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If there’s one thing you can say about Hitman 3,

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it’s that it’s not afraid to mess with 
the franchise’s established formula.

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In Dartmoor, you swap from assassin to detective, 
in an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery.

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In Mendoza, you need to take care 
not to harm your handler, Diana.

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And Dubai really amps up the 
Bond-style cinematic flair.

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But another level has, I think, the 
most daring twist in the entire trilogy.

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So, welcome back to On the Level: a 
series about gaming’s greatest stages.

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And this time, we’re looking 
at Apex Predator, aka Berlin.

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♫ Dance Music ♫

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So this level takes place in a nightclub, hidden 
in the depths of an abandoned nuclear power plant.

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If you manage to get inside, you can 
strut across a packed dance floor.

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Or, you can sneak behind the scenes to 
find a secret biker hangout and drug lab.

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And, okay so far, so Hitman. But it’s the targets 
that make this one different. Instead of having

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one, two, or even three targets… there’s

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eleven. That’s right, in this one, eleven ICA 
agents are tasked with hunting down Agent 47,

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and are dotted in and around the club. And so 
it’s up to you to find them, and take them out.

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This ends up giving the level 
a completely unique feel.

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Like, typically, you know everything 
about the targets in a Hitman level.

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You’re given a glitzy mission briefing 
about them, and their exact location

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is shown on your map. As if you’ve 
dropped an AirTag in their pocket.

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But Berlin is very different: on your first 
playthrough, at least, the targets are not

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initially identified, and not highlighted 
on your map or in your instinct vision.

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So you need to scope out the level, 
look for suspicious characters,

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and wait for them to call into their 
handler to confirm they are an agent.

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AGENT THAMES: "Thames here,
no update.

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Target probably bailed".

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Okay, so the fact they’re all enforcers - 
you know, the guys with white dots over their

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heads - does give the game away a bit. But 
it’s still an excellent twist on the formula

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that prizes careful observation. We first saw 
something like this as one of the objectives in Hitman

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2’s Mumbai level - but expanding it to cover 
every single target makes it even more exciting.

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Also, it’s usually your job, in Hitman levels, 
to work your way through tiers of escalating

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security… until you breach the level’s inner 
sanctum, and find a way to dispatch your target

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from within their tightly-locked fortress. But 
Berlin is different - the agents are tourists

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there, just like you. So every part of the stage, 
from highly public areas to secure back rooms,

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could potentially hold a target. This 
really rewards thorough exploration of

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the entire level, because you never 
know where you might find a target.

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Another big change for Berlin is 
a move away from mission stories

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and highly scripted assassinations. Sure, one 
of the targets - Agent Montgomery - does have

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a small storyline that ends in a shootout. 
And there are some of the excepted scripted

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kills - like electrifying Agent 
Banner with dodgy DJ equipment.

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But most of the guys are more low-key affairs. 
Which is cool: there’s plenty of elaborate,

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point-and-click-style puzzle kills in Hitman, but 
Berlin’s agents put a stronger focus on 47’s more

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routine tools, and the systemic sandbox that 
underlies every Hitman level. Things like guns,

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distractions, poisons, and traps. Offing 
these dudes feels less like solving a puzzle,

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and more like solving a problem.

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Another big change for Berlin is 
just how open-ended the level is. Hitman

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always puts a huge focus on replay-ability and 
player expression, but you’re still having to

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kill the same targets every time you play. In 
Apex Predator, though, you only need to kill

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five of the eleven targets 
in one go. Making for, what,

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over 400 different combinations? So, the level 
is going to be different, every time you play.

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Plus, after taking feedback from Hitman 1

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and 2, IO Interactive lets you skip the linear 
story section after your first playthrough.

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You can also pick different targets 
for different playstyles. So,

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five are well-placed for the sniper 
assassin mission. Another five might

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be best suited for suit-only. A further 
five might be great for speed-running.

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An extra wrinkle is the way each target drops a 
useful item - like Agent Tremaine, who drops a key

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for the radio tower. This can make certain targets 
more useful than others, depending on your goals.

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Finally, this set-up changes the way Hitman 
feels. Typically, the targets are unaware of

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your presence, as you slip through security 
unnoticed and then leave without a trace.

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But in Berlin, they’re actively hunting for 
you. And as members of your old organisation,

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they’re... somewhat formidable foes. 
They’re all enforcers, they’re all armed,

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and - like mini Agent 47s, they’re disguised 
as bikers, club technicians, and party goers.

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This cat and mouse game puts 
you on your toes - and makes it

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even more satisfying when you 
show them who the real agent is.

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Now, it turns out that changing the Hitman formula 
so dramatically wasn’t an easy thing to pull off.

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For this video, I spoke to two level designers on 
Berlin - Bjarne Kristiansen and Håkan Almer - who

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talked me through the many iterations and design 
decisions they made on the way to the final stage.

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So, for starters, the level was originally 
supposed to be more like a typical Hitman stage.

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Håkan: “In the beginning, we were aiming to 
have a primary target as always. Montgomery,

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the only one with a body guard in this 
level. And then having the other as

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optional. But then in the end we kind of 
found that… let’s just make everything

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optional so you have more freedom as you 
explore and do the level as you wish”.

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They also wanted to have all the targets show 
up in your instinct vision from the drop.

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Bjarne: “We tried out earlier where all of 
the targets were marked from the beginning,

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but the first time you ever played the level it 
could actually feel really overwhelming. Like

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you had this big level, and you could see ten 
marked NPCs that were several floors below you,

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they were several floors above you. So you’d 
come out in this area and just be like ‘okay,

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there’s so much going on’. It felt 
really overwhelming. So that’s why

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we also wanted to go with this you 
have to find them and identify them”.

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The designers also had to figure out how to

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introduce more dangerous targets 
than we’re normally used to.

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Bjarne: “I think Berlin is actually the first 
level that tried working with armed targets

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that would fight back. Which was also a big 
thing to figure out: how would we make that

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work and how would we design for that? You 
wouldn’t have them running into lockdown,

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right? They wouldn’t have bodyguards as such. They 
would just immediately start trying to kill you”.

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Håkan: “We tried out at one point, as well, to 
have them very aggressive. When they saw you,

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just pull out their gun and instantly shoot 
you. But that was not great. Super punishing”.

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Bjarne: “It was just so difficult, like they 
spotted you once and you were just dead”.

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“In early versions, I think they were 
walking around in pairs, as well,

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trying to protect each other so you had to 
deal with two targets at any given time.

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But I think that felt like it was a bit too 
much. Right? You got busted by two people…”

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Håkan: “And you got two targets, almost always, 
at the same time. They didn’t protect each other.”

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Bjarne: “You might also expect that if 
one target starts engaging with you,

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that he would call all the other targets to 
come to one place. I think we prototyped that

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as well at some point. But that was just 
like, well, one target sees you and then

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suddenly you have all the targets in the same 
location and you’re done with the mission”.

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Håkan: “It kinda comes back to that stealth trope,

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in a way. Like, that guards stand down. 
Feels silly on paper but it kinda works”.

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Bjarne: “Because there’s also one of those 
blueprints for a Hitman level is that there

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are many ways that everything can break. But the 
level always needs to be able to find its way back

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to being functional. The machine needs to be 
able to keep running, no matter what happens”.

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The team also needed to figure out how to 
introduce players to this new concept - which

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was partly the reason for this introductory 
sequence where you get to kill one agent for free.

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The designers describe him as a “snack target” 
intended to tutorialise the concept. And then, how

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to update the player with information in a level 
with no handler? Well, you pinch the first goon’s

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earpiece, and can listen in on their handler. 
Good work, 47.

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So, there we have it. In the first two games, 
Hitman had some incredibly memorable levels.

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I highlighted my favourites from 
those first two games - Sapienza

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and Miami - in videos on this channel. 
But rather than just dropping in a bunch

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more standard stages, IO Interactive 
decided to mix things up for Hitman 3,

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with twists and escalations on the formula. 
It didn’t always work - but when it did,

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we got some of the best stages in the trilogy. Like 
my favourite level from Hitman 3, Apex Predator.

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Thanks for watching.

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This video contained just a small snippet of 
my conversation with Bjarne and Håkan - we

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actually played through the whole level 
together, and chatted about everything from

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crowd technology to cut content. GMTK 
Patrons on the video tier can check it out,

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right now. Thanks so much for 
supporting what I do here.