(3, 3, 0) Level Architect: Navigating 47
Understanding path identity
While researching for this article I found a plethora of information about Hitman’s level design. While the available content mainly talks about zoning the levels and how the game encourages/teases you to redo your missions in a more professional and suave manner, I would like to touch up on something that hasn’t been discussed. Therefore, I would try my best to put forth some new analysis on why Hitman works so well. I have been a fan of this series since Hitman: Codename 47 and have played every installment in the series except for the recent one. This, I believe, is what I have learnt from Hitman.
Have you ever experienced the following before the convenience of google maps? You visit a city for the first time in your life and gradually, although quite quickly you’re able to navigate it with almost little to no aid. In my personal experience, having spent not more than just 6 months in Pune, 3 years later, I can still confidently navigate the city. Now, Pune isn’t exactly ‘well planned’, so why does this happen? This mainly boils down to two primary reasons; signboards, hoardings or visual cues and architectural or urban elements.
Now let’s just pause here and think about games. The same thing happens to us in games, doesn’t it? After being overly reliant on the mini-map in GTA, we eventually start navigating ourselves through the city while having a certain arrogance about it. Being eventually acclimatized to the city and feeling that sense of place is yet another aspect of this rewarding open world design that just adds another layer of realism to the whole GTA experience. What about Hitman? Hitman doesn’t have the liberty of eventuality. Sure, Mark Brown covers the beauty in repetition of Hitman levels, but since the moment the player is thrown in the level we begin our core loop of scouting, assessing, eliminating and escaping; there isn’t enough time left to develop that familiarity of the place with the player. Yet, it does, thanks to the designers of Hitman. Let’s try to analyze it.
The developers IO interactive, in my opinion use two tools in their arsenal; zoning and paths. To talk about zoning, let’s look at a level from Hitman 2 called ‘Chasing a Ghost’, which is set in my favorite amongst the unplanned cities: Mumbai.
Here, the map is quite clearly divided in three parts; the under construction, yet quite significantly lavish tower of Dawood Rangan, the dubious and chaotic slums that act as Maelstorm’s spiderweb and lastly, an abandoned train car shed converted into Vanya Shah’s stronghold.
Jumping into our first playthrough and while looking around the map for our targets or areas of interests, we immediately realize this glaring distinction. The reason for this is that people with least knowledge of the city often tend to think of the city in terms of topography, large regions, generalized characteristics and broad directional relationships. So when we navigate the map, our mind registers three regions and three topography. Here, by topography I mean vertical levels. Having mentioned the three regions in the preceding paragraph, I will directly jump to three vertical level. The ground level (G), the sewage tunnel network level (G-1) and the slum rooftop/foot-over-bridge level (G+2). These areas are nested between the two city edges like Mumbai’s coastline and the railway network. This initially helps us with vague directions. In the first playthrough we learn that walking towards the left while facing the coastline will somehow lead us to Dawood’s tower and the opposite will take us to Vanya Shah. These two areas also help us to encompass the scope of our slum. As navigating the slum gets confusing, stumbling upon the coastline or the railway tracks help us to redirect ourselves. There are very few to none dead-ends in any Hitman map.
There is a fourth region that is recognized in the first playthrough, which doesn’t necessarily characterize with a target but serves of a greater importance for the ‘scouting information’ game system; the chawl.
To further study how this familiarization process is quickly achieved, let us study some urban catalysts that are at play here.
First, concentration of special use or activity along a street gives it prominence in the mind of an observer. People are usually sensitive to variations in the amount of activity they encounter and are often observed guiding themselves by following the main stream of traffic. These special activities include under construction towers or the bustle of food markets. We largely stumble upon these two special activities in ‘chasing a ghost’. For example, in the narrow pathways of Mumbai slums, one that immediately stands out from the rest is the one with cloth vendors. This is a perfect example for special activity. The difference in the presentation of that area and it’s location which happens to be just beside the railyard heavily suggests an opportunity related to Vanya Shah waiting to be discovered around. This, even if you stumble upon while pursuing a different opportunity, you would come back to investigate it should your current playthrough fails. Creating these memorable moments around special activities makes it easier to locate, encouraging the player for another attempt.
Also, special façade characteristics are important to denote path identity. In a level where fruit, flowers and street food vendor carts are not difficult to stumble upon, Hitman uses crowds, lights and an unmissable graffiti on the shutter of a barbershop where you are presented with yet another opportunity to follow. It doesn’t have to be only wall murals or graffiti, but any type of ornamentation done in great detail would help reinforce the path identity very effectively. Even one particular window or shop opening with great deal of plants around it could do be defined as façade reinforcement.
Another way to strengthen a path identity would be characteristic spatial features. Simply put, streets that suggest extremes of either width or narrowness attracted attention. Another factor complementing this catalyst would be sudden transitions among them. To give an example of a setting different to those of slums, I would like to point out the empty elevator shaft in Dawood Rangan’s tower here. While, this does not fall into the narrowness or width of the road category, I chose this example for it’s spatial characteristic difference in it’s height attribute, which actually opens up many gameplay opportunities. This space is narrow and tall as opposed to the other floors being wide and compact, making it stand out to be recognized as the most iconic part of Dawood Rangan’s tower. Stumbling upon that elevator shaft makes the player feel as empowered as finding the entry to the chamber of secrets. But, spoiler alert, it’s designed for you to find it and feel that way.
Crossings or intersections are another form of catalysts that can give meaning to a bunch of paths converging into a single point. The relationship of a single interceptor of many confusing streets often forms and gets identified as one element. This is mainly used to denote the importance of an intersection square or the interceptor can work as a midpoint for proximity to special activities along the streets merging to that point. In simple terms, an intersection of streets can be used to redirect ourselves. This is exactly what it’s used for in Hitman. The big banyan tree placed exactly in the middle of the slums is a good example, but I would rather focus on this city junction. This junction serves as a midpoint to the tower, chawl, slums and another offshoot around it which leads you to dockyard and junkyard. This intersection, as defined, is the focal point through which all the special activities in it’s proximity are discovered and serves as a compass for you to recalibrate yourself once you are determined on where to go.
Where the paths lack identity, the overall experience can get confusing. This is true in case of games or the cities that we visit. Hence, we can see the game using track continuity to divide the areas into it’s own zones. We discussed three major zones at the beginning, but within these zones we have numerous subzones which can be distinguished with the type of track that it uses - for example, tar road, paver tiles, railway tracks, bare ground, cleaner tiles. The paver tiles are often divided among themselves into different paver block patterns when the distinction between two areas in the same family and within proximity is to be made. Couple this urban catalyst of track continuity with characteristic spatial differences and we get quite an iconic place to locate an important plot point, object or an opportunity. This I believe is broadly how Hitman lures you in one of it’s invisible member of the above discussed core loop: exploration.
Now, I have barely scratched the surface here. The urban principles used to design this game go way deeper than this introductory post. I haven’t yet spoken about contours and vertical levels, edges of the city, the sewage network or the structure in itself: the tower, the railyard and the individual slum settlement units. I’m only ending this because I would like to keep this a short read. Maybe I will revisit this map and discuss the remaining points in detail. Till then, let’s just take a step back and appreciate the level of detail and research this design team puts into a single map. Kudos to the developers of this game.