I played Hitman Absolution a few years back, I remembered really wanting to like it, but giving up after being bogged down in tediousness. So I wasn’t exactly waiting with bated breath for Hitman: Intro Pack even before it became episodic. Then I started playing and found it one of the better stealth games I’ve played.

Hitman is about being a ghost. Players are Agent 47, who specializes in disguise and assassination. Rather than going in guns blazing, the goal is about infiltrating and getting to the target undetected. Once work is done, Agent 47 escapes without leaving a trace. To accomplish this, he uses the environment in creative ways to cause distractions or “accidents” to slip by guards. On occasion, he can disguise himself and walk in the front door.

In this first episode there’re only three levels, but they are open for exploration and packed with characters and opportunities to exploit. The levels are re-playable because there are dozens of ways to get to the targets and eliminate them. The organic gameplay makes a smooth combination of planning every move and improvising as events unfold, and it’s satisfying when it comes together and allows a successful exit.

For example, turning a vacuum on in a janitors’ closet causes a guard to investigate the noise, knocking him out and taking his uniform, then walking into a restricted area without anyone noticing. Or, donning a bartender disguise and poisoning the target’s favorite drink.

Hitman has two minor issues and one glaring one. The AI is a little dodgy and can alternate between being slightly stupid and forgetting that it’s not supposed to be all-knowing. A non-playable character will fall for the same thing a couple times in a row without becoming suspicious, which is easy to exploit. Then I had one instance in which a trap I set went off while I was still in the area, so all the guards immediately descended on me.

The other issue was that with only three levels, this episode is very short on story. I think this will be fixed when more episodes are released, but as a standalone at the moment it’s disappointing.

The glaring issue is not the game’s fault but the fault of developers. As an entirely single-player game, it would be reasonable to think playing on or offline would be irrelevant. Yet someone at Io Interactive decided if you lose connection to IO servers, the game needs to kick you out to the main menu. An even worse offense, any saved file started “online” is locked until connection to the servers is reestablished. Why someone thought this was a good idea I cannot fathom. This only happened to me once, but the fact that such a system exists is a sin.

Hitman was a good taste of what is to come, but unless desperate for a fix now, I suggest waiting for more episodes or a full release, where hopefully the online junk will be removed.