Let’s perform a little thought experiment, shall we, folks? I’m going to say three simple words, and once I do, I will then spend time sharing with you my fondest memories and most deep-seated opinions associated with those words. I’d like for you, in turn, to think of your own memories and opinions about this phrase. Feel free to share them in this article’s comments if you’d like. So, without further ado, the phrase in question is “Hitman: Blood Money.”

When I hear those words, I think of an exemplary game in the stealth genre which was developed and published by IO Interactive all the way back in May of 2006. I reminisce about the fact that this title was my first real foray into the world of stealth games. That is, outside of more kid-friendly titles like Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. Lastly, I also ponder the idea shared by many people that Blood Money was the zenith of the Hitman franchise. I’ll be discussing each aspect I’ve just mentioned in what I consider to be appropriate detail throughout the rest of this review.

As I said in my “Forgotten Journeys” article on Blood Money, this title essentially showed me how to think like a professional assassin would. Considering the game’s subject matter and the fact that it tasks players with controlling a man who was, quite literally, created by a mad scientist to be the perfect contract killer, I think the fact that Blood Money has the ability to put players inside Agent 47’s head in a sense really works in this title’s favor.

It just dawned on me that I should probably explain a few things for the sake of people who might be completely unfamiliar with the Hitman franchise and/or any aspects of its story. Let’s start with the basics. You play as a man known to his employers and to the world as “Agent 47,” “Mr. 47,” or simply “47.” That’s because, as I alluded to a moment ago, the main character of the Hitman franchise is a clone created from the genetic material of five of the world’s best and most ruthless murderers, whether they worked for hire or otherwise.

47’s creator, Dr. Otto Ort-Meyer, needed a way to differentiate his clones until he perfected the one who would ultimately go on to become the assassin we know from the series. So, he did what any sensible person in his position would do: he tattooed bar codes and specific strings of numbers onto the back of the heads of each of his creations. Agent 47 was, as you may have gathered by now, Dr. Ort-Meyer’s forty-seventh clone. Due to this, he was subsequently officially identified as “640509-040147.” It just rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?

Now, obviously, that string of numbers would be too much for the average person who is neither an accountant nor an otherwise insufferable nerd to remember, much less use as a form of identity. Thus, our legendarily-bald protagonist decided to simply go by “47.” I should also mention that Dr. Ort-Meyer psychologically conditioned his creations in such a way that they would prove unquestioningly loyal to whomever knew how to control them. I bring that up because that notion brings us to Agent 47’s employers and how their hierarchy is structured… well, kind of.

For the entirety of Blood Money and its predecessors, Agent 47 is employed by the International Contract Agency, or ICA for short. Every “field agent” (that is, assassin) who works for the ICA is partnered with a “handler,” who briefs each agent on their upcoming assignments and serves as the agent’s primary liaison within the ICA. 47’s handler is a friendly-sounding British woman by the name of Diana Burnwood. For most of Blood Money’s campaign, however, players and 47 only know Diana as a faceless voice on a cassette tape as she provides 47 with the details of each playable mission.

Speaking of each playable mission in Blood Money’s campaign, let’s move on to discussing this title’s gameplay, shall we? The game is kind enough to start you off with a tutorial mission in which it demonstrates all the new gameplay mechanics it introduces compared to its predecessors. For example, 47 now possesses the ability to conceal dead or unconscious bodies in appropriately-sized containers to prevent anyone from stumbling across his handiwork and figuring out that an assassin is afoot.

In every Hitman game that came before this mechanic was introduced, 47 would just have to leave the bodies of those he knocked out or killed in what seemed like an unguarded location and essentially hope for the best. I think it’s worth noting that if 47 killed or incapacitated someone in such a container in a particularly violent manner (such as by shooting them), nearby NPCs will still investigate any blood they happen to notice. However, as far as I’ve been able to tell, no one will actually open any containers that might hold one of 47’s targets, thus ensuring the bodies won’t be found regardless of the presence of blood.

As another example of new gameplay aspects introduced in Blood Money, 47 can also climb into the hatches of elevators. Upon doing so, he can use his trademark fiber wire to strangle a target who is also in the elevator from above. As a notable bonus, doing things this way will cause 47 to automatically hide his target’s body in the hatch. Therefore, this process allows 47 to quickly, cleanly, and quietly eliminate a target without even having to find a place to dispose of them afterward. If that isn’t the definition of efficiency for a contract assassin, I don’t know what is.

If 47 enters the elevator and climbs into the hatch before his target could potentially see him do so, they’ll have no idea he’s even there until it’s too late. There are a few missions in the campaign during which this tactic could prove quite useful. I’m glad the game has players try it out in the tutorial just to make sure that anyone who might be new to the series knows about it.

There are two more major aspects of Blood Money’s gameplay that I want to highlight before I move on to discussing the game’s overarching plot. The first of these is the ability granted to players to make each target’s death look like an accident should they choose to do so. Yes, you can simply walk up to your target and shoot them in the face with a silenced pistol to get the job done with little to no regard for witnesses or armed guards. Heck, sometimes that’s even the most efficient way to go about your work.

However, the issue I have is that this approach really doesn’t seem like Agent 47’s style in my opinion. I mean, Dr. Ort-Meyer didn’t spend obscene amounts of time, energy, and money creating the perfect assassin only to have his creation fail to take his predetermined line of work seriously. To that end, you can arrange for your targets to be in precisely the wrong place at the wrong time in a variety of creative ways.

These accidents can range from what I call the “quick and dirty” such as sneaking up behind a target and pushing them off a ledge, to the somewhat complex like rigging a pyrotechnics display to explode in the exact spot your target will soon be standing. There are also the unreasonably risky options due to the chance of injuring and/or killing innocent bystanders and witnesses. Each assassination target in the game has at least one method of an “accidental” death. It’s up to you to discover these methods and judge whether they’re worth putting to use.

The final gameplay aspect I wish to mention in detail before moving on is the new notoriety system. First and foremost, I should note that this mechanic doesn’t come into play whatsoever on the easiest difficulty mode, for reasons that I think are obvious. This makes it so that you don’t have to worry about generating and removing notoriety while you’re still getting used to the game. I would presume that’s the primary reason you would play on the easiest difficulty setting unless you just want to laugh at the antics of the less-intelligent AI.

Provided you’re playing on at least normal difficulty, you will have to contend with this gameplay mechanic. As you go about completing your missions, the notoriety system forces you to stay incognito as much as possible and be as efficient as you can while carrying out your grim tasks. This is the case because if you aren’t exceedingly careful, any witnesses you don’t deal with will report what they saw to the local authorities. Even if they just happened to look you in the eyes for a split second as you walked by, they may very well report it. Information like that adds up over time.

The more information that law enforcement agencies have about you, the clearer a picture they can develop as to your identity and appearance. It turns out it’s not that hard to track down a six-foot-tall, almost completely bald man with a bar code tattooed on the back of his head and a five thousand-dollar suit given enough time. In any case, if you don’t keep your notoriety levels in check, there will eventually come a point at which armed guards in any mission will simply open fire as soon as they see you. I understand wanting a challenge in this context, but being actively hunted down from the second you set foot in a mission venue is a bit over the top in my opinion.

To prevent things from reaching that boiling point, you can use portions of the money you’re paid for completing missions to do such things as bribe witnesses to keep their mouths shut or convince local police chiefs to suddenly suffer a catastrophic and “accidental” loss of any evidence related to you or your deeds. As I said a moment ago, however, you’ll want to try to be careful enough to prevent your notoriety level from escalating too much in the first place. You don’t want to wind up spending those particularly handsome paychecks on bribing witnesses when you could be purchasing vital upgrades for your arsenal of weaponry, now, do you?

At long last, let us discuss Hitman: Blood Money’s plot and why I love the story this game tells as much as I do. Considering the game is fifteen years old at the time of writing, I doubt I need to include a spoiler warning. Even so, just in case, we’re venturing into spoiler territory as of now. Blood Money’s story is told primarily through a series of between-mission cutscenes. During these cutscenes, a journalist by the name of Rick Henderson conducts an interview with former FBI Director Alexander Leland Cayne, who inexplicably insists on being called “Jack.”

Mr. Henderson hopes to interview Director Cayne about his accomplishments throughout his career and (more pertinently) an in-game attack on the White House which we’ll get to shortly. However, his hopes are soon dashed as the director explains that he summoned Henderson to his home under false pretenses. Rather than discussing anything Rick had on his agenda, Cayne makes it clear that he intends to only discuss the presence and previous handiwork of Agent 47.

Henderson is particularly shocked by this turn of events, especially since he falls in with the crowd of people who think of 47 as nothing more than an urban myth. However, he’s somewhat swayed when Director Cayne provides him with classified FBI documents about assassination contracts which the U.S. government strongly believes were carried out by our legendarily-bald protagonist. The trail of documentation begins after 47 eliminates a bankrupt, disgraced, former amusement park owner in Baltimore, Maryland. This is not-so coincidentally the objective of Blood Money‘s tutorial mission.

After completing that assignment, 47 accepted and carried out some contracts outside of the United States before returning to bring about another slew of assassinations on American soil. It seems the FBI wasn’t the only powerful, external force that was keeping an eye on 47 as he went about his work, however. The ICA soon found itself in the crosshairs of a rival contract killing agency known simply as “The Franchise.” The Franchise and its particularly nasty employees make a habit of neutralizing ICA agents left and right until things reach the point that, as we learn in a later mission briefing, Diana and 47 wind up the only two remaining people on the ICA’s payroll.

This development leads Diana to split the ICA’s remaining financial assets fifty-fifty between herself and 47 so that she can dissolve the agency and go into hiding. In the briefing that plays before the final mission 47 receives from Diana, she instructs him to “eliminate the target, and anyone that targets you” before escaping in a vehicle she has waiting for him in a nearby parking garage. That ominous quote indicates that the Franchise has found 47, and they intend to eliminate him before he can beat them at their own game.

At this point, I’d like to pause momentarily so that I may include a bit of a personal note as an aside. One of my favorite parts of Blood Money’s entire campaign can be found within that same mission briefing. Since the mission in question may well be the last time 47 and Diana interact with one another, Diana takes the opportunity to tell 47 that working with him has been a pleasure. She goes on to add that she hopes the future is kind to him.

That particular bit of dialogue never fails to tug at my heartstrings and cause me to tear up a bit, though I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly why that is. That won’t stop me from making an educated guess in order to see if I can’t figure that out, however. I would imagine that ICA agents and their handlers are supposed to maintain a strictly professional relationship given the nature of their line of work. Yet, from the almost heartbroken tone of Diana’s voice as she delivers those lines, it truly seems to me as though she and 47 have formed a much stronger bond than that.

47 successfully eliminates his original target during the ensuing mission, in addition to a pair of Franchise assassins who are looking for him. Upon entering the vehicle Diana arranged for him to use to leave the scene of his latest contract, 47 is unpleasantly surprised by the presence of a man whom he considers to be little more than a liability and an annoyance. That man is Carlton Smith, an agent in the employ of the Central Intelligence Agency who’s known for inadvertently getting himself into trouble.

Smith and 47 have something of a history together, as 47 was tasked in an earlier mission with rescuing Smith from an alcoholism rehabilitation facility. The facility kept him sedated so as to interrogate him under the guise of keeping him as a patient. Remember how I said a moment ago that 47 basically thinks of Smith as someone who just gets in the way and makes things worse?

Well, because of that, 47 is just so overjoyed to see Smith pop up in the back of the aforementioned getaway vehicle that he pulls over in the middle of the desert, pins Smith down, presses a gun to his head, and demands a reason not to kill him right then and there. This leads us to the in-game attack on the White House I alluded to earlier.

In his haste to provide 47 with a reason to spare his life, Smith explains that the Franchise has infiltrated the White House and plans to send one of their best assassins to execute the President of the United States. It turns out that the Franchise is in the employ of a shadowy organization known as Alpha Zerox, whose members, presumably, are excellent at photocopying documents. The President’s death would allow Alpha Zerox to install their puppet, Vice President Daniel Morris, into the most powerful position in the United States and (by extension) the entirety of the free world.

The Franchise and its handlers want the current U.S. President who remains unnamed in the game as I recall, to meet with a terrible fate because he intends to legalize cloning. More specifically, he seeks to allow the free usage of the very same cloning process that led to the creation of Agent 47.

The legalization of this process would financially ruin Alpha Zerox because they intend to monopolize on Dr. Ort-Meyer’s techniques and data while cloning remains illegal. Of course, Alpha Zerox would much rather avoid being rendered destitute and having its existence revealed to the general public. Unfortunately for them, things don’t quite work out that way, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

In light of this troubling development, Smith asks 47 to infiltrate the White House in order to assassinate both Vice President Morris and Mark Parchezzi III, the gunman assigned by the Franchise to neutralize the President. 47 initially scoffs at Smith’s request, simply and coldly retorting that he doesn’t “do politics.” Thankfully for Smith’s sake, he’s prepared to offer Agent 47 millions of dollars worth of diamonds in exchange for his work. It’s almost as if Smith knows this is the best way to speak 47’s language.

I think it goes without saying that 47, being the genetically-perfect killer he is, capably manages to carry out this possibly-unofficial contract with relative ease. That constitutes the aforementioned attack on the White House. However, this event does not yet conclude the game’s story or Rick Henderson’s interview with FBI Director Cayne.

Unfortunately, however, that’s essentially all I can tell you about Blood Money’s plot without spoiling the rest of its events and, more importantly, its canonical conclusion. As much as I want to gush about my thoughts on how the game ends, all I’m willing to say for the sake of not ruining the experience for new players is that the game’s true ending and the events leading up to it are quite cathartic in many ways.

Before I move on, I want to briefly mention two things I quite like about Blood Money aside from everything I’ve said thus far. Firstly, I very much enjoy the fact that the titles of each playable mission in the game’s campaign actually directly pertain to the mission’s objectives. This can give players a hint at what will be expected of them during the mission, while also potentially serving as a source of light, pun-based amusement in certain respects.

To name a couple of examples of what I mean by this, consider the fact that the game’s second non-tutorial mission is entitled “Curtains Down.” Within this mission, 47 is tasked with eliminating an exceptionally prominent opera singer who is accused of some particularly vile crimes. As a secondary, potentially less obvious example, the mission wherein players must assassinate Vice President Morris is known as “Amendment XXV.”

For those who might be unaware, this refers to the twenty-fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which establishes a direct line of presidential succession in any scenario in which the President is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers and duties of the presidency. Essentially, this mission’s title is a nod to the fact that, had the Franchise and Alpha Zerox succeeded in assassinating the sitting President, their pawn would assume the powers of that office as per the referenced constitutional amendment.

The second aspect of Blood Money that I want to briefly bring up at this point is its exquisite soundtrack, which was composed by the legendary Jesper Kyd. The song from Blood Money’s soundtrack with which I suspect you might be the most familiar, even if you haven’t played the game, is what I consider to be an outstanding rendition of Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” As I alluded to a moment ago, this particular piece of music has become so deeply intertwined with Blood Money that I would almost bet you’d know it if you heard it.

I would wager that will ring true whether or not you’re the least bit familiar with the game. In fact, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear a portion of “Ave Maria” in one of my esteemed colleague Keiran’s recent videos right after an excerpt of “The Game” by Motörhead that Keiran himself performed. In all honesty, just hearing that song again for the first time in years is almost entirely what inspired me (by which I partially mean “gave me the excuse”) to create this review.

Having said all of that, I believe the time has come for me to my final thoughts on Hitman: Blood Money. You’ll recall that I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that a considerable portion of Hitman fans believe Blood Money is the zenith of the franchise. That is to say, many people believe that the series began going downhill with the entry following Blood Money, 2012’s Hitman: Absolution. Personally, I’d like to think I can see the reasoning behind this argument, but I also disagree with it.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore Blood Money and everything it has to offer. I know the layouts of most of its levels like the back of my hand. Heck, until fairly recently, I was among that crowd of people who believe Blood Money is the best in the entire series. That was the case until 2018 rolled around and gifted the world Hitman 2, the sequel to the eponymous 2016 reboot of the Hitman continuity. I was equally shocked and delighted by the fact that Hitman 2 managed to dethrone Blood Money as my favorite game in one of my favorite franchises.

I think I can see why Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2 don’t appeal to many fans of Blood Money and its predecessors as they do to people like me. Some Hitman fans prefer to be placed in a smaller level and left to their own devices when it comes to assassinating their targets, without the game holding their hands quite so much. Where I think the disconnect lies, is in the possibility that the much larger and more open levels of Hitman (2016) and its sequel kind of overdo it on the whole “complete the mission your way” idea.

However, that’s just one reason I’m glad Blood Money is readily available on Steam. Aside from the fact that Blood Money has precisely zero native controller support and doesn’t sync its save data to the Steam Cloud, it’s quite nice to know my original favorite game in the series is in my library waiting for me. It is there, waiting for a day like today when I finally have an excuse to spend some quality time with it. As for the topic of Hitman 2 dethroning Blood Money in my eyes, this is how I think of it: Blood Money was king of the hill for twelve years as far as I’m concerned. I’d argue it was high time to let a new game have a chance to earn that designation when Hitman 2 showed up.

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Hitman: Blood Money

0.00

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Great Option for Series Newcomers
• Outstanding Soundtrack
• Still Allows Players to Essentially Do Things Their Way

Cons

• Gameplay Could Potentially Be Confusing If Some Aspects Aren't Explained Well Enough
• No Native Controller Support
• No Steam Cloud Save-Syncing
• Keyboard Control Scheme Can Be Uncomfortable For Awhile