Is this Absolution?

Before the World of Assassination trilogy, I think the tone was often very grim and mocking even on the player’s side, eg “welp, gotta murder for a paycheck, that’s how the world is”

For the newer trilogy, there’s still a lot of grim humor, but it’s usually on the part of targets. They’re painted as VERY savage billionaires deserving everything coming their way, and the guards around them less so.

You also get far more tools to be nonlethal, to the point any kind of gunfire is heavily punished and no speedruns really acknowledge runs where you kill non-targets.

I did kind of have that feel that previous games were too grim about a lot of things; ended up enjoying World of Assassination quite a bit more.