Building the level required a lot of "experimentation," lead and senior level designer Toke Krainert told The Washington Post. Once they settled on a manor -- a decision made fairly early -- the next question was gameplay and story. They wanted to provide insight into Providence, as Alexa Carlisle would be the main target. A murder mystery felt like the perfect way to do that, giving players backstory on the Carlisle family as they uncovered clues and interrogated suspects inside the mansion.

It's clear how the Viking raids in Assassin's Creed Valhalla are supposed to work. Ubisoft's latest historical adventure has you playing as a brave Norse warrior rampaging across England with your fellow raiders, battling Saxon soldiers and ransacking their burning cities. That's not how I play. I discovered early on that, instead of approaching an enemy site in my longship, with all my skilled courageous troops, then engaging in open, bloody warfare, I had more success if I went ahead alone and hid in the bushes, picking the guards off one by one and quietly hiding their bodies. You can clear out a whole town without a scratch, and then your fearsome warriors can pop in at the end and help you open the treasure chests.

I've already talked at length about how the brilliant second mission alone, based on "Knives out" or Agatha Christie's "Poirot" murder mysteries, already justifies this game's existence. Chongqing is another highlight, a deliberate throwback to the old Hong Kong levels of the original PC release. It's a rain-drenched district that once again illustrates the kind of grand interconnectivity and neon sheen that "Cyberpunk" tried to achieve, and "Hitman" does effortlessly. Rain slithers off his leather-coated back as he waits outside his mark's building, assessing the place. In the meantime, he can open an umbrella and make small talk with a woman waiting for her girlfriend, just one of the series' many small but important storytelling flourishes to make each level feel more alive than you've seen in any action adventure.

The Dartmoor Estate level is so grand and well written, it's hard to see how the game's other levels in the final build will top it. But we can expect each one to be even bigger than the last. "Hitman" games are top of the industry when it comes to portraying parties and massive amounts of people across believable, everyday spaces. The last two titles took Agent 47 through NASCAR-like events on massive speedways, a fashion show in Paris, a civil revolution in Mumbai and even an idyllic American suburb, all crowded with people. The "Hitman" games come closest to achieving the grandeur of the dance party scenes in films like "John Wick" and "Collateral."