Hitman: Codename 47
Encyclopedia
Hitman: Codename 47 is a stealth game developed by IO Interactive
and published by Eidos Interactive
. It is the first entry in the Hitman
series, followed by Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
.
The story centers around Agent 47
, a bald test subject branded
with a barcode
tattoo
ed on the back of his head, who is rigorously trained in methods of murder. Upon escaping from a test facility, 47 is hired by the Agency, a Europe
an contract killing
organization. His mission takes him to several locations—Hong Kong
, Colombia
, Hungary
, and the Netherlands
—to assassinate
wealthy and decadent criminals.
: 47's movements are restricted to turning, strafing
and moving forward. The player can peek around corners by using the lean function, which prompts 47 to tilt slightly to one side. 47 is able to climb ladders, but cannot defend himself with a weapon while doing so. In addition, he is only be able to jump from one balcony to another. 47 creates 'sound' while walking which will alert any hostile characters in the facility. To move without being detected, the player can use the "sneak" function, which causes 47 to crouch and move in a stalking manner. Sneaking also allows 47 to retrieve a weapon from his inventory without anyone hearing it; if 47 is standing upright when the player pulls out a weapon, it will alert nearby characters.
There is an on-screen cursor to indicate in which direction 47 will attack. The heads-up display
includes a life bar (which measures 47's health), ammo
capacity, kevlar durability, and the current item selected. Alert messages sometimes appear next to the health readout. These occur whenever enemies discover a body on the map, or if 47 falls under suspicion.
Disguise plays a large role in Hitmans gameplay. Any time a non-player character is killed, 47 may take their clothes and impersonate them. This is necessary to access restricted areas where only guards may enter. At the start of each level, 47 begins in a default costume. This costume is folded and left on the ground whenever 47 changes clothes. The player may replace 47's outfit with a previous one by simply approaching them and selecting the "Change clothes" option.
47's weaponry consists of various short and long-range firearms, a garrote
wire, and a knife. Pistol
s generally have excellent range, while automatic rifle
s and machine gun
s decrease in accuracy the farther away 47 is from his target. 47 can also equip himself with a sniper rifle
, concealed in a special suitcase, which must be reassembled before he may use it. Once he is finished with the rifle, 47 can take it apart and place it the suitcase once more.
Characters who are dead may be dragged at any time. If anyone on the map spots a body lying on the ground, it will create unwanted attention for 47. In the event that 47 adopted the clothes of someone he has slain, his disguise will be compromised as soon as the body is discovered. When dragging, 47 lifts up the closest available leg or arm and begins to hoist it away.
Each level
of Hitman takes place in an open environment which is populated with non-player
civilians and armed guards. Although mission criteria may vary, the goal is generally to find 47's assigned target and kill them by any means possible. Though the path may appear linear, it is possible to approach a target directly without eliciting a violent reprisal.
On a technological note, Hitman: Codename 47 was one of the first games to use the now popular ragdoll physics
.
, sits back, and laughs, as he has deliberately set up 47's escape.
One year later, 47 is a professional assassin in the employ of the International Contract Agency (ICA), briefed by his controller Diana Burnwood. 47 is sent around the globe on a series of missions to eliminate four global criminal masterminds: Lee Hong, leader of the Red Dragon Triad in Hong Kong; Pablo Belisario Ochoa, a Colombian drug lord heavily based on Tony Montana
from Scarface
; Franz Fuchs, an Austrian
terrorist; and Arkadij Jegorov (aka Boris), a notorious weapons smuggler and gunrunner.
Throughout his assassination missions 47 collects letters written to his targets by the other targets, suggesting that these four people somehow know each other. Furthermore, all four of his targets were once part of the French Foreign Legion
at about the same time and seem to contact each other regarding an experimental human. The letters also mention a mutual friend among the men, 'Professor' Ort-Meyer.
47 is then alerted by Diana that the clients who ordered the assassinations are the same person, and that this person has ordered one final assassination in which he is to kill Odon Kovacs, a doctor at a sanatorium
in Satu Mare, Romania
. When 47 checks in, 'Professor' Ort-Meyer is revealed to be the man behind the voice and calls the police. A heavily-armed SWAT
unit storms in and sweeps the building for 47. After slaying his target, 47 infiltrates deeper and learns the truth behind his existence: 47 is the result of a cloning
experiment which combined the genetic material
of each of his four previous targets (Lee Hong, Pablo Ochoa, Franz Fuchs, and Arkadij Jegorov), plus Dr. Ort-Meyer's own. The experiments were in the pursuit of creating a flawless human being. Ort-Meyer engineered 47's escape from the asylum in order to test his performance in the outside world. It is implied that Ort-Meyer ordered the assassinations on his associates because they wanted to use the clones for their own purposes, which Ort-Meyer was unwilling to allow.
With the help of Agent Smith, who is being held in the sanitarium, 47 uncovers a sophisticated lab beneath the hospital. In response, Ort-Meyer unleashes a squad of "Mr. 48s", an improved, mindlessly loyal series of clones. 47 defeats the clones and confronts Ort-Meyer. The player has the option of killing Ort-Meyer right away or hesitating, a choice which will determine the game ending. When 47 bursts into the Doctor's lab, Ort-Meyer first mistakes him for another 48. If the player fails to subdue Ort-Meyer in time, he will attack 47 with a stungun and place him back under confinement. If the player shoots Ort-Meyer, the Doctor will stumble to the floor and mutter, "I didn't even recognize my own son." 47 kneels down to Ort-Meyer, then forcefully breaks his neck.
but was never released until it came in a dual disk pack in 2005 detailed in the above article.
IO Interactive
IO Interactive is a Danish video game development company currently owned by Square Enix. The company was founded in September 1998 by the Reto-Moto development group. To date their most popular franchise is the critically acclaimed Hitman series...
and published by Eidos Interactive
Eidos Interactive
Eidos Interactive Ltd. is a British video game publisher and is a label of Square Enix Europe. As an independent company Eidos plc was headquartered in the Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton....
. It is the first entry in the Hitman
Hitman (series)
Hitman is a stealth game series developed by the Danish company IO Interactive. The series is available on PC as well as several video game consoles, including the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360. The game series has since expanded into a novel, Hitman: Enemy Within written by...
series, followed by Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin is a stealth game developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive. Released for the Xbox game console on September 30, 2002, it is the second entry in the Hitman series and the sequel to Hitman: Codename 47...
.
The story centers around Agent 47
Agent 47
Agent 47 is a fictional character and the main protagonist in the Hitman video-game series. Created by IO Interactive, the character was developed around David Bateson, who also provided the in-game voice...
, a bald test subject branded
Human branding
Human branding or stigmatizing is the process in which a mark, usually a symbol or ornamental pattern, is burned into the skin of a living person, with the intention that the resulting scar makes it permanent. This is performed using a hot or very cold branding iron...
with a barcode
Barcode
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...
tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ed on the back of his head, who is rigorously trained in methods of murder. Upon escaping from a test facility, 47 is hired by the Agency, a Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an contract killing
Contract killing
Contract killing is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may...
organization. His mission takes him to several locations—Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
—to assassinate
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
wealthy and decadent criminals.
Gameplay
Though the game takes place from a third-person perspective Hitmans control setup is akin to first-person shooterFirst-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
: 47's movements are restricted to turning, strafing
Strafing
Strafing is the practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. This means, that although ground attack using automatic weapons fire is very often accompanied with bombing or rocket fire, the term "strafing" does not specifically include the...
and moving forward. The player can peek around corners by using the lean function, which prompts 47 to tilt slightly to one side. 47 is able to climb ladders, but cannot defend himself with a weapon while doing so. In addition, he is only be able to jump from one balcony to another. 47 creates 'sound' while walking which will alert any hostile characters in the facility. To move without being detected, the player can use the "sneak" function, which causes 47 to crouch and move in a stalking manner. Sneaking also allows 47 to retrieve a weapon from his inventory without anyone hearing it; if 47 is standing upright when the player pulls out a weapon, it will alert nearby characters.
There is an on-screen cursor to indicate in which direction 47 will attack. The heads-up display
HUD (video gaming)
In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
includes a life bar (which measures 47's health), ammo
Ammunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
capacity, kevlar durability, and the current item selected. Alert messages sometimes appear next to the health readout. These occur whenever enemies discover a body on the map, or if 47 falls under suspicion.
Disguise plays a large role in Hitmans gameplay. Any time a non-player character is killed, 47 may take their clothes and impersonate them. This is necessary to access restricted areas where only guards may enter. At the start of each level, 47 begins in a default costume. This costume is folded and left on the ground whenever 47 changes clothes. The player may replace 47's outfit with a previous one by simply approaching them and selecting the "Change clothes" option.
47's weaponry consists of various short and long-range firearms, a garrote
Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle someone....
wire, and a knife. Pistol
Handgun
A handgun is a firearm designed to be held and operated by one hand. This characteristic differentiates handguns as a general class of firearms from long guns such as rifles and shotguns ....
s generally have excellent range, while automatic rifle
Automatic rifle
Automatic rifle is a term generally used to describe a semi-automatic rifle chambered for a rifle cartridge, capable of delivering both semi- and full automatic fire...
s and machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
s decrease in accuracy the farther away 47 is from his target. 47 can also equip himself with a sniper rifle
Sniper rifle
In military and law enforcement terminology, a sniper rifle is a precision-rifle used to ensure more accurate placement of bullets at longer ranges than other small arms. A typical sniper rifle is built for optimal levels of accuracy, fitted with a telescopic sight and chambered for a military...
, concealed in a special suitcase, which must be reassembled before he may use it. Once he is finished with the rifle, 47 can take it apart and place it the suitcase once more.
Characters who are dead may be dragged at any time. If anyone on the map spots a body lying on the ground, it will create unwanted attention for 47. In the event that 47 adopted the clothes of someone he has slain, his disguise will be compromised as soon as the body is discovered. When dragging, 47 lifts up the closest available leg or arm and begins to hoist it away.
Each level
Level (video gaming)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
of Hitman takes place in an open environment which is populated with non-player
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
civilians and armed guards. Although mission criteria may vary, the goal is generally to find 47's assigned target and kill them by any means possible. Though the path may appear linear, it is possible to approach a target directly without eliciting a violent reprisal.
On a technological note, Hitman: Codename 47 was one of the first games to use the now popular ragdoll physics
Ragdoll physics
In computer physics engines, ragdoll physics is a type of procedural animation that is often used as a replacement for traditional static death animations.-Introduction:Early video games used manually-created animations for characters' death sequences...
.
Story
The game begins with Agent 47 waking up and being ordered, by a voice from a loudspeaker, to perform various tasks, such as scaling obstacles, changing clothes and using weaponry. This serves as the training level of the game. When 47 reaches the end, he kills a guard and takes his clothes in order to escape. The man using the loudspeaker sees this on a surveillance cameraClosed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
, sits back, and laughs, as he has deliberately set up 47's escape.
One year later, 47 is a professional assassin in the employ of the International Contract Agency (ICA), briefed by his controller Diana Burnwood. 47 is sent around the globe on a series of missions to eliminate four global criminal masterminds: Lee Hong, leader of the Red Dragon Triad in Hong Kong; Pablo Belisario Ochoa, a Colombian drug lord heavily based on Tony Montana
Tony Montana
Antonio Raimundo "Tony" Montana is a fictional character from the 1983 film Scarface. He is portrayed by Al Pacino in the movie, and is voiced by André Sogliuzzo in the 2006 video game Scarface: The World Is Yours. Tony Montana has become a cultural icon and is one of the most famous movie...
from Scarface
Scarface (1983 film)
Scarface is a 1983 American epic crime drama movie directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, produced by Martin Bregman and starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana...
; Franz Fuchs, an Austrian
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
terrorist; and Arkadij Jegorov (aka Boris), a notorious weapons smuggler and gunrunner.
Throughout his assassination missions 47 collects letters written to his targets by the other targets, suggesting that these four people somehow know each other. Furthermore, all four of his targets were once part of the French Foreign Legion
French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
at about the same time and seem to contact each other regarding an experimental human. The letters also mention a mutual friend among the men, 'Professor' Ort-Meyer.
47 is then alerted by Diana that the clients who ordered the assassinations are the same person, and that this person has ordered one final assassination in which he is to kill Odon Kovacs, a doctor at a sanatorium
Sanatorium
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with treatment of tuberculosis before antibiotics...
in Satu Mare, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. When 47 checks in, 'Professor' Ort-Meyer is revealed to be the man behind the voice and calls the police. A heavily-armed SWAT
SWAT
A SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
unit storms in and sweeps the building for 47. After slaying his target, 47 infiltrates deeper and learns the truth behind his existence: 47 is the result of a cloning
Human cloning
Human cloning is the creation of a genetically identical copy of a human. It does not usually refer to monozygotic multiple births nor the reproduction of human cells or tissue. The ethics of cloning is an extremely controversial issue...
experiment which combined the genetic material
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
of each of his four previous targets (Lee Hong, Pablo Ochoa, Franz Fuchs, and Arkadij Jegorov), plus Dr. Ort-Meyer's own. The experiments were in the pursuit of creating a flawless human being. Ort-Meyer engineered 47's escape from the asylum in order to test his performance in the outside world. It is implied that Ort-Meyer ordered the assassinations on his associates because they wanted to use the clones for their own purposes, which Ort-Meyer was unwilling to allow.
With the help of Agent Smith, who is being held in the sanitarium, 47 uncovers a sophisticated lab beneath the hospital. In response, Ort-Meyer unleashes a squad of "Mr. 48s", an improved, mindlessly loyal series of clones. 47 defeats the clones and confronts Ort-Meyer. The player has the option of killing Ort-Meyer right away or hesitating, a choice which will determine the game ending. When 47 bursts into the Doctor's lab, Ort-Meyer first mistakes him for another 48. If the player fails to subdue Ort-Meyer in time, he will attack 47 with a stungun and place him back under confinement. If the player shoots Ort-Meyer, the Doctor will stumble to the floor and mutter, "I didn't even recognize my own son." 47 kneels down to Ort-Meyer, then forcefully breaks his neck.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack is composed by Jesper KydJesper Kyd
Jesper Jakobson Kyd is a Danish video game and film score composer.Kyd combines sounds of dark ambient, electronic and symphonic music and has won many awards. He is also notable for his early work in the Amiga demoscene, where he composed a large amount of music in his teenage years, in...
but was never released until it came in a dual disk pack in 2005 detailed in the above article.