IO Interactive’s Tore Blystad has said Hitman Absolution won’t exactly be easier than its precursors, but it will be more flexible, and take a different approach to teaching the player.

“Hitman has historically been a very hard game, and it still is in many ways, but we also focussed on … easing the player into the game,” the game’s director told games.on.net.

“Making him understand the game and making him form choices, rather than just killing him off and having him restart.”

IO has also made changes to the game’s combat, introducing a dynamic AI which means players who “wanna play Rambo, now they can play Rambo better than ever before”.

Thankfully for those purists shocked at the idea of blasting through a Hitman game, all the old tricks are back, along with some new ones.

“If you wanna play stealthy, then we also have a lot more depth than we ever had before in the stealth gameplay,” Blystad explained.

Hitman: Absolution is coming to PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012.