AGENT 47: Hello, Game Maker's Toolkit

Something that I love about stealth games is the
way they often have these large, open-ended levels.

Stuff like Camp Omega in Metal Gear Solid:
Ground Zeroes.

Or the various shifting mansions in Dishonored
2.

Or the intricate Palisade Bank in Deus Ex:
Mankind Divided

Unlike a lot of video game levels, which can
feel like linear and claustrophobic theme

park rides, these stealth stages feel more
like real places.

You can scope them out from high-up vantage
points, choose your route as you go, and deal

with situations however you like.

But no game does this quite like the Hitman
series.

The franchise is jam packed with memorable
levels, like the opera house in Blood Money.

The seaside town of Sapienza in Hitman 2016.

Or the drug fields of Colombia in last year’s
Hitman 2.

Every single level is an intricately designed
and fully explorable space, filled with people

going about their business on clockwork routines.

You can enter almost every building, pick
up dozens of objects, and disguise yourself

as loads of different people.

So, I’m left wondering - how, exactly, is
a Hitman level designed?

Well, to figure this out - let’s focus on
a single level.

And I’m going to pick the bombastic Florida-based
racing mission from Hitman 2, called The Finish Line.

Let’s zoom out and look at the Making of
Miami.

Of course, there’s only so much that I can tell
you about the making of this level.

But I know a couple guys who can help…

JAKOB: Yes, my name is Jakob Mikkelsen and
I’m game director on Hitman 2.

ESKIL: I’m Eskil, I’m the associate game
director on Hitman 2

So I wanted to know where a Hitman level began.

What’s the very first step taken when bringing
one of these stages to life.

JAKOB: So typically we brainstorm a lot of
locations, and then it’s like “wouldn’t

it be cool if… 47 went to a race,” “wouldn’t it be
cool to do a fashion show,” “wouldn’t

it be cool to do the streets of Mumbai with
all the slums and all that stuff”.

So that’s kind of the originating idea.

So this level is set during the Global Innovation
Race: a sort of Formula 1-style race on the

coast of Miami.

Globe-trotting assassin Agent 47 can explore
the food stands, the paddocks, and VIP lounges

- all while a race speeds on around him.

Developer IO Interactive liked this idea because
games set at racing events always put you

on the track - but this Hitman level would
let you explore the areas you never normally

get to explore: everything but the track,
basically.

So, what’s next?

JAKOB: Once we’ve settled on a location,
we begin to develop the characters.

In Miami it’s the Knoxes - how do they work
in the mission?

Miami has two targets for Agent 47 to assassinate:
there’s a racing driver called Sierra Knox,

and her father: the inventor Robert Knox.

Robert Knox is what IO calls a “dweller”
- he sticks to just one location.

That’s his office building where, other
than a tiny public showroom, the entire location

requires strict security clearance.

IO calls that a “fortress”.

If left to his own devices, Knox sticks to
a pretty small loop.

He visits the Android testing lab, looks out
over the balcony, talks to some scientists,

heads upstairs to his office, and so on.

He simply repeats this loop over and over
again.

Sierra Knox, however, is a very different
beast.

For the first 20-odd minutes she’s driving
around the race track in her car.

There are ways to assassinate her while she’s
driving, but she’ll also start a new routine,

on foot, after the race ends.

Now she’ll bounce around the VIP area and,
at this point, she’s more of a “roamer”

- a target who walks around more public spaces.

So that’s the location and the targets dreamt
up.

What’s next?

JAKOB: And then we ask the question, the recurring
question, “what could possibly go wrong

here, and how can Agent 47 get a grip on the
situation, how can he affect the situation?”

So Robert Knox might be stuck in a predictable
little loop, but that clockwork pattern can

be disrupted in lots of different ways.

Mess with the air conditioning in his office,
and he’ll go to the bathroom to use eyedrops

- which you have hopefully poisoned.

Turn off the satellite, and he’ll go to
fix it - giving you a moment to boot him onto

the track.

Break his prized car, and he’ll come repair
it - giving you a moment to....

whoops, sorry pal.

You can even get him to leave the offices
if you’re particularly smart.

Each of these murders requires a bit of set-up.

You’ll need to find items, like poison for
his eye drops or an octane booster to sabotage

the car.

You’ll need to visit various secure locations,
like Knox’s heavily guarded office, and

you’ll often need to wear a certain disguise.

And IO can use this multi-step approach to
tease you into more assassination possibilities.

When you discover a military robot that uses
facial recognition to pick out and kill targets,

your mind lights up at the possibility of
finding a photo of Robert Knox himself, to

feed into the robot.

JAKOB: We invite you in, and we set up the
moments in a way so you can take advantage.

ESKIL: But you know this Mark, because you
touched upon it so nicely in the Art of Repetition,

where you talk about the gunpowder - and of
course when you find the cannon there’s

a tonne of gunpowder there so it’s not like
oh I need it here.

But it is just to nudge you, and to tell you
“ooh, there is something else here”.

And the exploding golf ball, it’s constantly
giving you little promises.

And little temptations.

Sierra has her own routines.

When she’s on the track, you can of course
shoot her as she drives down the straight,

or sneak into the Kronstadt pit building and
rig her car to explode.

But there’s lots more ways to deal with
her when she gets off the track.

You can dress up as a Flamingo and boot her
down a hatch.

Kill her with a poisoned IV drip.

Or off her during a drinking game.

And at some point, you’ll probably figure
out that there are multiple ways to kill Sierra

while she’s on the podium - like being able
to poison the champagne in the trophy, or

rig the pyrotechnics to explode.

You might overhear this in a conversation...

RACE OFFICIAL: You could fry 
everyone on stage if the pressure gets too high!

Characters in Hitman tend have very useful
conversations the moment Agent 47 is in earshot.

It’s one of the few ways Hitman feels quite
scripted and gamey, but it does give you that

awesome feeling of overhearing useful information.

You might also wander into the podium building
while exploring, and see that you can poison

the champagne - another little tease.

Or you might see the assassinations on the
challenge list.

These can be a bit spoilerific (though, you
can turn them off) but they also give you

even more hints at possible assassinations.

But the really interesting thing is - by default, Sierra 
doesn’t win the race.

She’ll come second, meaning she won’t
visit the podium building at all.

This adds a really cool wrinkle to the level.

To get her to the podium, you either need
to figure out how to help her win, or make

her opponent - Moses Lee - lose.

There’s almost point and click-style problem
solving going on, where you need to figure

out what steps to take to get Sierra to win.

Now IO went back and forth over whether Sierra
should win or not, but ultimately decided

to make her lose.

JAKOB: Making it so that you can make the
decision whether she wins or not - it puts

you in power.

I think that’s very Hitman-y.
ESKIL: There’s a lot of teasing.

We like to taunt our targets as well.

So now I’m gonna make her win, and then
I’m gonna kill her.

JAKOB: There’s poetic justice.

Pulling off these kills often means waiting
on the character’s schedules - the 5 or

so minutes Robert Knox spends roaming Kronstadt,
or the nearly 20 minutes Sierra takes to drive around.

And this waiting is a double edged sword for
IO.

The schedules do make the world feel more
alive.

In most games, it feels like the world is
designed specifically for the player, with

bombastic events triggering perfectly for
you to see them.

But in Hitman, the world marches on around
you, indifferent to Agent 47’s existence

until he pushes against the simulation.

And these perfectly choreographed schedules
do put more power into the player’s hands.

JAKOB: If you know, as the player, that something
will happen, then you can build a plan on

that knowledge.

If you know that, hey, the fashion show’s
gonna end so Viktor Novikov’s gonna be on

stage at some point.

If you know that up front, then you can make
a plan for that and it will work.

But they can also create headaches.

ESKIL: Of course there’s the time aspect.

You set some stuff in motion and now you know
“oh god, that guy is...”

You go into instinct and you just see this
little red dot and you know this is gonna

take forever.

So we do actually have them sometimes running
just to speed up.

So, IO finds ways to deal with that.

The running characters are one way - another
is a starting position that starts the mission

with the race nearly over.

And you can also find ways to speed things
up yourself.

JAKOB: So often we try to make situations
where you can shortcut the entire thing.

One example in Miami is that you can disqualify
Moses Lee and end the race, and

then getting Sierra on the stage.

And you can also disqualify Sierra and get
Moses on the stage.

So instead of trying to make it a thing that
you have to wait for, or a limitation, then

we try to turn it around and then make it
something that you can also control to some degree.

So that’s the high concept design.

The location, the targets, and the dramatic
moments.

Now, let’s talk about the nitty gritty of
the level design.

So, Miami is basically split into two halves.

On the one side is the stands, the food trucks,
VIP bars, the paddocks, a medical tent, and

a motel.

On the other is the multi-storey Kronstadt
building, the podium building, and the marina.

For the most part, you can see the left as
Robert’s domain, and the right as Sierra’s.

The two halves are separated by the track,
where various racers are driving around.

JAKOB: Having a race track that cuts your
level in two is a really bad idea if you want

to make a level where it’s easy to get from
A to B. So the level designers spent quite

a lot of time on finding as many ways to cross
the track, spread all out throughout the level,

up and down the track.

That’s why there’s two overhead walkways,
and a number of subway passages that link

up to an underground parking garage.

Now, IO describes the design of some of the
best Hitman levels as being a “snail house”

with “Swiss cheese”.

And i think the best way to explain these
terms is to look to a place that should totally

be a Hitman DLC level…

IKEA.

This Swedish furniture store tries to pack
as much stuff into one location as possible,

and - ideally - it wants you to look at everything.

So the store’s layout provides an obvious
and easy-to-follow path that takes you from

the living room stuff, through the kitchens,
into the bedrooms, and through the children’s

area before leading you - naturally - to the
market hall and checkout.

That’s the snail house.

This Swiss cheese is all the holes between
the rooms that create shortcuts - so seasoned

IKEA veterans and staff members can bypass
entire sections and get to where they’re

going more easily.

In the world of Hitman, the snail house allows
the designers to fit everything in to a tiny

footprint.

An entire race track that feels credible,
with all the expected amenities and hundreds

of NPCs can be squeezed into a tiny area that’s
optimised to run on consoles.

However, the area still feels pretty enormous
because the windy pathways mean every major

landmark takes considerable effort to get
to.

And IO guides you to those locations, using

in-universe navigation like
lines on the floor, helpful signs, and maps.

However, the Swiss cheese effect allows for
dozens of secret ways to get to places more quickly.

Fences you can scale, windows you can sneak
through, elevator shafts you can climb, back

doors that open onto new areas.

These create tiny shortcuts between the major
locations that give you a feeling of mastery

as you find them.

Where a novice hitman player is schlepping
it from one side of the map to the other,

a veteran player can almost teleport around
the map.

Here’s another level design technique.

JAKOB: We try to avoid dead ends.

Though typically toilets are dead ends.

But most other rooms actually have at least
two exits.

So you’re never stuck stuck.

There might be some challenge or some things
you have to overcome, but you’re never at

a dead end where you have to turn around.

Multiple exits also means multiple entrances.

So the obvious way to get into the Kronstadt
building is through the front door - but you

can also enter via the parking lot, find a
route via the podium building, walk through

this door up on the walkway, and more.

This gives the player more options, and lets
them feel like they’re making their own

decisions - and not following a set, scripted
path.

With these locations designed, IO also thinks
about how the disguise system will work.

Hitman, of course, is a unique stealth franchise
because the game isn’t really about hiding

behind walls or in cardboard boxes: it’s
about hiding in plain sight.

So you can knock out a guard, take his uniform,
and then wander about in the security offices

without much worry.

In Miami, Agent 47 can freely explore the
stands area and most of the Marina section

unobstructed, as a member of the public.

But he’ll need a VIP badge to access these
areas.

And he can only explore these areas when dressed
up as a security guard.

And it gets even more complex than that - you’ll
need to be one of the Knox’s elite guards

to get into the hotel area, and each racing
paddock is locked off unless you’re dressed

up in team colours.

But often in Hitman, areas are built in tiers
of escalating security clearance.

In the Kronstadt building, anyone can enter
the lobby and visit the showroom.

But you’ll need an IT guy uniform to explore
the second floor, and a guard’s uniform

to visit the top floor.

JAKOB: When we design the level, early on
we map out: what people would be working here?

What kind of disguises would be great?

And then we have to figure out how are they
layered in terms of what gives you access

to when.

And then also how early do you meet them in
the level because if the first disguises you

meet is the best one then we’re wasting
a lot of gameplay for no reason.

For the smaller moments in a level, IO actually
learned a lot when making Hitman Absolution.

This was a much more linear game in the series
with more traditional stealth moments like

needing to distract some guards who are standing
in front of a door.

For the more modern and open-ended Hitman
games, these microscopic stealth moments are

simply scattered all throughout the level.

So in the pit building for Moses Lee’s team,
this engineer needs to be distracted, probably

by messing with a generator.

And getting to this guy in the medical area
for one of Sierra’s challenges means dealing

with this doctor, who can also be distracted
by a nearby generator.

And now, there’s one last thing to do.

JAKOB: And then from that point on, we iterate
like crazy.

The more times we can actually boot up and
start the level before we ship it, typically

the better it gets.

We get smarter all the time.

The developers definitely try to find moments
that make the game too easy or too hard, and

rearrange elements until it feels right.

For example, they fixed a section in Paris
in Hitman 2016 because Viktor Novikov was

alone for too long, and became an easy kill.

The designers also think about other challenges.

Sniper Assassin requires IO to not giveaway
the sight lines too easily.

The challenge is often about luring a target
into a good spot to take them out - not simply

waiting around for the target to wander into
the perfect location.

And suit only requires some more tinkering
- but not much.

JAKOB: Suit only is interesting because we
don’t really have to do that much to actually

make it work.

No matter how hard we make this game, no matter
how hard we make it, they will always find

a way to beat it.

ESKIL: I remember thinking that in the beginning:
“this is impossible.

There’s no way you could do suit only, and
then I remember Jakob just saying “no, don’t worry…”

And that’s a Hitman level!

But, these rules might not work for every
stage.

JAKOB: I’m personally very opposed to rules
dictating how things should be, because then

everything’s going to be the same.

So I prefer that we use them as guidelines,
because we need to challenge ourselves in

this thing.

Indeed, IO tries to make each level different,
with different levels of verticality, different

densities of people, different sizes.

And even and thinks about them in terms of
being in a chain.

So the mission before Miami - Night Call - is
dark and claustrophobic.

And the level after Miami - San Fortuna - has
an enormous fortress that takes up most of

the map, leaving agent 47 very few places
he can explore safely.

So the Hitman games have all sorts of level
design techniques - and I think they can be

applied to all sorts of games.

This idea of characters moving on a schedule
as a way to let players make plans, and make

the world feel alive.

This IKEA-inspired language of snail houses
and Swiss cheese.

And the multiple tiers of safety.

This is what makes Hitman levels so good,
so replay-able, and so much fun to master.

And I think lots of designers can learn from
this.

Hey, thanks for watching!

And cheers to Jakob and Eskil for their time.

All of my backers can watch the full interview,
over on Patreon...

ESKIL: This is crazy where the one game where
you cannot drive a car, and the first thing

we wanna do is show cars - is everybody gonna
go “ooh, you can drive in the new game!”

Patrons on the behind-the-scenes tier also
get a look at the process of making this episode.

Special thanks to everyone who supports GMTK
and keeps the show going, month after month!