I was just thinking maybe a couple of weeks ago that it would be fine to delete Hitman 3 because I haven't played it for a while. The seven Deadly Sins DLC didn't really gel with me, I don't even remember how far I got in that one. But IO Interactive sensed my thoughts and brought out new DLC, and it's a banger.
First, they have just merged the 3 games together and now it's just called Hitman: World of Assassination. You could already get access through earlier maps through 3 (by paying extra if you didn't have the games before) so I'm not sure how this thing works if you only had 1 or 2 of the series before the change. I just got the thing updated by itself but I had pretty much everything to begin with.
But rather than just give you all the modes and levels in a new package, they have added a significant new way of playing called Hitman: Freelancer. This is a Roguelike mode where you pick your maps and have to take out targets but you do it in blocks which add up to an entire campaign. Mess up in there and you play the whole thing again. Every third or fourth mission you have to identify a target before killing it. It's very high risk and you get absolutely no saves. Also you get limited gear so the typical stuff you take every mission (lockpick for me) might not even be available. You are rewarded with stuff and you get to keep what you find in missions, but again, lose it in a mission and it is gone. I think you get a second run at a failed mission but everyone is on high alert, so that's already like 3 times harder. I also had to quit out of a single mission just after I started it and it only showed that mission as an X and didn't fail me out completely, so further playing is needed. I'm also picking up on things that I have never seen in the main campaign and are quite confusing, like an alert of some other assassin being nearby.
I have only dipped a toe in this and yes it seems quite hard. IO might have to fine tune it a bit but as someone who did really like escalations and target missions where saving was not allowed, I am all over this. I'll let you know how I get along but I think I can already tell you that if you play hitman by saving every other minute this will not be for you.
I have to give all credit to IO Interactive for managing to reinvent this game so many times and keeping it fresh. And I still remind you that the core campaigns in these games are excellent and well worth playing, even if you never played Hitman before.