In Hitman 2 (2018), is a small cybercafe in the Mumbai mission, where you can see the main menu of the original Hitman 2 (2002).
Has anyone noticed this?
Now how on earth can Hitman games exist in the Hitman universe?
Some will just say it is an easter egg. Well, I personally dislike easter eggs that contradict the main story.
Double weird in that the first Hitman movie shows the games exist there, too. So, we watch the movie, which features the games, which features the games. Is this a form of media incest?
It is just a Easter egg, just like IO eludes to their other games like Freedom Fighters and Mini Ninjas.
What do coexist in this universe, is the Kane and Lynch games. Their existence was first eluded to in a BM newspaper, detailing their escape from the prison convoy and later they showed up in Absolution.
In Blood Moneys Dance with the Devil Mission the security Guards in the parking lot are lookin at the old IOI website, specifically the Codename 47 section.
In Hitman Contracts Seafood Massacre, in the basement of the Restaurant you can also see Codename 47 Posters.
In the Hitman Canon, Kane and Lynch exist as actual real characters within the world. We know this from that newspaper in Blood Money referencing their escape from the prisoner transport (which happened in the plot of K&L1) and from their cameos as actual NPCs in Absolution, which tied into K&L2…
Later on, they’re however depicted as fictional characters coming from an in-universe videogame. As shown in Colorado, with the hacker and guard who are playing K&L2 on the house’s second floor, and in the ET Bartholomew Argus, where the target mentions K&L being the most kick-ass game ever and how his agent turned down a role in the movie adaptation…
Freedom Fighters exists as a fictional in-universe arcade/console game. But that game also featured a couple of Hitman references within itself, in the forms of a huge billboard with 47’s image on it and some posters of 47’s and Mei Ling’s love story. So if FF is a fictional game within the Hitman world, there’s a minor case of Hitmanception going on there.
Mini Ninjas… IO’s red-headed stepchild franchise. It was last referenced in that one Hokkaido easter egg where the characters showed up as magic figurines and you had to shoot them, or whatever. So Mini Ninjas is likely a fictional videogame in the Hitman Canon, too.
Kane and Lynch 2 had DVD covers of Hitman: Contracts and Mini Ninjas as background deco in one level. Implying they’re fictional franchises in that universe. If K&L2 is a fictional game in WoA, that’s another small case of Hitmanception.
The most notable case of Hitmanception in the entire franchise being, of course, that one scene from the Olyphant movie where the kids are playing Blood Money in the hotel room that 47 barges into.
Sniper Challenge, H2:SA and HITMAN 3 computer screens existing within WoA are just easter eggs and nothing more. They’re proper cases of Hitmanception, nonetheless.
Similarly related: at one point, Square Enix seemed to be treating the core Eidos Montreal franchises they had acquired as part of a bigger multiverse. In the early 2010s, when all franchises had been recently rebooted, Hitman, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and Thief often included easter eggs and exclusive DLC content that referenced each other. So… that was a… thing… for a while.
How deep does the Hitman Omniverse rabbit hole go???
