Despite being branded the “black sheep” of the series, Hitman: Absolution has always struck me as far more in tune with Blood Money than people give it credit for. Yes, it’s more linear, more cinematic, but beneath that structure beats the same heart: cynical, darkly funny, steeped in a particular streak of ironic and disillusioned Americanism that permeates patriotic figures and caricatures of redneck culture. If Blood Money was an elegant thriller, Absolution feels like its grimy, gothic-western sibling: raw, grounded, and unafraid to embrace the uncomfortable. Its portrayal of sex, violence, and decay is what gives the game its strange authenticity.
What really ties Absolution to its predecessor, though, is the music. I’ve always thought its soundtrack was the true heir to Blood Money’s. Even without Jesper Kyd, it somehow preserves that sacred, almost monastic tone: the choirs, the strings swelling like liturgy during the bloodsheds. There’s a sense that 47 himself is more like a priest of death than a killer, carrying out rituals rather than murders. It’s rougher, less polished, but spiritually aligned. The same faith, spoken in a harsher tongue.
By contrast, the recent trilogy may have rediscovered the series’ sandbox roots, but something vital got lost along the way. Artistry gave way to replayability, that modern instinct to make games that last forever but say little. They’re cleaner, safer, easier to consume. The older ones, though… they were meant to be lived once. You played them, you finished them, and they stayed with you like a story that doesn’t need to be told twice.
Absolution always felt more rooted in the first two games in it’s approach to levels and setup. Using transition levels as a built up for a target. This was clearly a deviation from what a lot came to expect from Contracts and mainly Blood Money, where every level had a target and a it’s own conclusion.
This hurt the game and the playerbases overall perception of the game. Personally I found it refreshing and more in line with the series I fell in love with. If you ask me Absolution was more true to the DNA of the original games then Blood Money was.
That said IO didn’t always manage to nail the execution and the certain events fell flat due to it being tied to a cutscene.
Where the Providence Trilogy adopted what people came to expect from Blood Money. That said H16, H2 and H3 owes a lot of it’s foundation to Absolution. The newest trilogy is built on the bones of Absolution and in terms of gameplay they feel very similar.
I have always called Absolution the Grindhouse game of the series.
Personally I have always found Absolution to be under appreciated and on it’s own merit a great game. A game that fails on a lot of aspects, but succeeds on many more. If I had to choose between Blood Money and Absolution, I choose Absolution every time.
I wish this game was actually good at being the hundred different things people claim this game is in terms of its narrative, style and gameplay. Like seriously, this game gets called everything from grindhouse to film noir and I guess it is a Juvenal tier satire now (somehow) but it isn’t a hundredth as good as even the most middling example of those genres.
This game is just juvenalia that inexplicably got produced as the fifth game of the franchise instead of the first while also hocking its many interesting gameplay mechanics of the prior entry away like that guitar you thought you could teach yourself to play like Jimi or watering them down like Cooper’s at a suburban pub.
The original games are functional games that certainly have artistry in places while also being well crafted experiences for the most part but they aren’t the definitive Hitman game. This sort of realisation of the Hitman experiment and experience only came with Blood Money and Absolution trades it away from doing what can be charitably seen as wearing the skin of the older games as a costume but is mostly just them making a game predicated on very played out third person shooter gameplay hooks.
This shit is not going to look good for you when you are at the meadhall with your ancestors.
Which of the greats halls? Fólkvangr or Valhalla? From my knowledge non of them are tied to which Videogame you preferred. That said modern problems require modern solutions. Either way since I’m not a warrior, I will probably end up in Hel. If one believes such things.
Also It shouldn’t come as a surprise, I been plenty vocal about my views on Blood Money through out the years.
I mean I am pretty sure Folkvangr is a field is it not? Either way I obviously meant Valhalla, I actually don’t have as deep an understanding of Norse mythology and literary canon as I would like or you would hope.
Have you even been to the field of the fallen dead or the greatest hall of the heroes? How can you tell they haven’t changed their standards over a thousand years?
For your sake I hope you don’t get buried with Absolution then because I am pretty sure that Hel takes receipt of all you take with you if you take anything. I recommend just saving that space for facial hair wax, you need to impress your ancestors.
Of course it is no surprise, in many ways a mystery sure, but not a surprise. I have known you for nearly half a decade.
I personally appreciate Absolution very much, but not to the point of surpassing Blood Money. The title “Blood Money" has the air of a conspiracy: it evokes secret transactions, favors paid in sinful currency. It’s already, even before pressing “start,” a screenplay for the imagination. The narrative structure also reinforces the atmosphere: unlike linear plots with immediate moral declarations, here the truth emerges bit by bit. We don’t know everything right away: the logical thread unfolds slowly, and with it the impression grows that behind every gesture lies a darker backstory. Its black, red, and gold palette creates a theater of power and corruption, where each mission is a baroque tableau in which crime becomes spectacle. Even when 47 descends into informal settings (the Mardi Gras parade and the Mississippi missions, among grotesque figures and scandalous sexuality) its aesthetic remains intact, almost sacred. It’s a modern gothic, introduced by a mission that anticipates the tone of the game: an abandoned and corrupt amusement park.
What’s true is that Absolution begins to take on a more mediocre tone compared to its predecessors: a scripted and predictable plot, overly haughty and self-assured female antagonists. However, this is offset by the dark humor, the top-notch soundtrack (“Action and instinct” samples “47 Attack”, just like “Attack Of The Saints Pt. I” does with “Rocky Mountains” in a brilliant, consistent way) and the Arkham-esque atmosphere. Agent 47, compared to the recent trilogy, seems like a man writing his own story, unlike how he’s been portrayed in recent games. I really can’t stomach Hitman killing Le Chiffre and Connor McGregor; this kind of game is born out of hype culture, a lack of imagination, and a disregard for a game’s artistic value. At least Absolution had its own (certainly improvable) identity. I hate it just for giving Diana a face.
I completely agree with you. Hitman: Absolution is a great game. Different, but great. It brought something new to the series, which isn’t a bad thing. Compared to World of Assassination, Absolution offers more engagement — a better narrative. In WoA, the main story is given very little importance. I hope they’ll make a sequel someday to resolve what was left unfinished: Birdie’s betrayal, the hunt led by Cosmo Faulkner, and the cut characters that would be nice to see return in a new installment.
To quote an older post of mine, I can never and will never get past my personal distaste - nay, loathing - for the content and tone of Absolution’s story, which I can’t describe as anything other than repulsive.
Finally, someone seems to get it. I truly don’t understand what people have against the game’s tone and story and themes, aside from it not seeming like Blood Money’s - which I’m convinced is the real reason so many people initially disliked it, because of an expectation of similarities to its predecessor. Absolution is supposed to be a close look at how awful the scummy underbelly of the criminal world is. It takes away the glorious, glamorous, romanticized world that crime movies normally show you, and gives you a taste of what real street-level atrocities look like, both in the big city and in backwater small towns. While Blood Money and WoA focused more on how the wealthy elite of the world are like and how they affect the rest of our lives, Absolution shows how terrible - and how ridiculous - those who are closer in station to the rest of us can be as well. And how things can get so bad that even a professional killer without emotions can finally be pushed too far and decide to do something about it, to preserve one small amount of innocence in this world.
While certainly not IOI’s best effort, and it’ll never get an A on even the most understanding and apologetic fan’s report card, it doesn’t deserve as much of the criticism that it gets.
I haven’t played it since 2012 maybe 2013 but I remember being so hyped for it as it was the first Hitman game since Blood Money but the whole early concepts of the game, the instinct feature, 47 running around guns blazing, the removal of Bateson (admittedly him being rehired was a great moment) but upon release I just did not like the game at all.
I’m not sure if I played it again now I’d feel any different, but I won’t ever put someone else’s opinion down if they enjoyed or disliked it. I’m glad it’s still got an audience who can appreciate it. It just wasn’t what I wanted from a Hitman game.
It did give me my profile picture though so it’s not all bad.
I’m wondering if IO Interactive has any plans to put together a 7 Deadly sins kind of DLC missions to round out Absolution plot threads. It would fit nicely with the mobile ports of Absolution.
and 100% true.