Hitman: Absolution

Hitman: Absolution is a stealth game in which the player assumes the role of Agent 47, an assassin for hire. Presented from a third-person perspective, the gameplay centers around completing a number of objectives within a series of levels. Objectives range from reaching the end of a level to eliminating specific individuals. The player chooses how to complete each mission and is able to take multiple paths to reach targets and locations.

Players may use pistols, bottles or bricks, assault or sniper rifles, shotguns, fiber-wire, or steel pipes against enemies if opting for action-oriented approaches, or avoid adversaries altogether by using disguises, blending into the environment, and only attacking specific targets using a stealth-oriented approach. Agent 47 has an 'Instinct' ability that lets the player monitor enemies more easily. There are environmental ways to kill or distract individuals; poison can be used to spike coffee, a switch to make a disco ball fall and break, a massive explosion at a gas station, levers to make scaffolding to fall down, small or large fires, and fireworks can be set off. The player must complete a number of chapters in order to progress through the story.

Genetically engineered assassin Agent 47 (David Bateson) is ordered by the International Contract Agency (ICA), to kill his former handler Diana Burnwood (Marsha Thomason), who, for unknown reasons, has betrayed the organisation: Diana had sabotaged funding streams and publicized their database, bringing undesired attention to the Agency. 47 infiltrates Diana's Chicago estate and reluctantly shoots her in the bathroom. Whilst bleeding out, Diana reveals she betrayed the Agency to prevent a genetically engineered teenage girl named Victoria (Isabelle Fuhrman) from becoming an assassin like 47. She asks 47 to protect Victoria, leading 47's new handler, Benjamin Travis (Powers Boothe), to brand him a traitor.

As the Agency knows all of 47's safe houses, 47 hides Victoria at the Rosewood Orphanage before meeting a disgraced ICA informant known as 'Birdie' (Steven Bauer). 47 and Birdie broker a deal in which 47 agrees to kill a local crime lord called the 'King of Chinatown' and trade his Silverballer pistols for information. After 47 meets his end of the deal, Birdie tells 47 about Blake Dexter (Keith Carradine), an international arms dealer. 47 sneaks into the air ducts adjacent to Dexter's room in the Terminus Hotel and learns that Dexter and his secretary/mistress Layla Stockton (Traci Lords) intend to kidnap Victoria and sell her to the highest bidder.

Though plans to continue the Hitman franchise were announced in 2007, it was not until May 2009 that Eidos confirmed the game was in development. Certain plot details for the game were rumored in 2009, stating that the game's story would lead Agent 47 to a low point from which he would have to rebuild himself. On 20 April 2011, Square Enix filed the trademark for the name Hitman: Absolution in Europe, leading sites to speculate that it would be the name of the fifth Hitman game. On 6 May 2011, a teaser trailer was released, confirming the title Hitman: Absolution.

The trailer briefly showed Agent 47 attaching a suppressor and a rattlesnake coiled around his signature Silverballer pistol. It has been reported the game will be a "familiar and yet significantly different experience from other Hitman games." On 9 October 2011, a full gameplay trailer entitled "Run for Your Life" was released.

Hitman: Absolution received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator website Metacritic. Positive reviews came from GamesRadar+, calling it "one of the strongest entries in the series to date", and Game Informer, who wrote that "devising a strategy, using the environment and disguises to your advantage, and leaving before anyone knows you're there are the hallmarks of a perfect hit, and Absolution proves Agent 47 is still gaming's premier hitman."

Edge gave it 7/10, saying "the game has taken a unique formula and diluted it". 5/10 saying "Absolution aims high but misses the mark." Eurogamer gave it 7/10 saying "Agent 47 doesn't begin Hitman: Absolution with amnesia, but the six years that have passed since we last took control of him in Blood Money do seem to have dulled his creators' recollections of what made him so popular in the first place." 5/10 saying "Hitman: Absolution's vivid world and enjoyable stealth-action gameplay overshadow its few notable inconsistencies."