There is a thing you have to know about me. I love the Hitman franchise. No. No, you don’t understand. I love the Hitman franchise. Absolutely adore it. It’s my favorite video game series of all time and I don’t know if that can ever change. I love it probably way too much to the point of often holding myself back as to not get too emotionally involved. Cause that’s not healthy, obviously. And yeah, a lot of people love the series, but I sort of love it because of different reasons than most…

We all know that the Hitman franchise is known mostly for its gameplay. It managed to perfectly mix an environmental puzzle game with a stealth genre and focus on the mechanics to create almost an endlessly replayable experience. Its sandbox level design and multiple unique ways to finish every mission gathered a dedicated fanbase that still play those games and finds new ways to complete the objectives. Hell, that fanbase is so dedicated that I’m afraid that I would get into unnecessary arguments (I mean, I already sort of did, but you know…) and for seven years or so, I remained a lurker on the HitmanForum (hi, guys?).

But, what if I told you that Hitman isn’t just about the gameplay. In fact, there’s a lot of interesting lore and story behind each game and this is why I absolutely love it. If you are one of those people who claim that the series lacks a serious storyline… well, I’m about to prove you wrong in this series of long posts.

Also, please consider supporting me on Patreon if you enjoy my work so I can write more about both Hitman and other video games!

I’ve split the story into 6 sections – one for each major plotpoint. I will obviously be spoiling everything. And by that I mean EVERYTHING. Here are the sections themselves.

1. The Tale of the Five Fathers – Before Codename 47

2. The Beginning – Codename 47, Hitman 6 Prologue

3. 47 Makes a Decision – Silent Assassin

4. The Powerful Thirteen – Enemy Within

5. The Fabricated End – Blood Money

6. Death of the Burning Hope – Damnation, Absolution

7. HITMAN

I have also stated 6 rules that will pretty much answer most of your immediate questions and we will go through them now.

1. This is crucial lore only. There are many details that I could be talking about, but if I did, a) I would be still writing this, b) there would be even less of a possibility that someone will read this as it would be even longer (can you believe that? Is anyone ever going to read all of this?).

2. I’m taking into consideration the games and the novels. I’m not going to be talking about the movies, because they exist in their own universe (they also retconned a lot of stuff and are just… bad). I’m also not discussing the three mobile games – Vegas (yes, this existed, it was a part of the marketing campaign for Blood Money), GO and Sniper, because they don’t have a defined place in the timeline.

3. I’m talking about the novels because they are somewhat canon. By that I mean, I have found conflicting information about it, but Damnation is, unfortunately, called a “Hitman Absolution prequel” on cover. You’ll know why I said ‘unfortunately’ when the time comes…

4. The possibly not canon info will be marked with green text. These segments will be mostly from one of the novels or the flashback part of Contracts, since 47 is an unreliable narrator in that game. It pains me to do this, because Contracts is my absolute favorite of the series and I won’t get to talk about it pretty much at all. *sadface* This is also the reason as to why I only take Codename 47 information as canon even though some of those missions were remade in Contracts. 47 is hurt, he’s having fever dreams. There are way too many discrepancies between what he believes happened and what actually happened – what we’ve seen in Codename.

5. I’ve been trying to find sources for every little piece of info I’m about to present. What I mean by that is I’m obviously not linking to major plot points, but I’m trying to cover most of the interesting details. There are pieces of info I wasn’t able to verify though and those will not appear unless someone links me a proper source.

6. Yes, I am a massive nerd, Deal with it. I also dislike Damnation and Absolution a lot when it comes to story, but my goal is to be as informative as I can. If I manage to entertain you as well than that’s a plus. Oh, and I will be referring to the newest installment as Hitman 6 as to not confuse anybody.

So there, the rules and the 6 sections we will be talking about and if you are not yet tired of reading words than let’s get to the proper story.

Last update – 23.04.2016 – Added the HITMAN Prologue in Part 2!

TO PART 1 ->