I was considering placing Hokkaido next to Berlin, so the Erich Soders betrayal and the ICA hunting 47 were linked. But I decided to keep it simple and chronological, just basically a list of my favourite mixing of maps from the trilogy
If I was to propose a more story focused listing of maps it would be
Sapienza - your first, seemily innocent, hit
Miami - ex Providence members which puts you onto the trail of them
Isle of Sgail - you infiltrate the huge Providence event
Berlin - the ICA has turned on you?
Hokkaido - you find out Director Soders defected to Providence
Mendoza - you take out the new Constant and all the heralds, effectively crippling and ending Providence
Then New York and Dartmoor are cleaning up Providence loose ends
I changed the order, now it’s the third mission so it makes more sense in the narrative.
It’s probably my favourite mission in the entire trilogy. Some people may dislike it because it’s big, difficult to navigate or because of the whole Maelstrom side objective.
But every map is hard to navigate until you master it as you play it. I began disliking Mumbai for the same reason.
The Maelstrom is also easier to identify than you may think due to his scars, his route and the fact that he is an enforcer on Crow territory.
The main mission is full of amazing kills, the Kashmirian being arguably the best and most complex mission story in the trilogy.
Other complaints I hear with this map is how the targets are spread out. But it isn’t really an issue considering you can make one target meet with either of the other 2. It’s amazing target manipulation.
The soundtrack is also very good. Rangan Tower and Vanya’s trainyard having amazing tracks, both of these locations being very fun to infiltrate too. Rangan Tower was pretty much an early taste of Dubai with its focus on verticality. While the trainyard felt like a traditional hitman sandbox location which isn’t bad.
I guess the only thing I dislike about this mission is the Crow hideout. It doesn’t play a big part in the mission except for the Kashmirian opportunity which is a bit of a shame.
Diving more into the story of the map, it’s also very interesting and well written. Dawood being one of the most hateable targets in the trilogy due to his massive ego (also a meme). Vanya, who somehow became queen of the Mumbai slums, being ruthless and narcissistic. While Wazir Kale is more of a calm person in contrast to the other targets despite sharing the same past.
I agree with a lot of what you say. I felt the same & now feel the same. I think it was the Cashmerian opportunity that turned me round & Dawood too. It has a great sense of place.
The ones that have to be in are Sapienza, Hokkaido, Miami, Mumbai, Berlin and Mendoza. Maybe Hokkaido and Dubai could be put in as DLC and their plots could be reworked so they don’t relate to the narrative. This is obviously hypothetical, they wouldn’t do something that drastic.
For the escalations, especially the ones that are original like for example the one that requires to steal objects in Whittleton Creek. The Escalations that just add one target at each level are quite useless to me as it looks like a contract created by other players.
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