| Hitman: Absolution | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | IO Interactive[a] |
| Publisher | Square Enix Europe[b] |
| Directors |
|
| Producer | Hakan B. Abrak |
| Designer | Lee Varley |
| Artist | Martin Vestergaard Madsen |
| Writers |
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| Composers |
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| Series | Hitman |
| Engine | Glacier 2 |
| Platforms | |
| Release | PlayStation 3,Windows,Xbox 360 20 November 2012 OS X 15 May 2014 PlayStation 4,Xbox One 11 January 2019 iOS,Android 16 October 2025[1] Nintendo Switch 13 November 2025[2] Nintendo Switch 2 2026 |
| Genre | Stealth |
| Mode | Single-player |
Hitman: Absolution is a 2012actionstealth video game developed byIO Interactive and published bySquare Enix'sEuropean branch.[6] It is the fifth installment in theHitman series and the sequel to 2006'sHitman: Blood Money. Before release, the developers stated thatAbsolution would be easier to play and more accessible, while still retaining hardcore aspects of the franchise.[7] The game was released on 20 November 2012 forWindows,PlayStation 3, andXbox 360.[8] On 15 May 2014,Hitman: Absolution – Elite Edition was released formacOS byFeral Interactive;[9] it contains all previously released downloadable content, includingHitman: Sniper Challenge, a "making of" documentary, and a 72-page artbook.[9] On 11 January 2019,Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment released enhanced versions ofAbsolution andBlood Money for thePlayStation 4 andXbox One as part of theHitman HD Enhanced Collection.[10]
Absolution'ssingle-player campaign followsgenetically engineered contract killerAgent 47 and his efforts to protect a similarly genetically enhanced teenage girl from various parties who wish to use her potential as an assassin for their own ends, including aprivate military company, several criminal syndicates, and 47's own former employers, the International Contract Agency (ICA). For the first time in the series, the game featured an online component called "Contracts", which allowed players to create their own custom objectives for any of the missions in the base game and share them with others.
The game was met with a polarized reception upon release, with most of the praise focusing on its graphics, environments and locations, as well as varied gameplay options. However, many critics and players disliked the game for its narrative, issues with the disguise system, and the game's linear structure as opposed to the open ended nature of previous installments. As of March 2013, the game had sold over 3.6 million copies. FollowingAbsolution's reception, the series received asoft reboot in 2016'sHitman, which despite being set in the same continuity as previous installments, returned to a more open-ended style of gameplay and featured a new storyline.
Hitman: Absolution is a stealth game in which the player assumes the role of ahitman namedAgent 47. Presented from athird-person perspective, thegameplay centers around completing a number of objectives within a series oflevels.[11][12] Objectives range from reaching the end of a level to eliminating specific individuals.[12] The player chooses how to complete each mission and is able to take multiple paths to reach targets and locations.[13] Players may use pistols, bottles or bricks, assault or sniper rifles, shotguns, fiber-wire, or steel pipes against enemies if opting for action-oriented approaches, or avoid adversaries altogether by using disguises, blending into the environment, and only attacking specific targets using a stealth-oriented approach.[14][15][16] Agent 47 also has an 'Instinct' ability that lets the player monitor enemies more easily.[13] There are environmental ways to kill or distract individuals; players can use poison to spike coffee, pull a switch to make a disco ball fall and break, cause a massive explosion at a gas station, pull levers to make scaffolding to fall down, instigate small or large fires, or even set off fireworks.[13][17] Players must complete a number of chapters in order to progress through the story. The player journeys to a wide variety of locations, including a mansion, library, strip club, gun store, wrestling arena, courthouse, and hotel before the finishing the game.[17]
Absolution introduces an online option to the Hitman series, 'Contracts', where players can create their own missions for other players to participate in.[18] Players choose one of the areas from the game's story missions and decide whichnon-player characters (NPCs) are required to be eliminated, what weapon must be used to eliminate each target, what disguise is required, whether the body must be hidden or not and if the player is allowed to be spotted by the AI.[19] The online servers for "Contracts" were shut down in May 2018 due to IO Interactive encountering difficulties in complying withGDPR legislation.[20]
Genetically engineered assassinAgent 47 (David Bateson) is order by the International Contract Agency (ICA), to kill his former handler Diana Burnwood (Marsha Thomason), who, for unknown reasons, has betrayed the organisation. Burnwood has sabotaged funding streams and publicized their database, bringing undesired attention to the Agency. 47 infiltrates Diana'sChicago estate and reluctantly shoots her in the bathroom. Whilstbleeding out, Diana reveals she betrayed the Agency to prevent a genetically engineered teenage girl named Victoria (Isabelle Fuhrman) from becoming an assassin like 47. She asks 47 to protect Victoria, leading 47's new handler, Benjamin Travis (Powers Boothe), to brand him a traitor.
As the Agency knows all of 47'ssafe houses, 47 hides Victoria at the Redwood Orphanage before meeting a disgraced ICA informant known as 'Birdie' (Steven Bauer). 47 and Birdie broker a deal in which 47 agrees to kill a localcrime lord called the 'King of Chinatown' and trade his famousSilverballer pistols for information. After 47 meets his end of the deal, Birdie tells 47 about a man named Blake Dexter (Keith Carradine), an international arms dealer. 47 sneaks into the air ducts adjacent to Dexter's room in the Terminus Hotel and learns that Dexter and his secretary/mistress Layla Stockton (Traci Lords) intend to kidnap Victoria and sell her to the highest bidder Before he can confront the pair, 47 is knocked out by Dexter's genetically engineered bodyguard, Sanchez (Isaac C. Singleton Jr.), who resists 47'spiano wire.
Dexter frames 47 for the murder of a hotelmaid before setting the hotel suite alight, from which 47 narrowly escapes. Pursued by police, 47 evades an extensive police presence by escaping through an abandoned library into ahippie commune and then out through the Chicago subway network. 47 then kills one of Dexter's informants, a mobster named Dom Osmond (Jon Curry), at hisstrip club. 47 discovers that Dexter has hired a group of mercenaries led by Edward Wade (Larry Cedar) to ensure the capture of Victoria. Wade subsequently dispatches Bill Dole (Nicolas Roye), Larry Clay (James Sie), and Frank Owens (Jeffrey Johnson) to capture Birdie and find Victoria. Though 47 successfully kills Dole, Clay and Owens during aChinese New Year celebration, Birdie is caught by Sanchez and trades Victoria's location for his life. 47 rushes back to the Orphanage and eliminates Wade and his assault team. However, Dexter's son Lenny (Shane Stevens), managing to be in the right place at the right time, grabs Victoria and escapes.
After obtaining Lenny's location from a bartender during abar fight, Birdie provides 47 with the address of a gun store holding his 'Silverballer' pistols. From here 47, moves onto the town of Hope, South Dakota, unaware that Birdie has also contact the ICA and Detective Cosmo Faulkner (Jonathan Adams) of theChicago PD, culminating in several attempts to kill 47 by the Agency throughout the remainder of the game. Despite the town being firmly under Dexter Industries' control, 47 is able to covertly kill the entirety of Lenny's gang, the Hope Cougars. In doing so, 47 disrupts the gangs plan to sell Victoria to a rival weapons corporation for a significant payout. 47 then kidnaps Lenny and interrogates him in thedesert, before either killing or abandoning him. 47 then continues on to a Dexter Industries' facility, infiltrating its laboratory and eliminating key leadership within the science division tasked with examining Victoria, and destroys their research. 47 also discovers an unlicensedmixed martial arts bout taking place on site at which he is able to kill Sanchez.
47 recuperates at aHawaiian themedmotel named Waikiki Inn, but is suddenly attacked by an Agency division led by "The Saints", Travis' all-female personal hit team. 47 moves through the motel, eliminating the majority of the Saints before escaping out of the grounds and into the neighboring farm land. There, he identifies a mobilecommand post and finishes off the remaining Saints before tracking Victoria to Hope Courthouse jail, run by corrupt sheriff and Dexter ally Clive Skurky (Jon Gries). However, 47 is captured and tortured instead.
As 47 escapes from the jail, Travis summons Dexter to a meeting in which he seeks to buy Victoria back for $10 million. The ICA launches a full scale assault on the town. 47 evades the Agency and eventually corners Skurky in a Church, who reveals that Dexter and Travis will be meeting to sell Victoria at Blackwater Park, Chicago. 47 kills Skurky, infiltrates Blackwater, makes his way into Dexter's residence, and kills Layla before finally hunting Dexter himself to the top of the park. As Dexter's men rig the building to explode, 47 successfully prevents Dexter's escape via helicopter, mortally wounding him. After lamenting the loss of his son and money, Dexter is left to die alone.
Several months later, Travis and the ICA exhume Diana's grave at the Burnwood crypt inCornwall, suspecting she has faked her death. Working with Diana, 47 kills Travis' assistant Jade (Shannyn Sossamon) and his elite "PraetorianGuards" before mortally wounding Travis himself. Travis rants at him for wasting Victoria's potential for the ICA, and asks whether Diana is really dead, to which 47 responds "You will never know" before finishing him off. Sometime later, 47 observes Diana and Victoria from a rooftop acrossLake Michigan viasniper rifle, confirming that Diana did faked her death with 47's help and is now looking after Victoria. The game ends with a message from Diana to Agent 47 welcoming him back to the ICA and thanking him, as his actions have helped purge the ICA of internal corruption. In the final scene, Detective Cosmo Faulkner (Jonathan Adams), who has been tracking 47 since the Terminus Hotel fire, is having trouble discovering 47's identity until Birdie appears and offers to help him for a price as the door slowly closes.
Though plans to continue theHitman franchise were first announced in 2007,[21] it was not until May 2009 thatEidos confirmed the game was in development.[22] Certain plot details for the game were rumored in 2009, stating that the game's story would leadAgent 47 to a low point from which he would have to rebuild himself.[23] On 20 April 2011,Square Enix filed the trademark for the nameHitman: Absolution in Europe, leading sites to speculate that it would be the name of the fifthHitman game.[24] On 6 May 2011, a teaser trailer was released, confirming the titleHitman: Absolution. The trailer briefly showed Agent 47 attaching a suppressor and a rattlesnake coiled around his signature Silverballer pistol.[25] It has been reported the game will be a "familiar and yet significantly different experience from otherHitman games."[26] On 9 October 2011, a full gameplay trailer entitled "Run for Your Life" was released.[27]
OriginallyWilliam Mapother had been cast as Agent 47, replacing original voice actor David Bateson. Bateson had not been notified of his replacement and only found out when the first trailer was released. However, following fan backlash, Bateson was rehired just six months before the game's release. Mapother'smotion capture performance for Agent 47 is still included in the game.[28]
In 2023, chief creative officer of IO, Christian Elverdam, said thatAbsolution "is fundamentally a really good stealth-action game" and that many of the lessons learned in creating it can be seen in theWorld of Assassination trilogy.[29]
TheProfessional Edition ofHitman: Absolution features Professional Clamshell packaging for the game, aHitman art book, making of DVD "Burning Hope" and the "Agency Gun Pack" DLC.[30]
Hitman: Sniper Challenge, a singlesniping mission, was developed by IO Interactive, originally as a pre-order bonus, available to people who pre-order the game. The code would be supplied by retailers upon pre-order of the game, and could be collected from retailers before release as a download code before the game's release. At the time of pre-order,Sniper Challenge was redeemable via the PSN Store, Xbox Live Marketplace and PC. While the console version launched worldwide on 15 May 2012, the PC version wasn't released until 1 August 2012.[31][32]
Square Enix announced specialHitman: Absolution pre-order bonuses for selected retailers.[33] ForSteam purchased games, these downloadable content are available as well.[34] These items only work for Contract mode and not the single-player story mode.
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | (PC) 79/100[35] (PS3) 83/100[36] (X360) 79/100[37] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| 1Up.com | A−[38] |
| Destructoid | 8.5/10[12] |
| Edge | 7/10[39] |
| Eurogamer | 7/10[40] |
| Game Informer | 8.75/10[41] |
| GameSpot | 7.5/10[43] |
| GamesRadar+ |   [42] |
| GameTrailers | 6.9/10[44] |
| Giant Bomb |  [45] |
| IGN | 9/10[46] |
| Joystiq | [47] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 66/100[48] |
| VideoGamer.com | 5/10[49] |
| International Business Times | 5/10[50] |
| The Daily Telegraph | [51] |
| VentureBeat | 7.5/10[52] |
Hitman: Absolution received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregatorMetacritic.[35][36][37] Positive reviews came fromGamesRadar+, calling it "one of the strongest entries in the series to date",[42] andGame Informer, who wrote that "devising a strategy, using the environment and disguises to your advantage, and leaving before anyone knows you're there are the hallmarks of a perfect hit, andAbsolution proves Agent 47 is still gaming's premier hitman."[41]
Edge gave it 7/10, saying "the game has taken a unique formula and diluted it".[39]VentureBeat gave it 7.5/10 saying "Absolution aims high but misses the mark."[52]Eurogamer gave it 7/10 saying "Agent 47 doesn't beginHitman: Absolution with amnesia, but the six years that have passed since we last took control of him inBlood Money do seem to have dulled his creators' recollections of what made him so popular in the first place."[40]GameSpot gave it 7.5/10 saying "Hitman: Absolution's vivid world and enjoyable stealth-action gameplay overshadow its few notable inconsistencies."[43]IGN gave it 9/10 saying "It's nice to have a game that doesn't just encourage improvisation; it requires it."[46]Kotaku gaveAbsolution a positive review.[53]Giant Bomb gave it 4/5,[45] as didJoystiq.[47]Destructoid gave it 8.5/10.[12]1Up.com gave the game an A− saying "Hitman Absolution didn't win me over with its story, but its gameplay maintains a standard of excellence and introduces a level of choice that deserves your attention."[38]
The Daily Telegraph gave the game a 2/5 saying "Despite the fact thatAbsolution is a hugely disappointing entry into the canon,Hitman is still a fabulous series."[51]International Business Times gave the game a 5/10 saying "An unremarkable, derivative clone of a game that's barely a shadow of whatHitman used to be."[50]VideoGamer.com gave it 5/10 saying "The problem withAbsolution is that its new custodians from theKane and Lynch team seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what madeHitman great."[49]PC Gamer gave it 66% saying "A passable stealth game, but one that betrays almost everything that, until now, has madeHitman great."[48]GameTrailers gave it 6.9/10 saying "It's clear that a good deal of effort was put into craftingHitman: Absolution's world. This makes its flaws all the more unfortunate."[44] TheNew Statesman gave no rating but said "If developers want to win back fans when they revisit established franchises maybe they should look to what made those games popular in the first place and by doing so maybe they'd avoid stepping on a rake or two."[54]The Irish Times gave no score but said "The move away from the completely open world may leave some hardcore fans ofHitman disappointed."[55] TheDaily Record gave the game 3/5 saying "While it's more accessible than previousHitman games,Absolution loses a lot of the freedom that fans of the franchise love, and perhaps doesn't necessarily fit theHitman name any longer."[56]The Escapist gave no score but said "Hitman: Absolution is not the best nor the worstHitman".[57]The Guardian gave it 3/5 saying "The game may look better and play better than anyHitman game before it, but one can only marvel at how IO managed to lose sight of their IP's most appealing aspects so often."[58]
In June 2025, David Bateson said thatAbsolution is his favorite game in the Hitman series.[59]
On 26 March 2013, Square Enix announced that the game had sold about 3.6 million copies at retail, but has failed to reach predicted sales targets.[60][61]
Shortly after launch, scores of complaints came in about the game crashing, freezing and corrupting file saves on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, rendering many of the games unplayable.[62] On 26 November 2012, IO Interactive stated that they were working around the clock to try and fix these technical errors, but also stated that they did not know what exactly was causing the errors, so a patch may take some time.[63]
The patch for the PS3 version was released on 11 December 2012,[64] while the Xbox 360 patch was released on 20 December 2012.[65]
On 29 May 2012, a cinematic teaser trailer, produced by Square Enix'sCGI studio Visual Works, titled "Attack of the Saints", was released.[66] The trailer's depiction of "gun-toting,PVC and latex-cladnuns being killed in a hail of bullets" sparked controversy over the allegedlysexistportrayal of women.[67][68] IO Interactive's Tore Blystad, the game's director, later apologized, stating they're "sorry that we offended people" and that it "was truly not the intention of the trailer."[69]
On 4 December 2012, IO Interactive faced heavy criticism for releasing aHitman: AbsolutionFacebook app that allowed users to identify and threaten Facebook friends for assassination. Methods of identifying female friends included "her hairy legs", "her muffin top" and "her small tits". Methods of identifying male friends included "his ginger hair", "his shit hair" and "his tiny penis". Users could choose a reason to kill their friend, such as the fact that they "smell bad" or were cheating on their partner. Friends received a personalised video on their Facebook wall identifying them as a target. Signing up to watch the video presented recipients with a mixture of their own photos and Facebook details merged into a video ofHitman character Agent 47 shooting them. IO Interactive admitted the promotional app was in bad taste and removed it the same day.[70][71][72]
Hitman: Absolution was nominated for "Best Action Game" at the9th British Academy Games Awards.[73] TheAcademy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominatedHitman: Absolution for "Action Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Animation", and "Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering" during the16th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.[74]
