I’m curious what the community thinks will happen to Agent 47 if his story ends. Do you think he will retire and live peacefully, or die during his one unsuccessful mission? What are your personal headcanons for the bald killer clone?
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I think he will keep going as a killer in some capacity, likely continuing as a contract killer specifically, until age finally does begin to catch up with him. He will most likely slip up at some point, either because his mind finally starts to go or because his body finally starts to slow down to the point that he gets caught on the job, and will likely die a violent death in a shootout, if he isn’t taken out by a counter-assassin that he can’t compete with anymore. Either way, I don’t see him dying peacefully, and I don’t think he’d be expecting that either. I think that he would believe he deserves to die in a violent manner as at least a worldly penance for how he conducted himself in life, and he’d be ok with that.
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All I know is I don’t want that to happen. Hitman won’t be Hitman without Agent 47 and Diana. I would imagine he can’t retire even if he tried. He tried already and found that even if he tries to escape it, it comes back to him and he can’t get too close to anyone because it will affect them too. This is his way of life and it’s what he was made for. So he will either age out and have no choice, or he will eventually get killed. He came close already in Hitman Contracts.
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I hope he eventually retires when he physically can’t keep up the assassin job anymore. He’d live off the grid and tend to his garden. Maybe pick a real name for himself and get married. (That last one probably won’t happen though). Agent 47 doesn’t think he deserves a peaceful life, but I think he’s wrong. He’s been through a lot and if IOI decides to give him a proper ending before rebooting the series most likely, he should get his happy ending. They could just as easily kill him off in some epic battle to the death, but that’s their decision.
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I don’t think he’s necessarily wrong. Yeah, he’s generally a decent guy, and yeah almost everyone he’s killed has been a scumbag in some way, but he’s still killed so many people, the one irrevocable act a human being can commit against another, that while he may not necessarily deserve damnation in death, I don’t think he should really get peace in life. All the things he’s been through don’t really balance the scales to what he’s done. He’s been almost killed himself so many times as a warning if there is a higher power, yet instead of taking the hint, he keeps going right back to killing. That doesn’t end in a warm bed with peace of mind, that ends in a hail of bullets.
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I think that 47 will be replaced by a charming British spy who does similar things to 47, but in a much less fun and more linear way. 47’s bosses will then insist on focusing on this younger British spy and his dull trlogy of adventures, whilst 47 sits in the corner, neglected, stroking his Silverballers.
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Classic era
The tone of the classic games had 47 as a tool re-discovering its purpose. Worse, he’s a Frankensteinian monster who killed his creature like in a Greek tragedy. If that trajectory had continued, I think IO would’ve eventually completed the circle by having 47 gunned down by instruments of society (or even a better monster, like the Mr. 48s) in some tragic metaphor for the monsters we breathe life into, then take it away. I believe he would’ve met a tragic but poignant end.
Absolution era
In Absolution, the Frankenstein’s monster that is 47 begins to develop/show a human side, in the form of caring about the fate of Victoria, a girl set on the same path as him. To save her from his fate. At that stage, if 47 were killed, I think he’d sacrifice himself in some great climax that shows that the monster had a heart all along. Perhaps more heart than the people who created and destroyed him.
WOA era
47 has embraced the urban legend status the previous games gave him, and did the unthinkable: stormed the heavens and took down the modern day gods. A character like that can’t age out or get clumsy. But he’s also developed a moral dimension too, meaning if he were to be killed off, it would be in service of some lasting ideology.
One last mission, to top off his career, and then fake his death and finally retire in peace. Until the dust settles and something suggests the great Hitman still lives. Like Batman, he then returns to this semi-mythical figure shrouded in mystery and speculation, which outlives even himself.
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But 47 is not immortal, he will eventually age and die. At the same time, as we have seen in every single game except Contracts - and counting WoA as one full game - 47 cannot, and at this point I think will not, turn away from contract killing. So he’s going to keep going until he gets too old to be the best anymore, or at least unable to be as perfect as he is now, and eventually, the world is going to finally catch up to him once he develops that weakness.
What I meant by him not being able to age out is, from narrative standingpoint, I don’t think there’s any way IO lets their legendary hit man falter with age, or any other weakness of the passage of time. They’ll keep him in his prime, right up to the moment he dies (or fake dies, Batman style), to immortalize him.
I think you’re right about the contract killing though, it’s been shown over and over that he is a tool looking for a purpose. And that even when he tries to retire peacefully, “I am of better use elsewhere”, and this is preyed upon by the likes of the ICA. However, when the Constant offers to wipe his memory and return him to being a tool for his creators, 47 rejects it, showing he may continue to kill, but not for Providence. Likely he’ll become a righteous killer within Diana’s new venture, taking on ne’er do wells with less emphasis on the money and more on the morality of the hit. 47’s contract killing itch is scratched, but in a morally justified way. Then he’ll start claiming to ‘be the night’ and the reason criminals hesitate 
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Oh, I know they’ll find a way to keep extending him as long as it’s profitable, but I’m talking from a story point of view. I certainly hope they don’t lower the emphasis on the money angle: I want 47 to continue to be an actual hitman, not yet another vigilante. Sure, he’s functionally one, but that’s out of convenience and incidental because the targets that yield the most pay just happen to be bad guys. 47 chooses contract killing because it’s precise, it’s transactional, it’s ordered, and it’s the best way to fulfill his purpose - end human lives - in a way that keeps him a step ahead of the authorities and out of prison.
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I agree but worry that the moral hero angle is what IO is going to be aiming for. Money might still be there for the player’s sake, but 47’s line of “All while there are people like them, there will be people like us” indicates they’re painting 47 and Diana as the ‘good guys’ versus the inevitable evil. Which of course we know is a departure from the original source, where both of them are business-oriented and care only for money (and, over the years, each other)
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I still think they were given a way out by having them focus on people who think they are untouchable. So even people who aren’t necessarily bad, if they think they can use their money or power to protect themselves from consequences, even from bad people, 47 and Diana may still be ok targeting them in order to show how no one is untouchable. That seems to be their principle, rather than just killing evildoers: no executive decisions without consequences. This keeps them “neutral” and amoral, focusing on this principle rather than good vs bad. And of course, who can pay the fee.
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One last story will be told from old Diana who will keep this ambiguous, with her voice-over on 47 disappearing in the crowds.
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You wanna rephrase that?
He accidentally drops a proximity mine instead of a remote explosive and goes to pick it up.
Roll credits.
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The way I see it? If IO just want to milk Hitman for about 1-2 games, the next Game they can just rediscover his first years at ICA, showing more of his first contracts, the development of his relationship with Diana and ICA staffs.
Or if they want to take a break, they can simply make a spin off with Victoria from Absolution as protagonist. But instead of making her into an assassin, we can play as a handler, supporting ICA assassins doing their missions like the guy in Dispatch.
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We already kind of know how first years at ICA. The first game showed most of them, Contracts showed a few others from that same period and beyond, and H2SA was only a year or two separated from either, and Blood Money was the same period as Contracts, all covering 5-6 year period. If we want to see the in-between stuff, we’d be looking at the 7 years between Blood Money and Absolution, or the 7 years between Absolution and WoA, although certain ETs and extra missions already give us a look at a few of those years before Showstopper.
47 and Diana’s quest in Absolution was to keep her from entering that world of assassination(™), so I always thought she was living a normal life somewhere. But I could see Diana in the next game putting together her own band of assassins like she did in the comics, and bring Victoria in as a handler because she, like 47, can’t escape what she is.
Maybe the game will have a larger cast of characters, and 47 making friends and tutoring them to be his successor
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Thinking again it doesn’t have to be ICA, IOI can make a prequel about the time when 47 and Lucas was assassins for Ort Meyer (or Providence). That storyline was only mentioned in the comic, so I think if IOI bring it to the Game would be a cool option either
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