Hitman - PS4

After a bit of a detour with Absolution, the Hitman series has gone back to its roots, offering up the spiritual sequel to Blood Money that fans have been clamouring for.

The game eschews Absolution's linear, action-oriented gameplay for a more DIY approach to Agent 47's hits. In Hitman each level is, IO Interactive says, six or seven times the size of the biggest stages in Absolution. The result is sandbox gameplay that gives players a lot of opportunity to get creative with their kills. Faced with a busy yacht party, for example, you might opt to subtly poison your target's favourite drink, take a messier approach and take him out in the toilet with a piano wire or get messier still with a machine gun. With a busy sandbox bristling with opportunities, it's up to you.

That said, IO has built in an entirely optional feature called 'opportunities' that will highlight useful tools and prompt you to use them at key moments.

All of the above is done, of course, while deploying classic Hitman moves such as taking down non-player characters to disguise 47 as them and breaking line of sight with guards.

The boxed release includes all the Season One content, with locations from France and Italy to Morocco, Thailand, USA and Japan.

While IO Interactive has gone back to Hitman's roots, it hasn't thrown out the baby with the bath water. Contracts mode, which enables players to set challenges to perform specific hits for other players, returns. There's also a variation called Escalations, which has players follow a series of contract hits set by IO as the difficulty gets increasingly ratcheted up.

This is the Hitman game many fans have been waiting for! more