Hitman: World of Assassination review - "A strong port for a game that requires no introduction"

• Almost indistinguishable from the console and PC versions
• Performance suffers a bit on previous-generation iPhones
• Clever use of UI makes up for the loss of keyboard/controller inputs

Let's kick this all off by making it clear that I'm a massive fan of the Hitman series, having played since the original, and having the full World of Assassination content already unlocked and well played on both Xbox and my PC. Hitman: World of Assassination is amazing. I play it in my downtime at home, and I play it while away from home on my Steam Deck.

Now, with all that said, you might have some assumptions about how the rest of this review is going to go. But you might be surprised.

At the time of writing, Hitman: World of Assassination, neé Hitman, nee Hitman (2016), is almost a decade old. It's an amazing example of 'live games' and games as a service, although that said, it's definitely not as heavily monetised as most mobile counterparts are, and a very clever pricing decision has been made in making it so you can purchase each location individually rather than shelling out $70 for the full experience.

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Even in the free experience, which is the training mission and a couple of extra bits and bobs, where there was an opportunity to add in some extra monetisation features, it has been avoided. This is, essentially, as close to a classic (cast your mind back!) 'lite' version where you can bolt on additional chapters - with the chapters, in this case, largely being new locations. That said, there is some funny business around the extra content packs (Sarajevo Six, and such) wherein you can access non-campaign and non-'live' challenges if you get that. However, can access that secondary-campaign version of the map. I can, as you probably can, see how this could be a little confusing for some.

That said, as I said earlier, I don't think the mobile version of Hitman World of Assassination will be the first version many have played. In fact, I think this works as a great re-entry point for people who have grown tired of the current console circuit and stopped playing games there, but still have a powerful phone.

Anyway. Due to the nature of the monetisation, with it splitting locations down to an individual level, it means that there's an extra, secret bonus to the mobile version. Namely, you can install and uninstall each location as and how you wish. This means that if you're a little bit tight on storage space (but have decent internet - as most come in at around one and a half gigabytes in size), then you can swap in and out which locations you have installed on your phone.

That's because of the cloud storage, which is, sadly, a perfect segue to the biggest issue with Hitman in any of its various platform iterations. Offline play is non-existent; Regardless of where you play Hitman World of Assassination, you'll need to log into the server for verification and account management (which doesn't share data between platforms, mind).

I will say that, for some odd (probably network adapter-related) magic, I've never had a server drop for no reason while on iPhone, while I get them quite often on the Xbox. That's perhaps reassuring for those playing on WiFi at home. However, it will leave some commuters at the mercy of - notoriously unforgiving - innercity cell tower distribution.

What else about the port? Well, Hitman is a game that always made the most of being on a controller, which leads to quite a dense UI. That said, it all feels quite natural, and there are a few tweaks here which do show that it wasn't just a slapdash port: subduing somebody is done through tapping on them - a great upgrade, even if most people aren't hitting subdue while in a big crowd. In addition to this, the movement transition from walking to running feels well done, and the mobile controls have certain options you can toggle rather than hold to use (as with a controller). Interactions are also done through lining up your viewpoint and then holding down the point on the screen - it feels well implemented.

All of that said, I was very happy to find that when I plugged in my Xbox controller, it immediately switched to the Xbox layout and, interestingly, the added menu interaction points (such as having to press an extra tile to start a level) disappeared as a result.

Surprisingly, on a performance level, it holds up fairly well, certainly as well as my Xbox Series S, most of the time. There are occasional slowdowns when things get a bit crazy or... for some reason, in Columbia. I'm playing on an iPhone 15 Pro, but I assume that most iOS users, who tend to be in the annual upgrade cycle, will have newer hardware. I imagine that more recent phones handle it a lot better, especially based on the performance improvements the latest releases have been getting.

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Oh, and it perhaps goes without saying, but if you lock your phone mid-level, then you will lose progress - so players from other platforms should definitely become friends with the save function or set aside some dedicated time for Master difficulty

All of this said, Hitman World of Assassination is not showing its age, and with nine years of content under its belt as well as community creations and an incoming co-operative mode, it's arguably one of the biggest non-multiplayer games out there. If you've ever been curious about it, and mobile happens to be your primary platform, then you definitely shouldn't hesitate to get it.

There was an opportunity to do more with the port here - for instance, for the Sniper Assassin mode... but, perhaps that's me expecting a bit too much. It's a high-quality port that operates really well and looks phenomenal. I remain hopeful that it will update alongside the core version and that the very exciting co-operative mode that has been teased will also come to mobile.