Hitman's features, challenges, contracts and live events, explained

Even as the first of seven episodes, the Paris chapter of Hitman is so content-rich that the entirety of its benefits and features aren't apparent at first glance.

It's designed to grow and change each day, as user-generated Contracts and timed Elusive Target assignments appear on the mission dashboard. This guide will teach you about Hitman's changing features. By the time you're done reading, you'll be able to tell difference between a Sarajevo Six mission and an Escalation Contract at a glance.

OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities are glorified tutorials for Hitman newcomers, and they're especially useful to those who want a refresher on making the most of the environment.

You can toggle Opportunities on and off by accessing the menu during your mission. Once you're tracking an Opportunity, waypoints will guide you to items and locations while your handler gives you advice on how to use the locale to your advantage.

Completing an Opportunity has no direct bearing on your performance score, though what you might accomplish might.

Completing an Opportunity will provide you with Intel, for notekeeping purposes. You can read through your intel in the same submenu that you access Opportunities. Both sections complement each other with tips on infiltration possibilities that you may not have considered.

Note: Keep in mind that Opportunities are not available during Contracts.

CHALLENGES

Challenges are essentially side missions that you can attempt in a given location. If you can spot opportunities without invoking the game's Opportunities system, then you're ready to attempt Challenges.

Challenges do not factor into your main score, so you can't stack completed Challenges to achieve a Silent Assassin rank, the highest rank in Hitman. Instead, Challenge points feed into your Career Mastery Level, which unlocks new infiltration opportunities such as new item smuggling locations and new mission starting points.

Furthermore, the moment you complete one Challenge, you cannot earn credit for it again. That means you can't level farm — but you can repeat the steps of a given challenge by replaying the mission.

Challenges are divided into four categories: Assassinations, Discovery, Feats and Targets.

• Assassinations and Feats are based on the way you kill, such as using a sniper rifle or dropping a lighting rig on your target.
• Discovery is based on reaching specific sections of the map and collecting unique items in the field.
• Targets are automatically recognized by virtue of completing the mission.

You can complete multiple challenges during initial mission playthrough, though you'll need multiple replays to complete all of the Challenges.

CONTRACTS

Returning from their debut in Hitman: Absolution, they allow users to create, play and distribute missions. IO interactive chooses players' best and pins them in Hitman's Featured Contracts list.

In this section, we'll cover Contract creation and the first in an evolving series of named Sarajevo Six missions. Other Contracts fall under the Live Events banner below.

How to create a Contract

Choose Contract Creation under the Contracts menu. After starting a mission, turn on Instinct mode. When you've highlighted a character you want to put a hit on, use the assigned Tag button to mark your target. Kill all the marked targets to complete the mission. Then give your Contract a title before publicizing your mission.

The Sarajevo Six

This is an ongoing side mission related to Hitman's story. The six targets will presumably be spread out across the various episodes. The first of these targets, Scott Sarno, is in the Paris map. Be sure to check out our walkthrough of that mission, TKTKTK.

LIVE EVENTS

Perhaps chief among Hitman's innovations is the concept of Live Events. These cover a wide range of actions that players can take, and their availability is often limited. Some are technically subsets of other modes, like Contracts, but we've corralled them here under the Live Events banner to explain the timeliest things you should look for.

Elusive targets

Consider these the expert-level Hitman missions.

They're even more difficult than the story missions, so you should wait until you're confident enough to take on an assignment, sight unseen. Confidence and experience matter because only have one shot at taking out your target. You cannot use the Instinct ability to find your target, and your target won't appear on the map. Lose your target, they're gone for good.

There are no do-overs and each Elusive Target mission is available for a limited time.

Escalation

A type of Contract type tuned for beginners — though experienced Hitman players can get a lot out of this mode as well.

Escalation is a layered experience, where you complete one objective in a mission, then repeat that mission with another objective added on. Ultimately you'll play five rounds. The final round involves five objectives, four of which you have previously cleared. The trick is in figuring the best order to complete these objectives in the final round.

Latest Contracts

This is where you'll find all the user-created Contracts. Currently, there are no methods to sort these, whether by difficulty or quality. IO's curation implies that the cream of the crop end up in the Featured Contracts section, though you might find some missed gems in Latest Contracts.

Featured contrats

This section features a mix of user-created Contracts hand picked by developer IO Interactive and Contracts created by the studio itself.