After less than a week of being on store shelves, IO Interactive’s final chapter in the World of Assassination trilogy is proving to be a smash hit with players. Who would have thought that there would be so many travel-starved homicidal maniacs out there? Self-published and independtly developed, Hitman 3 has recouped all of its development costs, and from this point on, every new sale just means extra cash in IO’s pocket.

IO Interactive's Project 007 will feature a brand new Bond, wholly original from any of the incarnations seen on the silver screen so far.

There’s a certain joy to be found in Hitman and its sequels, within those failed runs though, learning experiences which players should savour and use to eventually become stealthy forces of nature that can move unseen through the shadows.

Hitman 3 is full of surprises beneath its familiar systems. It manages to break out of its own sandbox without disrupting its formula too much, ending on a subtle note that brings the world of assassination saga to a satisfying end.  

This week’s launch of Hitman 3 isn’t just another buffet of madcap murder made to look like the unlikeliest of accidents. It’s the final chapter in a long saga, one that developer IO Interactive has been crafting over several years to create the ultimate world of assassination. Thanks to the previous two games being designed with a modular gameplay approach in mind, anyone who has been invested in the Hitman series since its soft reboot is going to have a hell of a lot of content to play through.

A journey that has lasted several years. A trail of bodies left behind. One chap with a very bald head who weaved his way between bastards and eliminated them all. Agent 47’s journey finally comes to an end in Hitman 3 this month, and while the final chapter in the world of assassination trilogy looks very much like par for the corpse, it’s going to be one heck of a scenic tour in the end.

With Hitman 3 around the corner, the song remains the same but with an added twist: Virtually real first-person viewpoints. If you’re not content with watching Agent 47 drown an uptight vegan rock star in his own gluten-free cake, you can now do so at a more visceral level through the eyes of the world’s greatest assassin.

Exploration is the factor that pays off in the end, and doing more of that in Hitman 3 will unlock a handy new feature in each of the game’s new levels: Shortcuts.