[PAX East 2016] Hitman GO VR preview: Board games are dangerous

The original Hitman GO is a terrific little game, mixing tabletop board game elements with stealth and turn-based movement. It’s kind of like chess with guns, in environments like neighborhoods and buildings and facing other hitmen and obstacles.

Now publisher SquareEnix is bringing the game to VR, and though it may seem like a weird game to port over, it actually provides a fairly immersive experience.

Video of Hitman GO for Android

As I played the Oculus Rift based demo at PAX East, I was instantly transported into a clean, stark room with a wooden box in front of me. On top of the box was the Hitman game, feeling like a 3D diorama of well-crafted figurines and building blocks. Seated in one spot and being able to lean in to look at the details, it felt like I was playing an expensive, antique board game. I would often lean in to see the features in the little trees, or step out of my seat and move forward to get up close to the characters.

The board can be rotated to provide better angles of viewing, and looking up into the blank sky allowed me to select the Menu, Retry, and Hint buttons by focusing on them. The updated version plays exactly like the already existing game, so much so that the puzzles and solutions are exactly the same. That made it familiar enough that I could zip through the demo fairly quickly. The only issue I encountered was that even when I rotated the board to see puzzles from other angles, the controls (push right to go right) remained the same. That is, if my character could only go North on the board after I rotated it, I still had to push right because that’s the direction the level begins in. Perhaps this will be addressed in a patch later, since I couldn’t make the adjustment in-game.

The development team is also considering adding Oculus Touch controls to the game as well, allowing players to naturally us their hands to rotate the board for viewing angle changes, or push it away completely to end it. This would come at a later date via patch, if they decide to go forward with it.

As I made my way through the puzzles, I couldn’t help but notice how ideal of a situation it was to play Hitman Go this way. In fact, even though the game is a single-player experience, the VR made it seem as if I was seated across from an opponent who was countering my moves.

I really hope more board games come to Virtual Reality like this. Lara Croft GO is a natural next step, but games like Pandemic and Ticket To Ride, or even classics like Clue and Monopoly, could translate well into the medium. Is this enough to repurchase Hitman GO again? Possibly. It’ll only be $10 when it arrives in a few weeks. It really is the same exact game, but that added experience of depth and detail may be worth the buy.

Hitman GO VR arrives exclusively to Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR on May 11th.