I'm playing Soldier of Fortune. Back in the day, my friend had it and I played it a bit at his place when I visited for the summer holidays. This is the first time I'm playing it again in some 20 years.

Anyway, I'm at the Iraq level, and I very vaguely remember that back then you could walk some parts of the level and be left alone so long as you don't take your weapon out and start shooting. But when I play it now the enemies start shooting at me immediately when they see me, and there is no way to hide/holster your weapon (you can drop weapons but you can't drop your last knife so you always have it out even if you drop everything).

Looking online I can't find any info on this, and the 2 video walkthroughs I found of this level both have you start shooting immediately.

Which makes me think perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me, and I'm misremembering and confusing it with some other game.

Does anyone know which game I could be confusing it with? It would be an FPS (or perhaps third person) with an Iraq level where you play in a town/city environemnt with civilians and armed enemies who don't shoot at you unless you take out a weapon and start shooting first.

Sorry I have no more info, but it's probably a game from around the turn of the millenium.

Not one of the Hitman series.

Or is it Soldier of Fortune after all and I just can't figure out the way of hiding your weapon?

No, I think, you are right. You could walk around the first Iraq level as long as you did not attack the civilians or until you met the first real enemies, who started shooting at you. I played the game four or five times and remember it clearly. Haven´t played the Gog version yet, but this sounds strange.

EDIT: IRC the first enemies appeared after you were maybe a third into the level. Now, that my memory comes back: I have this friend, who liked to walk around and kill civilians. Even then no enemies spawned.

Here are the videos showing the beginning of the level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN4bY1RAVqU

There is a soldier and a rocket guy right at the start, and few more pop out immediately.

Here is another video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BLpumS30DE

Yes, indeed. Looks like you're right. I went through playthrough videos and at a later part of the level you start the game with weapon holstered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRj4q8uLtkA&t=183s

Here you pass civilians and soldiers without shooting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRj4q8uLtkA&t=204s

By the way, the game so far seems very... underwhelming. It's one of those games where the nostalgia and the memories seem much better than the real thing.
I played this game at a friend's place when I visited my family in the summer of 2001. I haven't played the full game then from start to finish; just few places here and there but I remember really liking it, saying it's almost as good as Half-Life.
Playing it again now, and it feels... meh. Linear, easy, cheesy story. Doesn't compare well with other games from the same era like Quake 2, Half Life, Sin (which I only played recently), Max Payne. Even Blood 2, glitchy as it was which I also played only recently, I liked better than this.

It's not that SoF is bad, it's just that it's... bland. I guess for me part of the appeal of this game was playing it with a bunch of friends during summer holidays without a care in the world (I was in high school back then), enjoying life. You just can't recreate the atmosphere now.

IIRC the main draw of the game at the time were the graphic (wow!) and the fact that you could hit individual body parts, like the legs, and the enemy would react somewhat like you would expect. Also, you could slice the body into small slices, or, you know, at the time equivalent meaty blocks.

Was the game supposed to be more gory than anything up to that point? Because of the graphics (so wow!)? I remember some controversy around that.

Yep. Most of the controversy came from the ghoul engine. Ability to shoot off body parts, shoot out their intestines, explode their heads etc. That is mostly why it was controversial at the time.

Oh and also, Sadam makes an appearance in the game and it takes place in real locations. Some authorities at the time might have been miffed about that too. I think it's still banned in Germany, Canada and Australia right?

That´s exactly what I remember. Glad, we could solve the mystery :)