Fears that Hitman: Absolution wouldn’t be challenging or that IO Interactive has simplified the gameplay to broaden the game’s appeal should be quelled by news which details Absolution’s variety of difficulty settings.

You can see the list below which features difficulties ranging from ‘Easy’ to ‘Purist’. The easy setting as you would imagine will offer lots of hints to the player and will be much more forgivable to player errors. Whilst the purist setting will be merciless, offering no hints or even a user interface. IO Interactive clearly want to offer an experience to the player that matches their particular skill level. Players new to stealth action and series veterans should both be able to enjoy the game in different ways.

This is a great way to offer experienced players a challenging game whilst remaining accessible to outsiders. Which difficulty will you choose?

EASY

• - Players can activate additional checkpoints.
• - Instinct regenerates
• - Instinct will provide hints
• - Enemies react more slowly than normal

MEDIUM

• - Players can activate additional checkpoints
• - Instinct does not regenerate
• - Instinct will provide hints
• - Normal enemy presence with normal reaction times

HARD

• - Players can activate additional checkpoints
• - Instinct depletes when used and does not regenerate
• - No Instinct hints
• - Additional enemies with improved reaction times

EXPERT

• - No player activated checkpoints
• - Instinct depletes when used and does not regenerate
• - No Instinct hints
• - Maximum number of enemies with fastest reaction

PURIST

• - No help
• - No guides
• - No interface
• - Only a crosshair

Hitman: Absolution, developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix is set to be released globally on November 20th, 2012 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.