Hitman: Absolution
Set after the events of Hitman: Blood Money, the game begins with Agent 47 detailing his relationship with his handler Diana Burnwood whom he had trusted until she, without explanation, betrayed the International Contract Agency (ICA) by sabotaging their funding and database, using the subsequent confusion to vanish. After the ICA is reformed, 47 is tasked by his new handler, Benjamin Travis, a high level official within the ICA, to kill Diana for her betrayal and retrieve an important Agency asset; a teenaged girl named Victoria from her mansion in Chicago, Illinois. 47 sneaks into her mansion and shoots Diana. Rather than finishing her off, 47 comforts his dying friend and asks her why she betrayed the ICA. Diana discovered Victoria was genetically-engineered to become an assassin for the ICA. Not wishing to see Victoria suffer the same fate as 47, she betrayed the ICA and escaped with her. As Diana's final request, 47 agrees to protect Victoria, for which Travis brands him a traitor.
After 47 drops Victoria off at the Rosewood Orphanage to hide, he contacts his informant, Birdie, for information about Victoria and the ICA, which Birdie agrees to provide once 47 has assassinated a crime boss in Chinatown for him. After cutting the barcode tattoo out of his head and giving his Silverballers to Birdie, 47 is informed by Birdie about a man named Blake Dexter, head of Dexter Industries, a home defense system company, who is staying at the Terminus Hotel. 47 sneaks into the hotel and learns from a conversation between Dexter and his secretary Layla Stockton in his penthouse that Dexter is planning to kidnap Victoria and sell her to the highest bidder. However, 47 is knocked out by Dexter's bodyguard Sanchez. Dexter, realizing who 47 is, kills a hotel maid, frames 47 and leaves him to die after setting his penthouse on fire. 47 manages to escape the hotel, and is then hunted by the Chicago PD. After escaping the police, Birdie sends 47 to kill Dexter's informant Dom Osmand. After Dom is killed, Birdie calls 47 for help as Dexter has hired thugs led by a criminal named Edward Wade to find him in order to discover Victoria's location. 47 heads to Chinatown and kills the thugs searching for Birdie only to discover Birdie has already been captured, and immediately heads to the orphanage, learning that Birdie has betrayed him by revealing Victoria's location to Wade so that his life may be spared.
47 manages to arrive at the orphanage just as Wade and his men attack. 47 mortally wounds Wade but Victoria is kidnapped and taken hostage by Lenny, Dexter's son. Learning where to find Dexter from a matchbox found on Wade, 47 heads to the town of Hope, South Dakota, where Dexter rules the town due to his PMC's and the corrupt town sheriff, Clive Skurky, who is under his pay. Retrieving his Silverballers, 47 takes out Lenny's gang, the "Hope Cougars", who were planning to kidnap Victoria from Dexter and sell her to a rival weapons company. After interrogating Lenny over where Victoria is, 47 can either kill Lenny or leave him to die in the desert. Arriving at Dexter Industries HQ, 47 sneaks into the company's laboratory, kills the scientists who examined Victoria and destroys their research data on her. After killing Sanchez in an underground cage fight, 47 recuperates at a hotel but the hotel is attacked by an ICA strike team led by "The Saints". 47 eliminates The Saints including their leader, Lasandra Dixon. Angered over this failure, Travis heads to Hope with a large group of ICA operatives to kill 47 and find Victoria.
47 manages to find Victoria under the Hope Courthouse jails but is subdued by Sheriff Skurky. As Dexter tortures 47, demanding to know where his son is, he is informed that Travis wants Victoria back in exchange for $10 million and leaves. 47 manages to escape into the streets of Hope, just as the ICA takes over the town. 47 chases Skurky to a church where the sheriff tells 47 that Dexter is heading to Blackwater Park in Chicago, before 47 kills him. In Chicago, Dexter and Travis attempt an exchange for Victoria for $10 million but the deal turns sour when Travis refuses his part of the deal and Dexter takes the money anyway. After reaching the top of Blackwater Park, 47 kills Layla and finally Dexter himself, after the latter had tried to escape with Victoria on a helicopter. In Dexter's dying words he offers an apology to his son and his money, leading a disgusted Victoria to throw the $10 million on his body before leaving with 47.
A few months later, Travis and his assistant Jade Nguyen arrive at a cemetery in England with an ICA crew to find Diana's grave as he has suspicions that Diana might not be dead. 47 is there as well as he recounts the letter Diana gave to him. In the letter, Diana reveals Victoria was created by Travis's funding without the knowledge and approval of the ICA higher ups and tasks him to eliminate Travis. After eliminating Jade and Travis's elite bodyguards, 47 confronts Travis himself after injuring him in an explosion. As Travis rants at 47 for wasting Victoria's potential for the ICA, he asks 47 if he really did kill Diana to which 47 responds "You will never know" and kills Travis.
It is later revealed that Diana survived and Victoria is with her at her mansion where 47 watches them from his scope thus revealing that only he knew all along he hit Diana with a shot that would not be fatal. The game ends with a message from Diana to 47 welcoming him back to the ICA and thanking him for his help. This also reveals that the story from the end of Blood Money to Absolution was all one daring hit contract on individuals within the Agency by Diana and executed by 47 to protect Victoria and terminate the assassin cloning project. In the epilogue, Detective Cosmo Faulkner of the Chicago PD, who has been tracking 47 since the Terminus Hotel fire, is having trouble discovering 47's identity until Birdie offers to help him for a price.
violence