Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal review – Incredible stealth in the palm of your hand

IO Interactive’s magnum opus, Hitman: Blood Money, makes its portable debut with some brand new features and improved controls – but is it enough to win over a new generation of players?

Thanks to its cohesive social stealth system, robust disguise mechanics, and open-ended mission design – Hitman: Blood Money was seen as a powerhouse of stealth games when it originally launched in 2006. Even today, its influence can be felt in a myriad of different immersive sim games.

However, time has not been kind to IO Interactive’s magnum opus. If you come to Blood Money after playing more recent Hitman games such as the World of Assassination trilogy, there are certainly some essential features you may be missing out on.

Luckily, that’s what Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal aims to solve by bringing in some popular features from more recent Hitman games while also retaining the same feeling the original had back in 2006.

Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal – Key Details

• Price: £19.99 / $29.99 / €24.99
• Developer: IO Interactive (original), Feral Interactive (Reprisal)
• Release Date: 25 January 2024
• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android

Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal – Trailer

Dressed to kill

It’s better to think of Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal as more of an enhancement of the original rather than a port or remaster. The various improvements it adds make the game more approachable to newcomers, but it’s not meant to replace the original release. 

This is why this version isn’t available on other systems like Xbox or PlayStation (whether the already-existing versions of Blood Money on those platforms are updated later on remains to be seen), and even the “Reprisal” subtitle serves to remind us of this game’s status as a supplementary component of the 2006 game.

One of the more interesting features added to the game is Instinct, which was first introduced in 2012’s Hitman: Absolution. Similar to Assassin’s Creed’s Eagle Vision, it highlights NPCs and other important world information at the press of a button. This means being able to spot objectives, kill opportunities, and other tidbits of info more easily, something that was a little tricky to do in the original release.

Similarly, a minimap has also been added to the bottom of the screen, as well as on-screen alerts to give you a greater sense of your status within the level. If you’re trespassing, or have made the guards suspicious, you’ll know it.

For the die-hard purists, these new features might spoil the experience. Hitman: Blood Money didn’t have these when it originally came out, and it might feel weird to play such an old title with features that are a result of the series’ later evolution. Not only that, but the original design team at IO Interactive didn’t consider these features when developing the game 20 years ago, so it can feel a little out of place.

Fortunately, if you’re one such person who’d prefer to play without the extra options, you can toggle them on and off separately in the options menu. There’s even a setting to switch back to the classic controls. 

What’s perfect about this is it makes the game a lot more approachable for new players, but it also highlights just how brilliant Hitman: Blood Money’s original level design was. Coming back to the game after a few years, the new minimap and Instinct features pointed out some things to me that I had never discovered in the original game. NPC routes and actions that I had completely missed in previous playthroughs, which made my experience with the Switch version refreshing.

It makes me wish for ports of other classic Hitman games on the Switch with these new features. Currently, the best places to play Hitman are on PC or Xbox Series X|S due to the number of ports available there. But given how long players have been asking to play Blood Money on a handheld, it’d be fantastic to try and bring the whole library over.

Not a perfect port

While the game is perfectly serviceable for what it provides – at the end of the day you’re getting Hitman on Switch – there are a few problems with the port that hold it back.

To start with, the save system is completely broken. The original release of Blood Money limited you to a specific number of saves depending on the difficulty you played on. While Reprisal still warns you about this, the limit can be completely circumvented by overwriting any save you made, effectively bypassing the limit.

Unfortunately, there’s also an issue I can’t believe we’re still having in 2024, and that’s with the performance. Hitman: Blood Money Reprisal runs at 1080p when docked and 720p when undocked, which is pretty standard. However, it also has a hard limit of 30FPS. 

For a game that was already over a decade old when the Switch was released, it’s bizarre that this game can only run at a 30FPS limit when other modern platforms can play it at higher framerates. It does feel like more could have been done here, and it unfortunately means the game feels a little sluggish in some places.

Verdict – 4/5

However, the performance doesn’t feel like a dealbreaker. Hitman: Blood Money was a fantastic game in 2006 and is still as fantastic in 2024. Performance quirks aside, the Switch port is a brilliant way to introduce new players to the classic stealth game while also riding the wave of popularity World of Assassination brought in. It’s still able to prove it’s one of the genre’s best and will continue to be enjoyable for years to come.