Even after playing the two sequels first, I didn't realise until reflecting back on the whole experience as a whole after finally playing the first entry - perhaps now aided by a comfortable familiarity with the series' core design ethos in mind - how fundamentally these games are about infiltrating lavish, opulent hidden dens of power and using disguises to perform elaborate and cruelly entertaining assassinations because the rich and few - the very 1% - simply do not fear the rest of us. How easy it is to blend in to a crowd when from the elites' POV the working class have no identity. How they are merely their job,
that is all they see. And so then howa it's Agent 47's job to assume these various identities to enact striking acts of working class revenge against the most powerful (and always unabashedly evil). And yet despite all this, there's always more targets. The system never breaks or faults in finding its own ways to fill up the holes you left behind, because no matter what it's not just a few rogue evil doers wreaking havoc on the world - it is a capitalist, power hungry system that Agent 47, despite his best efforts, still cannot bring down.

Anyway, the Sapienza map ruled. Those Italian goons had sick fits and killing the dude disguised as a plague doctor while he watched vhs clips of his dead mum scored to some Italian pop song was dope af. The Paris fashion show also sick.