight receiving Wall-Piercing Ammo and Stone receiving Shockwave Ammo, respectively.

Sniper Assassin mode features per-location Mastery paths for all three characters. Each level grants bonuses to a character and their sortie-specific rifle (e.g. longer time for slow-motion when holding breath, quicker reload speed) or increases their starting supply of specialist ammunition for that map (an exception comes with reaching Mastery Level 20 in single-player on Siberia: this unlocks 47's Druzhina 34 ICA Arctic for use in his 'on-the-ground' missions.)

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Himmelstein, Austria

Available Missions:

- The Last Yardbird

- Eliminate Dorian Lang

- Eliminate Guillaume Maison

- Eliminate Doris Lee

- Eliminate Bodyguards

Mission Equipment:

47: Sieger 300 Ghost

Knight: Jaeger 7 Copperhead

Stone: Sieger 300 Redeemer

47 (or Knight and Stone) is sent to Himmelstein, Austria, to eliminate three of the remaining four members of The Yardbirds, a gang of infamous heisters. Their biggest score - the Shamal Casino (seen in Hitman: Blood Money) - proved to be the group's undoing.

The money they'd stolen was the property of organised criminals. In turn, their retaliation necessitated the five Yardbirds - Aleksander Kovac, Kalvin 'The Sparrow' Ritter (since deceased - the circumstances of his assassination were later recreated in an ICA facility to train new agents, including 47), Dorian Lang, Guillaume Maison and Doris Lee - go into hiding, but not before burying the money, to be found when the dust settles once more.

Years later - and running out of money - Maison resurfaces. Lang's daughter, Elizabeth, is getting married - and Maison sees an opportunity to reunite the group for the occasion and suggest they dig up their fortune. He gives Elizabeth, her husband-to-be and their wedding party free use of his luxurious mansion in Himmelstein, Austria, for the big day.

But Aleksander Kovacs isn't interested in splitting the money. He hires the ICA to eliminate his former compatriots.

In doing so, he becomes The Last Yardbird.

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Hantu Port, Singapore

Available Missions:

- The Pen and the Sword

- Eliminate Re Thak

- Eliminate Lhom Kwai

- Eliminate Jin Noo

- Eliminate the Heavenly Guard soldiers

- Hostages must survive

Mission Equipment:

47: Druzhina 34 ICA

Knight: Jaeger 7 Rude Ruby

Stone: Sieger 300 Viper

47 (or Knight and Stone) is sent to Hantu Port, Singapore, to intercept members of the 7th Special Forces Group of the Heavenly Guard - an elite group within the military of the (fictional) country of Khandanyang, unshakeably loyal to its dictatorial leader, Sun Po - and their captives, Han and Ma Ldong.

Han was once the national poet of Khandandang...that was, until he defected to the United States during a meeting at the United Nations. He and his wife, Ma, began living under witness protection. And so it remained for years - until two nights ago (prior to this mission.) The couple are ambushed and captured in a home invasion by the aforementioned 7th Special Forces Group. The timing is no accident - Sun Po's birthday celebrations are about to begin in Khandanyang. A public execution of disloyal defectors would please him immensely.

The Ldongs have been taken to Hantu Port, Singapore - the last stop before they're smuggled onto a cargo ship and returned to Khandanyang.

ICA assets must save both hostages. They must eliminate the heads of the 7th Special Forces Group - Colonel Jin Noo, Captain Lhom Kwai and Captain Re Thak - all of whom have arrived at Hantu Port to personally oversee the operation. They must also eliminate as many of the Heavenly Guard soldiers on site as possible.

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Perm-14, Siberia, Russia

Available Missions:

- Crime and Punishment

- Eliminate Roman Khabko

- Eliminate Vitaly Reznikov

- Eliminate the Siberian Tigers

- Cause a riot inside the facility

Mission Equipment:

47: Druzhina 34 ICA Arctic

Knight: Jaeger 7 Snow Fox

Stone: Sieger 300 Ice

47 (or Knight and Stone) is sent to Perm-14 - a Siberian prison camp, privately-owned by former KGB Officer and presently-corrupt Prison Warden, Vitaly Reznikov.

The United Nations is investigating Reznikov's prison on suspicion of human rights abuses. For Vitaly, it's an ideal time for prisoner/effective second-in-command, Roman Khabko, to approach him with a plan for the latter's early release...to the tune of a million dollars, cash. Khabko heads to warmer climes, and Reznikov escapes a measure of association with the conditions of his prison - and justice - with enough money to live off for the rest of his days.

Of particular note is Khabko's status as a Russian mafioso with suspected political ties and knowledge. His release could potentially cause significant problems for the Russian government, let alone his associations with/enabling of organised crime.

The client wants Reznikov and Khabko eliminated. In addition, Reznikov's death squad, the Siberian Tigers, are also targets. Finally, the client requires plausible deniability be a factor in the killings; as such, the ICA asset(s) need to cause a prison riot, to serve as a cover for the eliminations of the intended targets.

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