All the targets are dead, storywise, but game mechanics-wise IOI is simply choosing to not remove them from the maps while playing them in Freelancer. Either it’s too much trouble or it causes issues that they don’t want to deal with it, so either way, the targets still being there is a game mechanics thing, not a story thing. We ignore their presence story-wise, and deal with the fact that we will have to see them even though they’re supposed to be dead at this point in the timeline.
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Well the presence of campaign targets in Freelancer I suppose we could say is non-canon.
The Safehouse is canon as it’s post H3 showing what 47 and Diana have been up to, like you’ve already pointed out.
Could it be the new syndicate targets in Freelancer is who Diana is referring to at the end of H3’s epilogue when she says nobody is untouchable? there’s all sorts of theories we could put to it.
For me, the safehouse is canon, maybe it always was since Hitman 2016 (I wish we had it back than).
The rest, well, I don’t really care. I see it more like @Norseman It’s a fun game mode and a test to see what’s possible in some future games. But I don’t think that anything that happens in Freelancer will refer to 1. the things that happend in the trilogy or 2. to things that will happen in the future.
So yes, it could be set after Hitman 3, or at any other time during the events before, during or after the trilogy 
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If the “cannoness” of freelancer is important to you then by all means, keep getting on with your bad self. The main targets being on the map certainly makes it confusing and the hitman franchise plays so fast and loose with the lore anyway that I’m going with the “who gives a damn” approach. If some later development makes it clear it is, or isn’t, or tells us when it happened, great! If not I’m just gonna enjoy the mode for what it is and pray to St Julian that the final version of free lancer is half as cool as everyone is saying the test is.
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Personally, I think the Freelancer hits are just a way of 47 filling in his time before the next big game. The Safehouse is clearly where 47 has been hiding out since the conclusion of Hitman 3.
I think people are just genuinely curious as to where it sits within the Hitman timeline? The Safehouse setting is clearly post H3, but some of the discussion has been about the hits as well.
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“I need to find Diana soon. Maybe she has the spare keys to the other parts of my safehouse?”
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Haha she probably has, she has the answers to everything 
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With the removal of ICA references from the promotional material, and presumably the mode itself, the canonicity of Freelancer, and it’s place being after the ending of H3, has become that much clearer.
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Yeah definitely, 100% 
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s one example of the ICA references removed.
Photo from the original Freelancer (How to Play) trailer stating syndicates have ICA approval to be eliminated. Also, this was used in the Closed Technical Test gameplay.
Photo from recent Freelancer launch trailer. All references of the ICA removed, which fits everything together that Freelancer is set after H3.
Not sure if anyone knows anymore gameplay elements of Freelancer which had previous mentions of the ICA, but have now been removed?
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I wonder if the Triangle with the letters I C A and skull in the middle will also… go away?
Edit: For reference (obviously), and I know everyone knows what I’m talking about… But here it is for reference and nuance/specificity.
So wait a minute… Does the one in the game have I O I too? Or I C A ? 
Edit2: It’s I O I. 
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The letters aren’t there anymore on the ones that stay, and other ICA references appear to have been removed altogether.
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The Safehouse is canon but the rest is as canon as Ghost mode, contracts mode or elusive targets. It is an alternate reality from the WOA.
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The safehouse is canon, and 47 does engage in taking on the contracts of these syndicates. The actual playthroughs, however, being that each one is unique to each player, are indeed the same type of quasi-canon that you described.
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I believe the syndicate contracts are very much like Elusive targets where they are indeed canon, however, they just didn’t take place in the exact location where we play the mission. For example, Elusive targets are canon as proved in the H3 campaign before 47 exposed the ICA date core, however, the exact location where dozens of them were eliminated say won’t all have taken place in Paris, Marrakesh or say Dartmoor for example.
I personally believe these syndicate contracts are just minor clean up jobs 47 and Diana took up at the start of their Freelance careers.
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Totally off-topic, but when I see the title of this topic I can’t help but to think of an old arcade game…
Cannon Dancer.
Only the 2016 ones (and Faba); the rest are either ambiguous or simply cannot happen (such as the ones on Sgail; secret island and all that).
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Having them show up in the ICA data core proves they are canon, although, their exact place in the timeline and location of death is kind of ambiguous.
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Not necessarily; IOI needed faces to fill that scene with as it was zipping by, without resorting to the older games and their older graphics in the images of the targets. Their presence there makes them filler material to get the point across that 47’s killed a lot of people in the last 20 years, and since you can’t really make out most of the faces unless you slow it down to individual frames, we’re not really meant to see them; it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re canon. Although, the H1 ETs would fit into canon easier than any of the H2 and H3 ETs, except perhaps the Revolutionary, the Liability, and the Rage.
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We had this before somewhere and as far as I remember the idea was: ETs take place “during some fashion show” or “in some Italian town” but not the same places from the main game. But why are the main targets still there? Because, ignore them, they are someone else.
Not perfect of course, but from a realistic game design standpoint it’s a good way for your head canon
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At least some of the ET’s were canonically killed by 47. In The Farewell Diana confirms to Tamara that 47 killed Faba (The Undying) and Ekwensi (The Ex-Dictator).
Now there’s the possibly of Diana lying but with the exception of the above-mentioned ETs and Kovac (leader of the Yardbirds) we know everyone she claimed was killed by 47 was indeed killed by him. She also said that Kamarov and Edith van Orten weren’t killed by 47 which is true, too. The former was killed by Grey to gain the IAGO file from Novikov while the later was killed by Eric Soders.
Therefore, we can be reasonably certain that at least two ETs are canon. Albeit the hits most likely happened before the WoA trilogy and probably even at another location.
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