This article was originally published in PC Gamer issue 299. For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US.
Sapienza, the second level of Hitman, began as two words: Coastal Town. “This was the only direction we got,” says Torbjørn Christensen, lead level designer. “So we really had a lot of freedom to be creative.” That coastal town would become the game’s standout level, against which subsequent Hitman episodes are compared. For many, myself included, it was the level that proved IO knew what it was doing—that after Absolution, and despite a controversial episodic release plan, the studio was back to making quality assassination sandboxes.
Sapienza was developed in parallel with Paris, Hitman’s first level, and in part as a response to it. The Showstopper mission was built around exclusivity—the idea that 47 is able to infiltrate any location. “This night-time gala feeling was something that we felt was important to Paris,” says Christian Elverdam, creative director for Hitman. “I think the contrast to Sapienza, then, was obviously daytime; relaxed, casual and all that.” Where Paris is enclosed, with muted lighting and soft colours, Sapienza is bright, open and vibrant.
“The level was created by an environment artist and myself,” says Christensen, who spent two weeks mocking up a rough version during IO’s summer holiday. “During those weeks the good weather was definitely an inspiration, and we could work undisturbed because everyone else was on vacation.” He based the look on towns along Italy’s Amalfi coast, using both the colourful yellow buildings and the unusual topography. “We especially wanted to explore the verticality in coastal towns, and how streets and corridors connect everything.”
“If I say to you, ‘You’re going to infiltrate a palace,’ I think immediately your mind starts to imagine what that means,” says Elverdam. “You understand roughly what a palace is; it has different floors, it might have a basement, it might have an attic. It might have a main entrance, it might have a rear entrance, it might have a garden. You can mentally encompass it easily. Whereas with something like Sapienza, if we tell you you’re infiltrating an Italian coastal town, it’s much harder to guess where the level starts and stops, which makes the organic exploration of the level so satisfying, in my mind.”
For Elverdam, Sapienza represents the pinnacle of what he calls Swiss Cheese design. “We used this feeling that we built a volume filled with connections, and these connections mean that you will never get lost.” The idea is you should be able to go in any direction—through a different hole in the cheese—and, when you come out at the other end, find a new way to progress. “You don’t have to backtrack necessarily, if you don’t want to.”
As the theme and layout took shape, IO needed a target to fill it. The Italian setting offered an obvious solution. “We quickly decided that the target should be a mafia boss living in a huge mansion,” says Christensen. “The mafia idea spawned the secret cave under the mansion, where various illegal activities could take place. One idea was that Silvio used his seaplane to get rid of enemies out at sea—a rather extreme version of ‘sleeping with the fishes’.”
In the end, Silvio Caruso’s profession was altered from gangster to scientist. But the team still wanted him to feel like a stereotypical Italian. “He was very attached to his mother, still lived at home, likes his mother’s spaghetti, has a temper, etc.” The underground hideout became the obvious location for a laboratory.
I was surprised to learn the story could have such an effect on the design of a level, especially as Hitman’s plot had, until the last few episodes, seemed inconsequential to the action. I ask Elverdam to elaborate on how the designers work with the writing team. “It’s a back and forth all the time. In this case I think story reasons is maybe a simplification—it was also a thematic thing.” For Elverdam, contrast is a key tool in creating atmosphere and adding environmental context. “In Hokkaido, as an example, we have the super beautiful but very raw nature, in stark contrast to this high-tech facility and very pleasant interior of the hospital. It’s an interesting thing, and you feel a little bit like a prisoner looking out at this wide mountain range.”
Contrast can add depth to character, too. In Marrakesh, banker Claus Strandberg is hiding out in the Swedish consulate. “It’s almost meant to build up Strandberg’s arrogance,” says Elverdam. “The whole building is an affront to the Moroccan culture, in the sense that it’s air conditioned, and completely Scandinavian in its outlook. There’s a certain arrogance there that they’re not even trying to assimilate.”
The most obvious contrast in Sapienza is between the idyllic setting and Caruso’s own internal turmoil. Opportunities are story driven threads that 47 can use to manipulate and kill targets, and those designed for Caruso often lean upon his relationship with his mother. Created as a collaboration between writers and designers, for Elverdam Opportunities are a way for IO to push the fantasy of the Hitman experience. “I think some of the powerful moments are obviously when I enter the Moroccan Embassy and, dressed as a cameraman, I feel almost like I’m part of a spy thriller,” he says. “Or when I’m sitting, waiting for Caruso as a psychiatrist, it feels like the chessmaster version of Agent 47—this feeling that he’s one step ahead.”
Some Opportunities are complex design tasks, such as the chandelier that can be made to crash down onto the stage in Paris. Others are subtler, but just as memorable. “The psychiatrist moment is actually very downplayed, and it’s still pretty powerful,” says Elverdam. “They also allow us to do some meaningful banter with Agent 47, where he’s actually talking to the different targets or sometimes just introducing himself.” The double meaning when Agent 47, dressed as a psychiatrist, reassures a member of Caruso’s household “I’m the best”, is a way to add a touch of personality to the character.
Delving further into the backstory of the targets has some interesting effects. While Christensen seems disappointed he didn’t get to create the full mafia fantasy, Elverdam seems happy with Caruso’s final form. “When I look at the feedback from Sapienza, a lot of people for the first time said they didn’t feel necessarily comfortable killing Silvio,” he says. “The fact that he’s just a mamma’s boy, and he’s been bullied and downtrodden throughout his life, makes him more interesting as a character than if he was sort of a top gangster boss.” For Elverdam, the moral ambiguity is a sign of a character with a little more complexity. “It felt a little bit like a deeper target than maybe what we’ve done before.”
Opportunities can lead to some showpiece moments, but each level must also support more player-driven solutions. “When you take the role of a hitman, it should feel like the world is full of ways to kill people,” Christensen says. “In addition to the more custom setups, we try to have many other possible ways to kill targets. Accidental death should lurk around every corner in the world of assassination.” The challenge is filling the world with ways to kill a target, but not make the act itself trivial to perform. Hence the civilians and guards, who will notice if you do anything suspicious.
NPCs are added early to the level, and refined from there. “We try to make every NPC have a purpose, and only place them where it makes sense,” says Christensen. “The ‘enforcers’ that can see through disguises are often added later, once we start playtesting the mission in depth. Their exact placement, or the direction they look, will be tweaked numerous times to make sure it feels difficult in a fun way.”
IO had never before created a level on this scale. They were attempting to create environments much larger than Blood Money, but with the NPC density of Absolution. “We were building some very large levels, and we had some fundamental questions,” says Elverdam. “How do you navigate? How much traversal is acceptable? How much do people like it?”
Playtesting was invaluable, and helped IO refine many aspects. One of the big changes of this period was to target loops—the route a target will travel and repeat. Initially, Francesca De Santis, Sapienza’s secondary target, would wander around the town. “She went to the church and the cave during her main loop,” says Christensen. “Because of the very long travel times between those locations, we decided to not do this, as it wasn’t fun to wait that long for her to do her loop. Silvio had similar issues, so in order to fix this, both targets’ main loops were shortened.” For both, Opportunities were implemented that let the player trigger events to lure out their targets—furthering the Hitman fantasy of manipulating your quarry.
With both targets confined to the mansion, the town feels quiet and peaceful. Crucially, it still has a purpose. This is one of Sapienza’s most distinctive features—containing the main challenge in the mansion, but filling the town with weapons, secret routes and Opportunities. “Making the town free to explore was a deliberate choice,” says Christensen, “and Sapienza was not filled with busy crowds on purpose, as we wanted a more relaxed ‘siesta’ feel.”
Nevertheless, it was something of a bold departure from previous games. “We were a little bit afraid of the density in small pockets,” says Elverdam, “but I also think that’s one of the things that actually turned out very nicely with Sapienza. It has some space in there and you can actually breathe.”
Each episode is designed to be played many times, in multiple configurations. Where the World of Tomorrow mission keeps things centred around Caruso’s mansion, the Escalation and Elusive Target missions take place all across the town. These alternate missions focus on different targets, often with extra complications for 47 to consider. But while both were part of Hitman’s development plan, neither had an effect on the way Sapienza was designed. “Elusive Targets are not thought of as part of how we build the levels,” says Elverdam, “because the complexity of the sandbox really should dictate that if we build a swiss cheese from the get go, and on an organic level where you can move around, then there should be room for an Elusive Target.”
According to Elverdam, the team responsible for creating Elusive Targets use heatmap data to see where players spend the majority of their time. “If we see that a lot of people don’t necessarily spend a lot of time in the gardens of Paris, then we’ll put in a little garden party and so forth.”
You might assume the same holds true of Contracts—custom missions that players can create and share. Apparently, that’s not the case. “Contracts mode is a little bit more embedded in the early thought process of the level,” says Elverdam, “in the sense that, while Contracts mode does not dictate what a level looks like and how it’s built, there is a pass where we make sure we put in enough patrolling NPCs that they can become interesting targets.” Too many generic NPCs would restrict a Contract creator’s options. “We need to make sure that there are enough small characters and moments and identifiable targets on a level that Contracts mode feels it could take off.”
A more substantial Sapienza remix happened over summer, with the release of Hitman’s bonus episode. It centred the action on the town, turning it into a film set. “It allowed us to use the town square as a trespassing zone, which is something you would almost never do otherwise,” says Elverdam. “The town square and the streets are typically—obviously—for the public, right?” The film set also allowed the team to do something surprising. “I think the idea for a robot invasion in Italy is as far from what people would expect as can come.”
Sapienza has clearly been a success, but not every aspect works as well. 47’s final objective is to destroy Caruso’s virus. “The first time you find the secret cave, and have to find a way to destroy the virus, it works pretty well,” says Christensen. “Playing Hitman can be somewhat of a Groundhog Day experience, and, in that perspective, the virus doesn’t work quite so well ... it quickly becomes a rather annoying thing you have to do, especially considering mission replay value.”
This was something I brought up in my Sapienza review, and clearly something IO has learned from. “I think that has affected how we think about these objectives,” says Elverdam. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing doing them, but we need to be mindful on how, and can we be even more creative in how you accomplish them.” Elverdam stresses that this was their first time building around an objective that wasn’t a target. “I think it’s down to the fact that the way you destroyed the virus maybe doesn’t feel like a ‘hit’. It doesn’t feel like as gratifying or as much of a conclusion ... That’s probably the angle I would attack it from.”
It sounds as if Sapienza’s success has helped build IO’s confidence. “When I look at the willingness to experiment on Colorado and Hokkaido, I don’t think any of us would have been as willing if it hadn’t been for that,” says Elverdam. It’s easy to forget that it’s been ten years since Blood Money. IO wasn’t sure there was still an audience for this style of Hitman design.
“When I look at where IO is today,” says Elverdam, “it’s pretty clear to me that one of the biggest things we’ve achieved is this belief in the Hitman sandbox. Both how to build it, and that there are people who actually like to play it. It might sound straightforward now, but it might not have been as straightforward back then.” Sapienza didn’t just reassure Hitman’s fans. It helped convince IO as well.