It’s all about the challenge. That’s always been the Hitman way. Only this time, the team has added literal Challenges to the mix to better reward creative play. Read on to learn how to beat all of the devious Challenges and reap those delicious rewards…
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Or, read on to find out what the guide entails and use the LEVEL BREAKDOWN at the bottom of the page.
DIFFICULTY LEVEL
When playing through specifically to complete challenges, do so on medium difficulty. We know what you’re thinking, ‘Medium!? Hell no! I want Silent Assassin ratings and high scores, and my ego can’t possibly cope with being made to play on a difficulty level with the ordinary player in mind. I’m no ordinary player,’ blah-blah and so on. Point is, mastery of each of the game’s levels comes through knowing them inside and out.
Attempt that on purist or expert and it will take you a year, probably two. Remember: challenges, once complete, modify your score for all subsequent playthroughs. Go for ‘Purist’ when you’ve done them all; you’ll not only be able to do this more easily, you won’t have spent two years getting caught a hundred times while attempting each of the challenges. Remember kids; medium difficulty. You have been duly warned.
HOW THIS GUIDE IS DIVIDED
By level, of course, you ninny. But more than that, each level in the game itself is sub-divided into sections and since the challenges listed within the game don’t divide themselves similarly, we have done so for you, showing you the best (or only) section of each level in which to complete the challenge at hand.
SPOILERS
If you read this guide in full before playing the game then yes, you will rather unsurprisingly encounter spoilers. We promise, however, that due to this guide’s nature as a complete tool to fulfilling every challenge in the game, we won’t mention any of the overall story elements. What do they have to do with twonking the challenges, after all?
Either way, this guide is best used as something to refer to when needed than it is to walk you through everything piece by piece, holding your hand. Hitman: Absolution is a masterpiece, and most of the fun to be had with it is in finding out things for yourself. Use this when you get stuck, but the rest of the time, we recommend you play it and discover its intricacies for yourself.
WHAT ARE CHALLENGES AND HOW DO THEY WORK?
Each level in the game has a number of challenges, listed within that game’s menu. These range from common challenges which repeat each level – change into every disguise, make it through unseen and so on – and specific challenges such as carrying out a hit a particular way.
The most important thing to remember when it comes to challenges is that you do not have to complete them all in one playthrough. Quite the contrary; in actual fact, playing through multiple times, each with the goal of completing one or two particular challenges is by far the best approach.
The challenges each unlock a 5% score modifier, meaning that to achieve the much sought-after Silent Assassin rating on each level, you’re going to have to unlock a majority or all of them first.
COMMON CHALLENGES
These are the ones that are available in every single level. These will not be covered in detail in this guide, since they are generally a repeat of the same action or approach. As such, we have listed those approaches below, where the information contained therein is easily enough to whizz through them, albeit on different playthroughs.
CHAMELEON
The Chameleon challenge for each level dictates you must wear every disguise. It doesn’t dictate that you have to finish the level wearing it, or even not die immediately after putting it on. This means that, for this challenge, just look out for anyone wearing a new uniform or costume, walk up to them, deck them, and wear their clothes.
Even if people see you do it and start shooting at you, you’ll live long enough to complete the change and that’s that costume done, live or die. We have not listed each costume in this guide as they are all, bar one or two, completely obvious, and indeed listed within the challenge info itself.
EVIDENCE COLLECTOR
All evidence locations are indeed listed at this guide, right at the start of each level’s challenge breakdown. You can thank us for that later, but suffice it to say, we had to spend more hours than it takes to slow-bake a turkey just running about looking for them all. One or two of them are burned into our memories forever.
INFILTRATOR
There is always a way of making it through without being seen and again, this is best done on medium difficulty. It can be done all the way up to purist. We’ve done it, so we know. However, this guide’s remit is not to walk you through the levels and describe for you the intricate timings of each cover transition. You can work that out for yourself. That’s kind of the game. If getting to the end of the level without being seen is your objective, then really, it’s just a very entertaining memory game.
SUIT ONLY
You can do this at the same time as doing Infiltrator (above), since you won’t be seen by anybody.
However, with all the challenges and other temptations in the game, chances are you’ll finish it, then still have a bunch of these to go. If you’re struggling with any of them, just get the biggest, fattest guns and kill everybody. It doesn’t matter that everyone’s dead, you made it through ‘Suit Only’. You big cheat.
A Personal Contract
The King Of China Town
Terminus Hotel
Run For Your Life
Hunter And Hunted
Rosewood
Welcome To Hope
Birdie’s Gift Gun Shop
Shaving Lenny
End Of The Road
Death Factory
Fight Night
Attack Of The Saints
Skurky’s Law
Blackwater Park
Penthouse
Countdown
Absolution