If you thought Hitman 3 VR was bad on PC just wait until you see Hitman 3 VR Reloaded in action
It's the pits, man.
As a slight disclaimer before I kick off the kicking, these first impressions are based on 90 minutes of playing the retail version of Hitman 3 VR Reloaded on launch day. Apparently a big patch will be releasing on the 9th September that is said to address a lot of the issues that I had with the game. But I'll never know because I'll be damned if I ever put my face inside this nightmare again...
Hitman 3 VR on the PlayStation VR is still one of my all time favourite virtual experiences. Despite the limitations of the platform with its unreliable Move Controllers and low resolution headset, Hitman's sprawling, highly detailed levels were a joy to explore.
Actually being inside of these small sandbox envorniments felt so immersive and a natural fit for the game but as good as I thought it was, I couldn't help but want for more. Sharper graphics, the ability to use both hands, greater immersion. These were things that headset owners were hoping for and, to be fair, expecting when Hitman 3 hit PC VR in 2022, but that ended up being a huge disappointment in its own right.
And so enters Hitman 3 VR Reloaded, a standalone port of Hitman VR for the Meta Quest 3 that was supposed to address some of the biggest critisms of the PC game, like the lack of dual wielding, but instead just creates an even bigger mess of a once phenomenal game.
From early teaser trailers, we knew that Hitman 3 VR Reloaded was going to have cell-shaded graphics. That made perfect sense, Hitman 3 is a big game, of course you're going to need to downgrade the visuals to get it running on a Meta Quest 3. My words on this page however cannot do justice to just how much the gorgeous graphics of the original have been butchered so instead, I'd urge you to experience them for yourselves through the medium of this week's episode of VR Corner.
Hitman 3 VR Reloaded Is THE PITS, MAN - Hitman 3 VR Reloaded Meta Quest 3 Gameplay - Ian's VR Corner
If for some reason you can't watch the video, I'll break it down for you quickly. There's a level of graphical pop-in here to literally every asset in the game that I have never experienced in a VR title before. Hitman's famous crowds don't appear until you're standing at least five feet away from them, which makes every building feel empty and lifeless until the very last moment. Textures of distant buildings look like the pixelated skyboxes from 90s games like Duke Nukem 3D and even I saw a running water texture that looked liked something out of DOOM. And oh my God, the water in the sink! The water in the sink is just a flat blue png that increases in size when you turn the tap on until it reaches the top of the ceramic bowl. Then it just floats there about an inch above the sink's surface while new, slightly less crappy textures erupt from its sides.
Some in-level story scenes seem to have been removed completely as well, like confetti-filled inauguration ceremony of the Burj Al-Ghazali skyscraper by its owner, Sheikh Omar Al-Ghazali. In its place is just a small huddle of same-faced NPCs that look like knock-off LEGO men unless you walk right up to them. It's probably the ugliest thing I've ever looked at and I own at least three mirrors so I know what I'm talking about.
But how about the highly anticipated dual-wielding that Reloaded brings to the table? Well yes, you can dual wield, in the sense that you can hold two things at once I guess, but that's the extent of the VR interactions. Everything else is a technical mess. Doors are opened with button presses, guns are reloaded with button presses, knives are thrown with... you guessed it... button presses. Climbing ladders is done by pushing up on a thumbstick - after a lenght fade to black loads you onto the blooming thing! The VR implementations here are ultra basic to say the least and it creates an experience that's about as immersive as an evaporating puddle on a nice sunny day.
As of launch day, Hitman 3 VR Reloaded is about a grim as VR games can get. Perhaps a patch will smoothing things out a bit, so maybe wait a bit before you pick it up if you're super desperate to play it, but I just can't help feeling that this nightmare port is beyond Redemption. That was a little Hitman joke there. Just in case you didn't get it. Which is also what you should do with this game.