Successful Psychopathy of Agent 47 in Hitman: World of Assassination (2023)

Abstract

Several video games that have attempted to break the standards on character portrayal show characters who are not purely good or bad — known as anti-heroes. They are often linked to an individual that possesses a set of dark triad traits which is linked to psychopathy. However, studies have shown that successful psychopaths exist (Cleckley, 1941 as cited by Wallace, 2023; p. 19). This concept of successful psychopathy is present in Agent 47 of Hitman: World Assassination. Furthermore, it is interesting to analyze, since it challenges the moral definition of something normally considered a neurological deficit. This study will apply a conceptual framework called The Development and Validation of the Successful Psychopathy Scale by Louise Wallace (2023), specifically focusing on how Agent 47 fulfills the criteria required to be considered a successful psychopath. Our findings indicate that Agent 47 is a successful psychopath based on a metric proposed by Wallace (2023).