The Hitman franchise has some pretty stellar music in its 20 year history. Jesper Kyd* was the composer for much of the games' early history, with Niels Bye Nielson* replacing him starting from Hitman (2016).
There are also some other composers from outside the company that provide in-universe music tracks, also listed below.
Hitman: Codename 47
- The Main Theme
captures the spirit of the series right from the get go and is also incredibly apt for the laptop mission briefings during which it plays. - The Jungle Exploration Theme is a catchy jungle beat, filled with maracas, heavy drums, and violin, perfect for hunting in the jungle.
- The Harbor Themes are piano synth tracks made by fusing a quiet beat with constant thuds to show 47's dexterity and skill in his assassination craft.
- The Credits Theme. There's no classier song to play at the end of Agent 47's first adventure.
- The title theme. The Latin chanting and the big performance by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra are exquisitely bombastic and fits with 47's Holy Hitman portrayal in this game.
- Desert Sun sounds reminiscent of Egyptian and/or Arabic tunes to set the mood for 47's mission in the Middle East.
- 47 in St Petersburg is a frosty tune to show the cold, harsh temperature amidst an equally unforgiving mission in Russia.
- Trouble In Russia is a frenzied mess of Russian tunes to depict the escalation of the mission in Russia.
- The amazing Exploration. Nothing quite like this track to pump you up for your next assassination contract.
- The bonus track Dreams of Istanbul. It's a shame this song doesn't appear in the game, because it is one hell of an instrumental mix.
- Contracts' incredibly badass theme song is a chilling tune befitting the dangerous life of a hired assassin.
- SWAT Team sounds like something out of an action horror film as 47 finds the SWAT guys after him.
- Slaughter Club is a thrilling, ghoulish pounder to accompany the Meat King's party where depravation is the order of the day.
- 47 Detected ups the tension when someone sees through a disguise and the tension meter goes berserk. Bonus points for the opening riff being adapted from the alert sound effect from Silent Assassin and altered to fit the soundtrack in a more organic way.
- The beautiful rendition of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria, so loved by the developers and players alike that it's essentially become the unofficial theme tune for the series.
- The music in "Curtains Down" comes from the final scene of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. The centerpiece aria is "Com'è lunga l'attesa!", a dark composition whose tension rises with the player's, while waiting for the trigger to be pulled.
- 47 Attacks perfectly encapsulates the panic of everything going wrong, and attempting to salvage your game.
- Apocalypse is filled with Ominous Latin Chanting, foreboding music, and seriously ups the tension whenever its used.
- Club Heaven has a consistent clapping beat, backed by an ambient choir.
- Vegas is a diegetic music piece that oozes style when you just want to chillax, and perfectly suits 47 wandering around a casino.
- The Main Title menu music conjures up images of a huge air battle.
- Amb Zone is ridiculous, especially if you want to hear Ominous Latin Chanting as you sneak to your target.
- The songs in the trailers, both the reveal trailer and the "Welcome to Sapienza" trailer. The former, produced by Bjarke Niemann, is downright mesmerizing with the use of heavy breathing as a beat. The latter is the synth-heavy sophisticated track "Between Two Points" by The Glitch Mob.
- The "Legacy" track behind the opening cinematic highlights 47's most noteworthy missions.
- The sting music that plays when you exit a mission after killing your targets is rousing and a great way to cap off a potentially harrowing, or perfectly executed, mission.
- "Ritorna a me" ("Come back to me" in Italian), which accompanies Silvio Caruso's family tape, is a beautiful sorrowful ballad and with hilariously dark lyrics.
- "E il sol dell'anima", which is playing on the radio in the Caruso mansion's kitchen, is an aria from Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto. It's excellently performed, and its gentle, soaring melody fits the level's beautiful Italian seaside setting.
- World of Assassination starts off as if 47's gonna go on adventure, and then mellows out to become less prominent.
- Showstopper is a James Bond-style track that is fantastic for exploring a French mansion holding a secret auction.
- Catwalk plays when the catwalk starts up, and the clothes get shown off. Becomes probably the catchiest song in the game, considering how prominent it is around the level.
- What Hides Beneath is a quiet track that would not be out of place in a detective program.
- Flipside of the Coin is when everything goes wrong and when 47 goes loud in Sapienza, and you need to think fast and adapt to the situation.
- Are we Stars, an In-Universe song created by Jordan Cross, comes off as a stereotypical indie track one could hear on the radio. Special mention goes to Gun Show and Shine a Light too, also made by the band, but are not heard in-game.
- The radio music in Hokkaido consists of songs from the K&L 2: Dog Days soundtrack.
- Chinese Diva has a catchy quality to it that rivals the "Catwalk" music. It's upbeat, got a constant beat to it, and plays in a lot of places in the level.
- Red Love Affair has an infectious bass hook and would not sound out of place in a foreign movie title sequence for a cop show.
- Chinese Diva
- Mission Accomplished uses the Leitmotif from "World of Assassination" and turns it into a victorious exit theme that starts out really quiet, but slowly adds instrumentation the closer to the exit you get, and if you're running away from an onslaught of guards.
- Patient Zero. A simple, quiet track that steadily gets more and more complex the further you go into the campaign, with the same seven-note Leitmotif punctuating how serious the situation of a global pandemic is.
- Logos and Main Menu. The Logo reel starts off really ominous-sounding with the Warner Bros. logo, and then switches to gleeful delight and a vast bombardment of brass instruments when the IOI logo shows up. The Main Menu is a dark, solemn piano piece that has very little instrumentation, but does repeat the "World of Assassination" Leitmotif on occasion.
- The Miami soundtrack has an upbeat electronic theme reminiscent of modern racing games, perfect for a racing-themed level.
- The Mumbai soundtrack features an ethnic choir and instrumentation worthy of the location. When in Crow territory, the clanking of a Malaccamax freighter at sea kicks in, reminding you that in spite of the map's coastal location not coming up very much, you are still hunting down the leader of a band of Ruthless Modern Pirates.
- Whittleton Creek's soundtrack is a slow yet serious sounding track that goes from whimsical to serious whenever you progress through the mission.
- Maleta y Nylon by Alfredo Rodriguez y Los Acereko plays on the Radio's in Miami and HAVEN island. It gives off a very tropical vibe, appropriate for use on the sidelines of a hot summer Miami race and an island resort.
- Champions of the Wildside, a cover by Mindy Jones, embodies the tones of the series, and the stakes riding on taking down Providence.
- Planning Screen is used on the titular menu screen and plays after the briefing has been seen. This music perfectly encapsulates the "let's get to work" ethic of 47. It includes 47's Leitmotif in a harmonious chorus too.
- Main Menu ("Death Awaits" on the soundtrack), the main menu theme for the game, a slow paced mix of quiet violins, a haunting female choir, and orchestral crescendos.
- Club Hölle, the track that plays inside the titular club in Berlin, is high-energy rave music at its finest.
- Chongqing's soundtrack is the darkest and most suspenseful of the lot, well-suited for a mission that put a series-long storyline to rest.
- Mendoza's soundtrack is a welcome change from the grim and dark tone of the previous levels, with sentimental strings, upbeat tango music, and hints of the Planning Screen theme.
- Carpathian Mountains's music starts off sad and hopeless, but gets increasingly more dramatic and hopeful as 47's memories go from betrayal to a mission to take down The Constant. Special mention goes to the Car Bomb Sequence for building up on the same scene from the cinematic in Hitman 2. The level music is an expanded version of the music heard at the start of Dubai when parachuting in, adding more militant tones, more variations of the music when going inside and outside the train, and also repeats the Leitmotif of the trilogy throughout. It ends with a sombre, yet hopeful tone, that 47 will not go away anytime soon.
