I know! It took me a while of clambering about to discover that you can, actually, explore more or less the whole ICA Facility during the lockdown.
I wish the guards were a bit less hostile to anyone not in their exact disguise, though. It’s as though everyone else teleported out instantaneously!
In all fairness, the gameplay is pretty clunky, especially the Freedom Fighters-like weapon accuracy and wonky cover system. I can understand that threw a lot of people off. But the story, location variety (in the first game), visual style (in the second), and especially the nature of the two protagonists outweigh the negatives for me. And as a huge Michael Mann fan, the clear Heat/Collateral inspiration absolutely made my day when I first played it (and both the Tokyo streets and nightclub shootouts are still among my favourites from any game).
I can understand your feeling about the size, though H3 maps (Romania aside of course) might be a little deceiving since they´re built more around verticality, whereas H2 missions were mostly flat and more expansive. I don´t really mind smaller maps (quite the contrary) as long as they deliver on the content (which for example Paris, Hokkaido, New York, or Haven most definitely do), and this is where I have a weird feeling about H3 maps. They´re beautiful, atmospheric, and meticulously designed, being an absolute joy to move around, but it´s like they´re lacking substance… More things to do and discover… Things like more fun/unique signature kills (something Chongqing/Hush really suffers from - there was an excellent opportunity to do a mission story involving the Heavenly Guard; Dubai on the other hand missed out massively by not including a helicopter explosion kill). Something both H2 and H1 had plenty of. Even the lore feels less fleshed out here… Mendoza is the only map that really delivers on both accounts. Then again, I haven´t played the H3 maps as much yet as the H1/2 ones, so my criticism might be unjust…
Either way, if they were to do at least one big(ger) map, Chongqing should´ve been it. I want a bonus mission for it focused on the street area, but at the same time am worried how feasible/good it may be given the lack of usable indoor areas (something which Sapienza, Marrakesh or Mumbai had plenty of).
Same. I´m still desperately hoping they will give us a proper snow mission in one form or another, because with another winter-themed unlock coming up in two days it´s basically trolling at this point 
(also, if they do make that map, I would welcome the winter gear from Siberia as an unlockable suit)
And Marrakesh 
I mean I was hoping Chongqing wouldn´t just be a somewhat rehash of Mumbai (which itself to me is a more polished version of Marrakesh), but I still wanted it to be a “proper” city level. Which it isn´t…
The problem for me is that those few buildings are basically also the/an ICA facility in one form or another. There are barely any civilian premises 
Well… That depends on how good the initial hotel map is, right? 
Well, the datacore kinda felt like New York (the task) and Haven (the concept). No argument with the lockdown though. The music alone makes me wanna actually bother with accessing it on my own.
The poor weapon accuracy is really bad in K&L2. You basically feel like you’re given a vague direction of where the bullets will go and nothing else. At least on PC this was the case, I can’t speak to console. The original had a bit of that issue, but it wasn’t as bad. The sticky cover was pretty clunky, but (again on PC) I found you didn’t really need to use cover, you could run and gun relatively fine.
I genuinely like the first half of the first game, when it is Michael Mann: The Game. The rest is pretty blah.
I think with FF, it wasn´t an issue on console because of auto-aim (aim assist, or whatever it´s called), but wasn´t properly modified for PC, so maybe KaL had the same issue. Can´t say as well, since I too play on PC.
Lol, true, sometimes that was even the better option
Yeah, the whole Venezuela finale suffers from some really bad AI. And I genuinely hate the Havana levels…
Would you really classify these maps as small? Like these are still like about as big as the average WoA map, just not as big as Miami, Mumbai and Santa Fortuna.
I thought Haven Island was solid to do in suit only in day time, let alone switching the map to night time haha
H2 wins the map size comparison. With 4 large maps (Miami, SF, Mumbai, Sgail) and a good use of them. H3 had large and medium maps, but with a waste of potential in them such as Chongqing and Dartmoor.
I don’t think walking a lot makes a map good but you do you. I love Miami and Mumbai but SF and Sgail were too big. Chongqing and Dartmoor I wish were a little bigger but Alexa’s so fantastic I don’t care and my problem with Chongqing is the lack of interesting ways to move the targets around other than that one way. Very much like Paris.
I’ve seen a lot of comments in this thread talk about altering maps such as Whittleton Creek… Is there any word on whether they will tweak ‘old’ maps in future DLC or would they be focused on altering and reworking the locations from H3? I could understand if any future DLC was H3-oriented as technically we’ve had our DLC for H1 & H2 already.
That said, an altered Whittleton Creek would be awesome. The feel of the area was slightly off, it could be reworked to have a more natural feel - people lazing around their homes, sleeping, eating, watching TV, showering, etc… Most of the homes had a fairly soulless empty feel the first time round.
I absolutely LOVED Chongqing, and would love to see a throwback to Lee Hong/Triad assassinations in DLC… I believe the map could be retweaked and repurposed many different ways.
The one thing I really don’t want is to only receive a bunch of escalations, etc. They can be fun but I have probably spent about 5 hours on them in total since Paris first dropped in 2016
They haven’t said anything and it hasn’t been a thing they’ve done in previous games (at least very major changes). So I wouldn’t get your hopes up
Escalations, ETs, and Featured Contracts seem to pave the way ahead for the foreseeable future
A few more open shops would’ve been nice. Then again, it’s nighttime and raining. But that’s one of the reasons why I’m hoping for a Bonus Episode during the day with more civilians in the streets and an open Arcade.
I like the night club level. But if every single Hitman game had a night club it would get stale, no matter how good each of these maps are. I mean all the hotels in the franchise are very similar because that’s the nature of hotels. I want to see some new exciting locations or at least locations we haven’t seen in a while.
A nightclub level has been done 4 times already. That’s equally as much as the hotel level.
Nightclubs:
Hotel:
Like I said before, they should try new concepts with the same purpose of the context. Maldives is a holiday map just like Bangkok but does this miles better. IOI would do a great job if they’d continue this way.
The 3:00 am setting is annoying in this regard… 
Hoping for that bonus mission as well, preferably with an entirely re-purposed Block.
With the hotel, I was mainly pointing out Bangkok´s flawed design. If it was better, I wouldn´t feel like having another hotel map in this trilogy. Luckily, as @Danger_dog_guy_7 mentions, Haven compensated for that (at least to an extent).
I´d even consider adding Blackwater Park to that list.
Black water park feels a bit like a hotel but that is mostly bc of how the lobby is set up with the reception/doorman. You don’t have a room to check into though and it’s a trespass zone from the start. The same can be said about death of Hannelore and Hospital Island. They are both trespass zones from the start, but once you get an appropriate costume they play a lot like a hotel level.
A hospital is basically a hotel where medial procedures happen 
Yeah, fair enough… Still prefer it as a “hotel” level over Terminus though.
You don´t have that in Terminus either, and the vast majority of it is a tresspass zone as well. Let´s just say Absolution doesn´t quite cut it in terms of hotel missions
They said DLC is coming but not new maps, only stuff that will remix current maps. This could just means a year if escalations, but a lot of us are hoping for a Patient Zero type thing. Maybe once there’s a bundle of “complete WoA Edition” or something.
Yes. As I said, I wouldnt count this against them if we had this one, big map to rival them all. Berlin is pretty big and dense, but still nowhere near as Mumbai or Sapienza. Im otherwise fine with small maps, I love Hokkaido, Dubai, hell even Hawkes Bay and the ICA Training missions.
And in addition, in Hitman 3 I often feel unnessesarily closed off. In Hitman 1 and 2, the maps have been build that it always felt like you could go anywhere you wanted to go, as if there arent any limits to where you are heading to. In Hitman 3, it more often than not feels… linear.
Thats a really good point you made there. But all the other points you make are definitely a plus for me too, I loved the levels, the protagonists, the story, I would even go as far as to say it was the best IOI ever did. The heist in LA, the tower attack in Tokyo, or the mission in the second game where they are running around naked all slit up by torture, it was so intense and different to everything Ive seen in a game before.
(DAMN you IOI for having it an open end at the second game!)
I cant add anymore to that, youre opinion is 1:1 what I feel towards the maps.
Noticeably Mumbai is just very busy with lots of NPC, and nooks and crannies everywhere. The average player gets disoriented and lost in all the crowds. So they just avoided that kind of approach in Hitman 3.
Apparently Hawkes Bay is the largest map, but doesn’t feel large. Hokkaido feels larger than Hawkes Bay but it is a much smaller map.
Santa Fortuna is much less vertical than most maps. Santa Fortuna could have used hills or a mountain between the town and cocaine fields to increase verticality – and this would have improved the map – although variety and contrast is always good between maps.
IOI appeared to perfect the smaller map plan in Hitman 2 DLC of The Bank and Haven Island and then implemented this approach for Hitman 3.
IOI admit that Whittleton Creek was one of the most rushed maps because of budget constraints after the Square Enix buyout.
- Hunter and Hunted
That may be mitpicking but Hunter and Hunted had a strip club which is different from a night club. At least it didn’t have that party feel of the other three missions.
Besides each of these three party levels felt different. The first one was a bondage part, the second one had the heaven and hell them and the third one was a rather realistic rave event. It also helps that each of them was in a rather unique location.
All the hotel levels so far - except Terminus – felt very similar. Because a hotel is a hotel. They all have a similar structure. It get’s really boring. So, I don’t need another hotel. Especially if there’s nothing special going on. Bangkok at least had the locked-down wing with the band. Remove that and it’s a worse version of Traditions of the Trade.