As soon Hitman Episode 3: Marrakesh begins, you know that this is going to be very different than the two previous Episodes; Paris was set in a claustrophobic party in a mansion, whereas Sapienza featured an entire seaside town. Marrakesh sets itself apart from its predecessors by being a densely populated city in the grip of political chaos; the streets are filled with roaming shoppers, as well as an angry mob protesting outside the heavily-guarded consulate. It’s immediately obvious that things aren’t going to be made easy for you, and if you don’t immediately realise that, this is going to the most difficult Hitman episode yet, as you’ll soon find out. The level of difficulty has been brought up massively here, particularly in the consulate. It’s a mostly-welcome change compared to Paris and Sapienza, which at times felt as though they held your hand a little too much. Marrakesh is grim and grounded, which is both its best quality and its worst. It’s so difficult, I haven’t even managed a suit-only run, and I’d consider myself an above-average Hitman player.
Marrakesh is a very dense locale, with its labyrinthine streets leading you in circles as you try to plan how you’re going to despatch your targets; CEO Claus Strandberg and army general Reza Zaydan. Both targets are on opposite ends of the map from each other, so a lot of your time is going to be spent between the consulate, in which Strandberg is hiding in, and the old school that Zaydan has claimed as his personal compound. Of the two, the consulate is definitely the biggest challenge. Almost every NPC in the large building will see through your disguises, so you’ll have to carefully make your way through if you don’t want to be caught. Several times, I found myself cornered by two guards that could both see through my disguise, which is particularly frustrating if you’ve spent nearly an hour setting yourself up for a Silent Assassin kill.
So far, these episodic releases have worked out quite well, with both previous episodes featuring a large amount of content that’ll keep you busy for a week or so (a day if you’re playing the game to death in preparation for writing the review). Marrakesh, however, doesn’t feel as if it has as much content as Paris or Sapienza. Yes, the difficulty has been increased, so you’ll find yourself spending more time getting to grips with the level, but overall it doesn’t feel as if there’s as much choice. Most of the opportunities seem to lead you to the same method of assassination, and you’ll spend most of your time either hiding or waiting. It really is a shame that most of the methods feel like they’ve been rehashed from the previous episodes, but it must be said that the few truly unique assassinations really are quite good.
Disconnects seem to be a thing of the past, which should greatly improve your enjoyment in the game. The entire time, I was not disconnected once, a far cry from the 36 times I was disconnected during the first 3 hours of Sapienza. The only bugs I encountered was a crash whilst loading a save, and there were several times where guards saw me subduing one of their comrades through a wall. From what I’ve heard, I’m not the only one to encounter the latter issue, and it’s a very unfortunate one that could be considered game-breaking.
One thing that keeps being a persistent problem with these Hitman episodes are the immersion-breaking accents. If you’re playing a level set in a foreign location, you’d expect its NPCs’ accents to match, right? Well, that’s not the case, and it’s especially notable in Marrakesh. It’s honestly incredibly annoying to hear a supposedly Moroccan shoe-seller speaking in a whiny American accent, especially considering they went to the effort of giving Strandberg a Swedish accent. It really breaks the immersion, particularly when the voice acting isn’t even well done.
All in all, Episode 3: Marrakesh is a decent Hitman level that’s slightly spoiled by a few niggles here and there that unfortunately take away from the experience. As fun as it is to play, it just doesn’t have the charm of its predecessors. They, Sapienza in particular, were incredibly re-playable, whereas Marrakesh really just doesn’t have that staying power. The best way to describe it is a short step backwards, and all we can hope for is that the next episode is better.