Hitman 3 launches later today and is shaping up to be January’s biggest release. Since it’s both a full-priced game and the final entry in the World of Assassination trilogy, prospective assassins are likely wondering about the length of its levels and how much juice they can squeeze out of them.
We’ve played and reviewed Hitman 3 – spoiler alert: it’s really good – and after murdering our way through it and building a few decently-sized piles of people, we can shed some light on its overall length and how much time you can spend with each of its six levels.
Like the two previous games before it, Hitman 3 prides itself with complex sandbox levels that have a ton of moving parts which Agent 47 can exploit. This means that the length of the game largely depends on how you approach each one of its six locations.
If you rush things and also find yourself in the right spots at the right time – which does involve a good deal of luck – you can complete each level in about 30-40 minutes. You likely won’t get to see a great deal of what the different locations have to offer, but it remains, nonetheless, one way to tackle the game.
Since there’s no guarantee that all the pieces will fall into place on your first visit to each location, we expect a quicker playthrough of the main missions to last around 5-6 hours. If you’re like us, and like to take your time learning NPC routines and discovering multiple potential routes to reach your target, you could end up spending between 2 and 3 hours in each location.
It took us somewhere between 11-12 hours to beat all of Hitman 3’s main missions once. It’s also worth considering how part of the trilogy’s appeal comes from replaying its levels and taking out people using different methods. This alone can stretch out the game’s potential length quite a bit. In addition, you’ll also be able to import locations from the trilogy’s previous entries and take advantage of the third game’s technical improvements while replaying them.
Then, aside from the main missions, there are several additional modes. Escalation Contracts has you revisiting the base game’s locations but levels up as you complete them, providing increasingly difficult challenges.
Contracts Mode lets you create your own contracts, beat them, then challenge your friends to get a better score. Elusive Targets and the Sniper Assassin mode also make a return, although we can’t confirm at the moment if these last three additional modes will be fully available at launch.
Here’s a quick recap of what you can expect in terms of Hitman 3’s main missions’ length, based on our estimates and time with the game:
- Fast playthrough : 5-6 hours in total; 30-40 minutes per level
- Taking your time: 11-12 hours in total; 2-3 hours per level
Hitman 3 launches on January 20 and is headed to PC (via the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia.
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