IO Interactive

Hitman 3 gave each level a twist on the series formula. IO Interactive chose formula-bending levels over more standard stages: Dartmoor makes you a detective, Mendoza has you protect Diana, and Berlin removes the target briefing altogether.

Not every twist worked, but Mark Brown calls Apex Predator the best level in Hitman 3. Berlin is a nightclub hidden in an abandoned nuclear power plant, with a packed dance floor, a backstage biker hangout and a drug lab.

Making every target optional gave players freedom and over 400 combinations. Berlin began like most Hitman stages, with one primary target, Montgomery, and optional extras. The team dropped the primary target because it limited exploration, so players now kill any five of eleven agents.

Håkan Almer: "let's just make everything optional so you have more freedom as you explore and do the level as you wish." Because the set of targets changes, the level differs on every playthrough.

Unmarked targets turn a briefing into an investigation. The eleven agents are not shown on the map or in instinct vision, so players watch for suspicious people and wait for them to call their handler. An early build that marked every target felt overwhelming, with ten highlighted NPCs on floors above and below.

Since the agents are tourists like 47, any area from the dance floor to a locked back room can hold one, so no part of the level can be skipped. Hitman 2's Mumbai had a similar objective, but Berlin applies it to every target.

Letting players pick targets lets them match their chosen challenge. Players choose the five targets that suit a goal: one set is well placed for Sniper Assassin, another for suit-only, another for speedrunning.

Each target drops a useful item, such as Agent Tremaine's key to the radio tower, so some targets are worth more depending on the plan.

Targets that hunt 47 turn stealth into cat and mouse. Berlin was the first Hitman level with armed targets who fight back. They are enforcers disguised as bikers, technicians and partygoers, acting like mini Agent 47s.

They don't run into lockdown or use bodyguards; they just try to kill you. Bjarne Kristiansen said the team had to work out how to design for that.

Armed targets were tuned down through many failed prototypes. One version had targets shoot on sight, which was too punishing: "They spotted you once and you were just dead." Others had targets walk in protective pairs, or had one spotting target summon all the rest, which ended the mission at once.

All of these were cut, and the designers kept targets independent so one slip does not stack every threat on the player.

Design the level so it can always recover and keep running. Hitman levels are built so many things can go wrong yet the level returns to a working state. Berlin's targets don't call backup or trigger lockdown, and guards stand down after a chase.

Bjarne Kristiansen: "The machine needs to be able to keep running, no matter what happens." Håkan Almer: guards standing down "feels silly on paper but it kinda works."

Systemic tools over scripted kills make assassinations feel like problem solving. Berlin has a few scripted kills, like electrifying Agent Banner with dodgy DJ gear and Montgomery's storyline ending in a shootout, but most agents fall to guns, distractions, poisons and traps.

Other Hitman levels lean on point-and-click style puzzle kills. "Offing these dudes feels less like solving a puzzle, and more like solving a problem."

A free "snack target" teaches the new mechanic. The intro sequence gives the player one agent to kill for free, which the designers use to tutorialise finding and identifying agents before the level opens up.

The intro exists partly for this reason.

A stolen earpiece replaces the missing handler. Berlin has no handler to update the player, so 47 takes the first goon's earpiece and listens in on their handler, which makes tip-offs about agents possible within the fiction.

Letting players skip the story section respects replay time. After feedback on Hitman 1 and 2, IO Interactive lets players skip Apex Predator's linear story section after the first playthrough.

Combined with changing target sets, repeat runs stay fresh and fast, unlike levels where you kill the same targets every time.

Levels start from a "wouldn't it be cool if" location idea. IO brainstorms settings like a race, a fashion show or the slums of Mumbai. Racing games keep you on the track, so Miami's Global Innovation Race lets 47 explore everything but the track.

Location, targets and dramatic moments form the "high concept design"; the level design comes after.

Fixed target routines make the world feel alive and plannable. Robert Knox is a "dweller" looping through his secure office; Sierra Knox drives for about 20 minutes, then becomes a "roamer" in the VIP area. The world runs indifferent to 47 until he pushes on it.

Jakob Mikkelsen: "If you know, as the player, that something will happen, then you can build a plan on that knowledge."

Small setups and teases turn each routine into many kills. Breaking the air conditioning sends Knox to eyedrops you may have poisoned; a facial-recognition robot makes you hunt for his photo. Sierra loses the race by default, so you must help her win to reach the podium kills like poisoned champagne or rigged pyrotechnics.

IO went back and forth before making her lose; Mikkelsen says choosing the outcome "puts you in power." Overheard dialogue and an optional challenge list also hint at kills.

Give players ways to control waiting instead of enduring it. Schedules cost time, so IO adds shortcuts: disqualifying Moses Lee ends the race early, and one starting position begins with the race nearly over.

Mikkelsen wants to avoid "a thing that you have to wait for, or a limitation." Instinct mode shows a distant red dot to signal a long wait.

A winding "snail house" map full of shortcuts packs in a whole race. The winding layout fits a credible track and hundreds of NPCs into a small, console-friendly footprint. Fences, windows and elevator shafts let veterans almost teleport, and most rooms have two exits.

Kronstadt can be entered through the front door, parking lot, podium building or a walkway door; toilets are the usual dead ends. Walkways and subway passages cross the track.

Disguises gate space in tiers of security clearance. In Kronstadt, anyone enters the lobby, an IT uniform opens the second floor and a guard uniform opens the top. Designers map who works in a place first, then layer disguises.

The best disguise is placed late, because meeting it first would waste gameplay.

Replay the level constantly to fix moments too easy or too hard. "The more times we can actually boot up and start the level before we ship it, typically the better it gets." A Paris section in Hitman (2016) was fixed because Viktor Novikov was alone too long and became an easy kill.

Sniper Assassin needs hidden sight lines and luring targets into position; suit-only needs little tinkering because players always find a way.

Treat design rules as guidelines so levels contrast as a chain. IO varies verticality, crowd density and size, designing each level against its neighbours: dark, claustrophobic Night Call comes before Miami, and San Fortuna's huge fortress after it.

"I'm personally very opposed to rules dictating how things should be, because then everything's going to be the same."

One-attempt, unpredictable targets restore stakes to mastered levels. Replaying missions until the hit is choreographed, with saves and restarts, drains tension. Hitman's Elusive Targets appear every couple of weeks for a couple of days, with extra guards, unknown schedules and one attempt once engaged.

Regular missions become planning and training; Elusive Targets feel like the real thing. Lead online designer Torben Ellert called them the purest possible experience of being the assassin.

Aim for credible spaces rather than perfectly logical ones. Hitman 2's designers focus on levels that meet basic expectations of how a space works, without every bedroom, bathroom and kitchen hundreds of people would need.

Public and private zones tell players how the world will react. Mette Andersen explains that Hitman levels split into public spaces open in any costume and private spaces needing ingenuity and a disguise, with sub-categories from vague to strict rules.

"When we design these spaces, we're designing rules of behaviour."

Hitman 3 shows subtitles as speech bubbles but toggles only aiming. Hitman 3 can place a speech bubble over the speaker's head, a strong subtitle option. It lets players toggle aiming but not running, an example of options that exist but aren't consistent.

Mark Brown: "It's no longer that noteworthy for a game to have these features - now, they need to be robust and reliable."