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Hitman 3 tips and tricks: How to master Agent 47's latest world tour
Whether you're posing as a private investigator in an English mansion or combing the streets of Chongqing looking for targets, being a Hitman is hard work – unless you're trained in the deadly arts
Agent 47 – that's the now-iconic bald man with the barcode tattoo – arrived on consoles back in 2000, and from that day, Hitman has become a bastion of the stealth genre. Whilst the Hitman video game series has seen its formula change a decent amount since it first appeared on our small screens over 20 years ago, the key elements of each game still remain in place.
Compared to other spy/stealth titles, Hitman moves at a slow pace. Consideration, planning and flawless execution are essential if you want to pacify your enemies and exfiltrate from your contracted kill unseen. Knowing how physics work in the game, understanding sight lines, being aware of how sound operates in the title and making the most of the environment are all key to your success in Hitman 3, which features some of the trickiest contracts you'll find in the series to date.
Follow our guide below and you'll become the Silent Assassin of folklore – a wetwork legend that strikes fear into the hearts of even the hardiest of underground criminals.
Don't be suspicious
Πτώση από μπαλκόνι: ατυχές γεγονός αλλά πάντα στο πρόγραμμα
© IO Interactive
A real hitman will never attract attention, and will always act like he's supposed to be there. The game AI is a little sketchy in places, but it's good enough to detect unconventional behaviour – interacting with items you shouldn't be messing with, ducking behind places you shouldn't be hiding, carrying curious items you've found in the world, getting too close to an NPC... all of these things will arouse the suspicions of the public and – if provoked – they will call on enforcers to investigate the strange bald man making things awkward.
Any character with a white dot above their head will immediately be suspicious of you in your current outfit/with your current equipped item. You can move past these people quickly, just don't linger around them.
Dress for success
Εκμεταλλεύσου το περιβάλλον & η δουλειά σου θα διευκολυνθεί σε μεγάλο βαθμό
© IO Interactive
Yes, there's a challenge per level for dealing with all your enemies dressed in nothing but a suit, but you're not going to be able to achieve that until you've run through any given level a few times and upgraded your mastery. Instead, keep an eye out for costumed characters – especially one-off named NPCs! – since these guys usually have some level of access that you, as a general member of the public, won't have.
Dressing as an enforcer will (more often than not) allow you to carry guns and weapons out in the open. Dressing as a waiter or a chef will allow you to sneak poisons into food and drink without too much suspicion. Dressing as a delivery driver will allow you to gain entry into an otherwise locked door. Be constantly vigilant for opportunities that only certain NPCs will be able to afford you.
Be blunt
Las mentes creativas pueden usar elementos contundentes en Hitman 3
© IO Interactive
There are several instances throughout the game where you will need to render two (or more!) guards unconscious in quick succession. It's not always possible to knock one out before you have a chance to choke out another without being detected. Soda cans, tools, wine bottles, baseballs, and other blunt objects are your friends here; get within (a fairly generous) range and lob an object at one guard before choking out another and you're golden. This works so quickly, with good sticky aiming, so you have the chance to knock out two guards in quick succession before moving to manually down a third.
Just make sure to avoid a guard's line of sight, though – if you get seen throwing dangerous objects around, you could be quickly fingered by suspicious guards.
Know your alerts
The edgier NPCs are, the harder it's going to be for you to do your job
© IO Interactive
Good Agents will not trigger an alert at all on their playthrough of a level (that's what'll get you that elusive Silent Assassin rank on the end of level results screen), but that's not always going to be the case – in fact, in Hitman 3, there are narrative beats that expose you to combat in some Story Missions (more on that shortly). As such, you're going to want to know your alerts:
- Trespassing
If this status shows in yellow under your map, you're somewhere your shouldn't be (or that your costume doesn't permit you to be, at least). Any NPC in the area will be immediately suspicious of you if they clock you. Distractions, explosions and discovered bodies can help draw attention away from you.
- Suspicious
If you get seen trespassing, or tinker with something that has a wider impact on the level state, people will start to get suspicious. NPCs higher up the command chain can also put out alerts that create this state, too. Use the 'Blend In' prompt or mingle with a crowd to avoid scrutiny.
- Compromised
Once this state is reached, you need to change outfits – the word has gone out about your shenanigans and people are actively searching for a man of your description. Anyone that knows who you are can be identified by their orange colour when you go into observation mode. Any witnesses, then, need to be knocked out and stashed away to help prevent this status. Changing outfits will also work, but is a less ideal setup.
- Hunted/Combat
Hunted means that you are actively being sought out and there's no chance to avoid this status until you exfiltrate: the bad guys know something's up and will hunt you like a dog. Once they find you, Combat will begin – typically, once a firefight is resolved, you can go back to Hunted and then down the list if you're sneaky enough.
Guns aren't just for killing
Χρησιμοποίησε τα όπλα σου ποικιλοτρόπως -μπορείς
© IO Interactive
So a good Agent will only kill his targets. This is reflected in the game score – you're penalised 10,000 points per unnecessary kill – so you'd be forgiven for thinking your gun is only a last-ditch failsafe, right? Wrong. It's actually a versatile and useful distraction that can be employed to distract guards and even break patrol routes if used properly.
A silenced gun (like the one you have by default) is useful if you run out of coins or other items to distract NPCs. You can shoot next to a guard – perhaps into a thicket out of other characters' sight lines – and draw them away from a pack, isolating them. If that's not your style, perhaps you'd prefer to drop the weapon (when not being looked at), leaving it for a non-enforcer NPC to find. They'll call over a guard that may have otherwise been stuck in one place – allowing you to slip through the ranks undetected and get closer to your target.
Use your Saves
Fortunes can turn on a dime in Hitman 3, so use save slots frequently
© IO Interactive
A good run of Hitman can go south very quickly if you let it: a discovered body, an accidental trespass, a clueless wander into the path of a security camera... all of these things can undo a whole run in a heartbeat. On most difficulty levels, Hitman's autosave feature can save your bacon on multiple occasions. You can manually save during the missions (though it's worth noting these saves are limited on higher difficulties) and the game will also automatically save your progress at regular intervals.
On PS5 and Xbox Series S/X particularly, loading these saves up takes practically no time and allows you to immediately load up a save state and try again. It's an ideal tactic for trial-and-erroring your way through certain encounters that may seem daunting to begin with.
