I typically took a good hour or two wandering around each level, listening in to conversations, and just generally getting the lay of the land before deciding on a course of action. The attention to detail is otherwise superb, though. Hearing Italian thugs and Cuban soldiers all speaking like average American Joes really takes you out of the moment, at least until you get accustomed to this oddity. The only drawback with the overall presentation is the quality of the NPC dialogue, which is nicely varied and well acted but virtually all spoken with a standard American accent that can kill your suspension of disbelief. Each level looks fantastic and is stuffed with all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore and hundreds of NPCs to interact with-many of whom come with dialogue and specific routines and behaviors that can be figured into your assassinations. You prowl a Paris fashion show, sneak around a luxurious villa on the Italian coast, venture into mobs rioting in Moroccan souks, stalk a rock star at a five-star hotel in Thailand, assault the leaders of a militia on a compound in Colorado, and finally explore a private hospital atop a snowy mountain in Japan. The long-running international flavor of the Hitman series has been spiced up here with unique locations that take place in virtually every corner of the world. But the levels are so big and so packed with details that they take on lives of their own, much like separate movies in a franchise. Everything is linked via brief cutscenes that focus on a figure from Agent 47’s past. The individual missions here send you jetting all over the globe like a bald James Bond with a barcode on the back of his head. But at the same time, I see the appeal of tackling each of the game’s six separate assignments (plus the opening training missions that flash back to the beginning of Agent 47’s career) one by one, given just how much gameplay is jammed into each of them. I’m glad that I got to play through it as a complete experience, and I can’t imagine having to wait weeks to go on my next assignment. Having come into this season of Hitman only after it was complete, I can’t render a judgment about how the game was released in an episodic format. Sprawling levels, tremendous attention to detail with both graphics and sound design, and countless assassination options make this an engrossing experience that includes some of the best replay value ever seen in a game.

But I’m certainly not complaining about the marketing, given that the final package showcases some of the most enthralling exploits of gaming’s most infamous murderer-for-hire. The 2016 version of Hitman plays like the longest assassination of the chrome-domed killer’s lengthy career, thanks to developer IO Interactive’s decision to issue the game via six chapters released roughly from spring to fall.

Best games of 2016