Through twenty years, three publishers and enough bodies to fill an olympic stadium, Hitman’s formula for fiendishly inventive homicide has remained almost unchanged. Visuals have improved, environments have grown more elaborate and kills more outlandish, but the core mechanics of freeform death-dealing have proudly stood the test of time. Hitman 3__ makes no attempt to alter this recipe.

While the eighth title in the main series (mobile-friendly Hitman Go and Hitman: Sniper being footnotes to the saga), Hitman 3 is the third and final instalment in IO Interactive’s World Of Assassination trilogy, which began with Hitman in 2016. Like that game and its direct sequel, Hitman 2, part three offers up six new locations as sandboxes of slaughter. Players are tasked with taking out their target(s), while leaving the method of murder and precise route to the victim open, with numerous different (and often wildly elaborate) options made available.

Those who have played through the previous two titles, will find very little in this closing chapter they haven’t seen before. Bar the addition of a new camera — through which Agent 47 can hack certain electronics and gather intel — and a VR mode available on PS4 (but not PS5), there’s nothing particularly new on the gameplay front. However, while Hitman 3 is undeniably light on innovation, it succeeds in honing the series’ long-standing formula to perfection.

The new locations on offer here are a high-water mark for the franchise, easily numbering among the series’ very best. Beginning with a double hit atop the world’s tallest building in Dubai, the game starts with a bang, dropping 47 in via parachute and having him scrabble around the building’s windswept exterior, high above the cloud line. Another takes him to a country manor in Dartmoor for an Agatha Christie-inspired whodunnit, in which 47 poses as an investigator and attempts to solve a murder mystery (while dabbling in a little murder of his own on the side). From there it’s off to a nightclub in Berlin where you’re pitted against a small army of rival assassins, all capable of seeing through any of 47’s disguises.

Each of the six levels bursts with invention and the opportunity to pull off some of the series’ most outlandish kills yet. Hitman has always encouraged players to explore the environments and discover their various secrets, treating each location as an intricate puzzle box to be carefully unlocked. Hitman 3’s locations in particular, though, feel especially geared towards careful, meticulous play, with a first run-through of each taking a good couple of hours, while barely scratching the surface of opportunities on offer or stories you can play out.

Narrative has never been the series’ strong suit, serving primarily as background noise and pre-briefing filler to set up the next kill. But while the cliche-laden story of shadowy cabals and string-pulling Illuminati remains trite, its influence on the gameplay here is far more pronounced. Whether it’s being hunted by fellow Agents or having to take the fight to 47’s former employer, the plot actually serves a purpose this time around, shaping the larger narrative and informing how you tackle the levels (which in some cases open with no briefing whatsoever, forcing you to think on your feet and improvise from the get-go). There’s a genuinely climactic feel to Hitman 3 as it ties up the trilogy’s overarching plot and makes the finale into more of an event than just another chance at artistic homicide.

Like Hitman 2, Hitman 3 permits you to import the previous titles’ levels, allowing you to play all of the World Of Assassination environments under one roof. As long as you’ve previously bought Hitman and/or Hitman 2 on the same console family, you can access those games’ content for free within Hitman 3. It’s a welcome addition, especially as next-gen improvements like enhanced textures, quicker load times and, in the case of the PS5, satisfying use of the adaptive triggers, are also applied to the legacy content.

Hitman 3 may not be the most revolutionary title, but then it doesn’t need to be. The franchise’s selection of murder playgrounds are as compelling now as they were in 2000, when the series’ iconic, bald, barcoded killer first slipped his fibre wire around an unwitting guard’s throat. Where Hitman 3 resoundingly succeeds in is polishing the whole experience to a brilliant sheen, and ensuring that, if this is Agent 47’s last hurrah, the assassin goes out on an all-time high. With some of the best levels to date, tied together with a punchy storyline, Hitman 3 proves that, even after twenty years of the same formula, there’s still excellence in execution.