Since an overall sense of disappointment with Hitman: Absolution, (a game I’ll be honest, I actually quite liked) fans have been pretty vocal about what they wanted from the next iteration of the Hitman franchise. Large, living-world levels, a freedom to choose your approach and a selection of ways in which to bring about your targets departure.

In short, they wanted another Hitman: Blood Money.

Luckily, it looks like somebody at IO Interactive was listening, as the newly released 15 minutes of gameplay footage seems to be ticking all of the right boxes. Sandbox environments, non-linear mission objectives, huge numbers of NPCs and a return of Absolution’s instinct mode.

Ok, maybe not the last one, but at least you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

Hitman looks like it’s addressing one of my key faults with the previous games, as people who should be able to see through your disguises will actually be able to do so. One of my bug-bears with the previous games was that the captain of a very small ship would happily accept you as one of the crew, and heads of small security teams never thought to question who their new recruit actually was. The new game promises that high-ranking people will recognise that you are not one of your own, so you need to be especially careful around certain individuals, even if disguised.

We’ll have to wait until December to see if this footage represents the whole game, but for now I’m optimistically looking forward to dropping enormous chandeliers on people’s heads.