Blam! Messy.

More details on Square Enix's Hitman: Absolution have been slithering from the shadows at E3 this week.

With the emphasis firmly on choosing your own sytle of play, we've seen 47 up to his old tricks but in some decidedly new ways...

While the Hitman games have always had their stealthy 'correct' paths through each level, this time there appears to be as many options open to the player as the devs could imagine. That said, simply walking into the middle of a crowd, identifying your target and strangling him in full view of everyone is most certainly shown to be a viable tactic, then creeping away through the terrified crowd while the police search high and low for you.

A Chinatown-esque level has been revealed where 47 must take out someone called 'The King' amidst a crowd of revellers, and another level, set in a rural rust-belt compound, shows 47 getting some exercise in hand-to-hand combat against what appear to be a gang of survivalists.

New gadgets include an attention-grabbing beepy thing, which is shown in one of the previously-shown promotional videos (found in GD's Hitman: Absolution trailers page) as usefully deployed near an explosive cannister with inevitable consequences.

E3 has seen more details emerging regarding the new instinct system. By racking up instinct points by performing your... er... 'work' in a professional way, you can then spend these points in a multitude of different ways from identifying targets and threats in a crowd to multiple handgun takedows a la Splinter Cell: Conviction. But there's more. The disguise system is now more complicated, and if you walk past someone disguised as his best friend he's sure to notice - unless you spend a little intuition to make him come up with an excuse on his own.

Looking forward to Absolution as much as we are? Let us know in the comments area.