History YMMV / Hitman2016

* AccidentalAesop: Check your surroundings before lighting a cigarette, and ''never'' smoke near anything flammable. Also, check that there's no broken electrical devices near water.

** An unintentional example: Certain situations block saving, and the Autosave only happens randomly and after certain one-time-only triggers, meaning that longer sessions (such as KillThemAll playthroughs) can leave you unable to save for hours at worst.

** [[EvilOldFolks Etta Davis]], nicknamed the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Angel of Death]], is a [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon kindly-looking]] yet prolific SerialKiller specializing in poisonings, blunt weapons, and violent accidents. A retired [[NoxiousNurse nurse]], Davis was connected to 47 murders in retirement homes and hospitals throughout Great Britain, including a former member of parliament who she killed by sabotaging his wheelchair. Fleeing to Marrakesh to avoid police investigation, Davis proceeds to murder three men, including the local headmaster. When a troop of soldiers arrive to visit the headmaster, Davis manipulates them into escorting her around the city, all while planning to poison the commanding officer.

** "A Gilded Cage": [[EvilOldFolks Etta Davis]], nicknamed the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Angel of Death]], is a [[FaceOfAnAngelMindOfADemon kindly-looking]] yet prolific SerialKiller specializing in poisonings, blunt weapons, and violent accidents. A retired [[NoxiousNurse nurse]], Davis was connected to 47 murders in retirement homes and hospitals throughout Great Britain, including a former member of parliament who she killed by sabotaging his wheelchair. Fleeing to Marrakesh to avoid police investigation, Davis proceeds to murder three men, including the local headmaster. When a troop of soldiers arrive to visit the headmaster, Davis manipulates them into escorting her around the city, all while planning to poison the commanding officer.

* CompleteMonster ("Patient Zero"): [[DarkMessiah Oybek Nabazov]] and his second-in-command [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Sister Yulduz]] are the leaders of [[ApocalypseCult Liberation]], who attempted to cause a pandemic by having brainwashed cult members [[SuicideAttack inject themselves with a lethal virus]] and spread it around the globe. While Oybek is a fanatical "serial cultist" who has spent the last three decades founding cults and [[TheCorrupter leading them down a self-destructive path]] that resulted in several mass suicides, Yulduz has secretly invested large amounts of money into security and pharmacy companies to profit from the ensuring chaos, and plans to leave Oybek and rest of the cult to their fates once they have set their plan in motion.

* HarsherInHindsight: The "Patient Zero" arc with Oybek Nabazov's plot to unleash a pandemic did not age well considering how the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic first took off around the same year as the events of ''Hitman''. Indeed, there was at least one doomsday cult, namely the Shincheonji Church of Jesus which has been blamed for the surge of COVID-19 cases in South Korea; South Koreans were none too pleased and petitioned the government to disband Shincheonji for its role in the pandemic.

* GameBreaker: Fire extinguishers. You can carry it without causing suspicion. You can use it for a non-lethal takedown and you can shoot it for an explosive kill. All stages have them. There's a reason the first elusive target in Colorado disqualifies kills from fire extinguisher. [[note]]Professional difficulty nerfs it so that carrying around a fire extinguisher will raise some suspicion, and the sequel nerfed it further to only knock out [=NPCs=] instead of killing them.[[/note]]

* HilariousInHindsight: "World of Tomorrow" revolved around two biochemists creating a DNA-specific virus. Film/NoTimeToDie had a very similar plot.

** The removal of Dual Wielding and Human Shields are one of the most criticized changes made for the game, especially since human shields were in the Alpha version of the game. Human shields were mentioned in an early survey but has been missing from them since, so they might be added in later. Other criticised changes are non-working mirrors [[note]] [=NPCs=] can't see 47 behind them through a mirror like in the previous games; this was fixed in VideoGame/Hitman2 and therefore, its Legacy Pack[[/note]], blood puddles not causing suspicion, and the removal of ''Absolution'''s in-game silencer management.

** The game needs to be online to be fully playable but it's very much possible to play offline. Offline mode allows instant re-connection to avoid loss of progress and a patch on November 28th, 2016 made unlockable gear usable offline, negating the majority of the issues people had with the system. The only condition is that they still need to be ''unlocked'' online. Only Challenges, Elusive Targets[[note]] requires a connection to prevent cheating and for the menu timer[[/note]], Contracts Mode [[note]] which is fair, considering the entire point is for the contracts to be shared online[[/note]] and Escalations are all locked away behind the Always-Online requirement. This came to a head in 2021, when the developers released the game onto GOG, a service '''''explicitly for DRM-Free Games''''', with GOG being raked over the coals for allowing such a game on the service (and also accused the commenters of review bombing), with IO Interactive with egg on its face thinking it'd go over smoothly. This was somewhat rectified when GOG removed the game from sale on 8th October, 2021, but concerns about the games' always online persist.

* GameBreaker: Fire extinguishers. You can carry it without causing suspicion. You can use it for a non-lethal takedown and you can shoot it for an explosive kill. All stages have them. There's a reason the first elusive target in Colorado disqualifies kills from fire extinguisher. Granted, if you play on Professional difficulty, holding a fire extinguisher does make people suspicious, but not illegally so. [[note]]Hitman 2 nerfed this to only knock out NPC's instead of killing them, so bear this in mind Legacy Pack players![[/note]]

* ItsEasySoItSucks: Purists have taken issue with the new "Opportunities" system: If 47 overhears the right conversation (which the game even notifies with an icon if you're approaching one), the game will essentially give the player a quest line complete with waypoints that will handhold the player straight to one of the targets. However, it is possible to disable the system entirely, or set it to "Minimal", which still allows the game to point out their starting point but remove the waypoints. The Patient Zero campaign doesn't have Opportunities, oddly enough.

** "The Bookkeeper" elusive target for Colorado is notably harder than "The Chameleon", but in a different way. While The Chameleons' Richard Foreman stays in the hacker den, and is relatively easy to deal with, Perrti is surrounded by four armed bodyguards at all times, one of which can see through every disguise you can put on, and the kicker is that his route is basically '''random'''. Because there isn't much consistency to his routine, it makes it difficult to lure him away or create an accident in advance when he won't go near where you want to anytime soon. Subduing any of his bodyguards, creating accident traps with oil drums (even when out of his sight) will result in Perrti attempting to evacuate. If his car is destroyed to prevent this, he will either be taken to the basement (which Berg also hides in) or the northeastern room of the house (which contains two additional soldiers). Really, Perrti an annoying and needlessly complex target that does nothing but waste every players' time, you are punished for thinking in advance, and that may only work if you get extremely lucky in following a path you want.

** "The Bookkeeper" elusive target for Colorado is notably harder than "The Chameleon". The target is surrounded by four armed bodyguards (one of whom can see through every disguise) and three of the four areas he visits are heavily-guarded, making it difficult to lure him away or create an accident. Subduing any of his bodyguards (even when out of his sight) will result in him attempting to evacuate. If his car is destroyed, he will either be taken to the basement (which Berg also hides in) or the northeastern room of the house (which contains two additional soldiers), with a faint window of opportunity to blow him up with a propane flask.

** The Silent Assassin Suit Only challenge for Patient Zero. Neither of the targets are particularly easy to reach - Liebleid is located inside a room that can only be opened with a disposable scrambler, with the corridors leading to said room being guarded. Similarly, Cage's room is surrounded by various doctors, and killing him involves both not getting spotted and not getting infected by him. The entire level is also a hostile area, with the morgue being harder to infiltrate due to there being additional guards and workers. Preventing the virus from spreading involves knocking out the surgeon (and potentially the doctor) who walks down the corridor, which is tricky due to three guards outside being able to spot 47 should he drag her body down. Finally, the only easy way of exiting the level is taking the snowmobile outside the garage, which is usually surrounded by two patrolling guards.

** The game needs to be online to be fully playable but it's very much possible to play offline. Offline mode allows instant re-connection to avoid loss of progress and a patch on November 28th, 2016 made unlockable gear usable offline, negating the majority of the issues people had with the system. The only condition is that they still need to be ''unlocked'' online. Only Challenges, Elusive Targets[[note]] requires a connection to prevent cheating and for the menu timer[[/note]], Contracts Mode [[note]] which is fair, considering the entire point is for the contracts to be shared online[[/note]] and Escalations are all locked away behind the Always-Online requirement. This came to a head in 2021, when the developers released the game onto GOG, a service '''explicitly for DRM-Free Games''', with GOG being raked over the coals for allowing such a game (and accusing the commenters of review bombing), with IO Interactive with egg on its face thinking it'd go over smoothly.

** The game needs to be online to be fully playable but it's very much possible to play offline. Offline mode allows instant re-connection to avoid loss of progress and a patch on November 28th, 2016 made unlockable gear usable offline, negating the majority of the issues people had with the system. The only condition is that they still need to be ''unlocked'' online. Only Challenges, Elusive Targets[[note]] requires a connection to prevent cheating and for the menu timer[[/note]], Contracts Mode [[note]] which is fair, considering the entire point is for the contracts to be shared online[[/note]] and Escalations are all locked away behind the Always-Online requirement.

** Penelope Graves and Maya Parvati, the two female targets in Colorado, never interact. Seeing Parvati's {{Jerkass}} behaviour and Graves being distrusted by the militia, it would have been interesting if there was an opportunity involving setting up a meeting, ending with Parvati wrongly suspecting Graves of being a traitor and killing Graves or Parvati pushing Graves's BerserkButton and [[BewareTheNiceOnes getting killed by her]].

* CompleteMonster ("Patient Zero"): [[DarkMessiah Oybek Nabazov]] and his second-in-command [[OnlyInItForTheMoney Sister Yulduz]] are the leaders of [[ApocalypseCult Liberation]], who attempted to cause a pandemic by having brainwashed cult members [[SuicideAttack inject themselves with a lethal virus]] and spread it around the globe. While Obyek is a fanatical "serial cultist" who has spent the last three decades founding cults and [[TheCorrupter leading them down a self-destructive path]] that resulted in several mass suicides, Yulduz has secretly invested large amounts of money into security and pharmacy companies to profit from the ensuring chaos, and plans to leave Obyek and rest of the cult to their fates once they have set their plan in motion.

* CompleteMonster:
** [[DarkMessiah Oybek Nabazov]], the leader of [[ApocalypseCult Liberation]], is a man deeply obsessed with death, suicide and rebirth. Over the last three decades he has founded several cults, [[TheCorrupter led them down a self-destructive path]] that resulted in seven mass suicides, leaving the remains behind to start anew. When the former virologist Owen Cage helped the cult create a deadly virus, Nabazov intended to have some of his most fanatical followers [[SuicideAttack inject themselves with the virus]] to cause several outbreaks around the globe in a coordinated attack. When Agent 47 arrives in Bangkok to assassinate him, he has begun brainwashing a new group of unaware cult recruits with the intention of having them spread the virus to Bangkok and beyond.
** [[DragonWithAnAgenda Sister Yulduz]], the "chosen sister", is the second-in-command of the Liberation cult. Pretending to be a devout follower of Nabazov she helped organizing the cult attacks, while secretly having invested large amounts of money into security and pharmacy companies to [[OnlyInItForTheMoney profit from the chaos]] caused by the virus outbreaks. Showing no loyalty towards Nabazov or the cult, she already made plans to escape and leave them to their fates as soon as they begin their attacks.

** The Silent Assassin, Suit Only challenge for Freedom Fighters on both Normal and Professional Mode. Not only do you have to deal with '''''FOUR targets''''', all of which are spread out across the map, and are constantly on the move, you have to do this in a place where ''the entire map is trespassing in the suit'', meaning you have to keep out of sight almost all the time. None of the targets have particularly "easy" silent kills, such as [[spoiler: Poison Ezra while he's in the basement, one of the hardest places to get to on the map, Maya killed with a haybale from above, Sean roaming around makes for an opportunity to blow him up with his own watch while walking around the compound and house, with Penelope checking on the militia and can be killed when she isolates herself near the pointmans' residence]], so good luck! Getting '''into the compound''' is hard enough without the constraint of no disguising, so this takes the cake in difficulty. And because in Story mode, the only way out of the level is through the underground bunker, it's a wonder people got this done.
*** Downplayed in the Hitman 2 version of the mission, which adds in tall grass in various places on the map, including spots specifically made to make this [=SA/SO=] challenge ''much easier to pull off.'' It's still hard, and still requires a lot of waiting around, but it's now at least feels beatable.

* HarsherInHindsight: The "Patient Zero" arc with Oybek Nabazov's plot to unleash a pandemic did not age well considering how the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic first took off around the same year as the events of ''Hitman''.

*** Kitchen staff disguises are also beneficial due to the ability to poison targets and NPCs, having fewer enforcers, and in some cases, having extra access in levels.

* EvenBetterSequel: Paris was considered to be better than anything in Absolution, with the only complaint being that it felt a bit short, while Sapienza was considered to be better than Paris, and considered by many to be the Best level in the entire Hitman franchise.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: The game is much shorter than the previous games, with 2 tutorial sandboxes and 6 story sandboxes. The bonus episodes reuse the level layouts, although change enough to keep the levels fresh (Just compare World of Tomorrow and Landslide). [[labelnote: Past examples]]Imagine the Hong Kong missions in CN47 and Contracts, St. Petersburg in Hitman 2, and the Chinese marketplace in Absolution[[/labelnote]] That said, there is a ''lot'' of replay value; from the numerous escalations, the large amount of challenges available for each level, and the practically unlimited amount of user-created contracts. In short, while the replay value might be among the highest of the series, prepare to see the same levels a lot.

* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: While there is a serious story in the game (a conspiracy thriller about [[spoiler:A shadow client manipulating the ICA and Agent 47 to destroy "Providence", an illuminati-esque world order, while also trying to play both sides for fools.]]), and most of it can be picked up from listening into conversations throughout the natural course of gameplay, you don't have to pay attention to any of it. You'll get just as much enjoyment out of it if you don't care for the background plot. If there's anything Creator/IOInteractive learned after making VideoGame/HitmanAbsolution, it's that we should get the justification for why we're killing them, and leave the rest of the plot to optional cutscenes and in-game dialogue, not the reverse.

** Manual saving is back instead of ''Absolution's'' checkpoint saving. Additionally, it actually saves the map state instead of just mission progress, so you no longer have to reset any traps or worry about miraculously recovered guards.

** Speaking of disguise suspicion, ''Absolution's'' disguise mechanics (everyone can see through their own disguise) were dropped in favor of ''VideoGame/DeathToSpies'' disguise mechanics (certain people can see through certain disguises), which is both more consistent and less irritating.

** The removal of Dual Wielding and Human Shields are one of the most criticized changes made for the game, especially since human shields were in the Alpha version of the game. Human shields were mentioned in an early survey but has been missing from them since, so they might be added in later. Other criticised changes are non-working mirrors [[note]] [=NPCs=] cant see 47 behind them through a mirror like in the previous games; this was fixed in VideoGame/Hitman2 and therefore, its Legacy Pack[[/note]], blood puddles not causing suspicion, and the removal of ''Absolution's'' in-game silencer management.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: While they generally do the job, the game's blood effects are quite obviously just fairly simple textures; this is particularly noticeable if you kill someone in a puddle of water (usually in front of flooding sinks), as the two liquids don't mix at all and the water is simply rendered on top of the blood. This applies to the ''World of Tomorrow'' trilogy as a whole.

* FranchiseOriginalSin: [[FakeLongevity Forced, unskippable secondary objectives]], a commonly criticized aspect of one of ''Hitman 2'''s levels, first showed up here; first there's "World of Tomorrow" with the virus prototype, and then there's "Freedom Fighters" and its [[{{Railroading}} forced bunker exit]]. Sapienza largely got away with an unskippable objective thanks to the level generally impressing players with its scale, design and writing, while the nature of the objective (effectively a third, immobile target that [[EasyLevelTrick could just be sniped]]) didn't cause it to feel out-of-place - especially since it could be used to kill one of the targets. Colorado's exit limitation was more criticized, but was also a small enough diversion that it could be lived with ([[AuthorsSavingThrow and was actually removed in the sequel during replays of the level]]). Meanwhile, players were much less willing to give Whittleton Creek a pass due to it's secondary objective requiring [[{{Padding}} actively scouring the map for collectibles]] on a level where one of the targets was also found to be [[TheGenericGuy extremely uninteresting]], meaning that Whittleton developed a reputation of being a mediocre level kept afloat by it's [[JustHereForGodzilla very interesting primary target]], but was severely dragged down by [[TheScrappy the other target]] and [[ScrappyMechanic an annoying]], time-consuming FetchQuest that was needed to actually ''finish'' the level.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:[[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/{{Hitman}} See here]].