For me from the best to the worst :
-Mendoza
-Berlin
-Dartmoor
-Dubaï
-Chongqing
-Carpathians Mountains
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Dartmoor is my fav & Romania is my least fav
Everything else still kind of fighting it out in the middle
I would have to say the Argentina mission is my favorite map. I think I prefer it to Sapienza. But the atmosphere in the Berlin and Chongqing missions are incredible too. I’ve been obsessively playing the Berlin mission
At least almost everyone agrees that Romania is the worst map
Such a bad decision made by IOI
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Yeah, idk what IO was thinking, seriously. Why would anyone think it’s a good idea to have such map after so many maps being praised by just the opposite Romania does
I’d even say we deserve another map, but IO will never listen, and i don’t want to sound entitled, so idk
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The last map could’ve been fine, it is just too linear, long and homogenous. I am not saying the train idea is inherently bad, it’s just that the carriages are so narrow and I never got the sense that I could do anything Hitmany because of how cramped the whole thing was. More accident opportunities would’ve been good, and some civilians (like waiters for poison kills) might have saved this level from being as meh as it is. I never got the incentive to take my time working my through cool plans because there was only one objective, to keep moving forward. Kind of a bummer, however plot wise the map works, so in a future 20 mission marathon I am sure it will be more enjoyable.
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I bingeplayed the first 4 maps today at a mate. I turned all story missions and stuff off and just jumped into the HIII campaign. The maps all were great fun for a first playthrough with thorough exploration. On some, I wonder how much replay and contracts value they will have
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Berlin - definitely has the best vibes for me so far. Hunting the hunters while everyone parties around you, every identified operative feels like a success, especially when you hear them cursing over radio afterwards.
Lots of paths and lots of NPCs, lot going on in different areas -
Chongquing - The town felt a bit too much like Deus Ex maybe, but the atmosphere still was great. The ICA compound was like Gama 2.0, which is awesome
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Dartmoor - I love the mansion and the atmosphere. Going for all the clues and secret rooms once was very fun. I don’t see me playing detective again though, very roleplay focused. It was a nice surprise when the target handed me the file and then committed suicide.
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Dubai- to my surprise, I did not feel this map at all
Every room and every hallway seems 3 times too large for its own good. Might make sense from narrative, but from a gameplay perspective it feels very awkward to traverse those empty halls, e.g. the watery one to the golf green, the three consecutive entry halls…,
Mendoza - I only had a short look. The map looks beautiful.
After the atmosphere got darker and gritter with every map from Dartmoor onwards, it felt strangely out of place to be back at the high society events with Mendoza.
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- Dubai
- Mendoza
- Carpathian Mountains
- Dartmoor
- Berlin
- Chongqing
To be fair to Dartmoor I’ve only played it through Detective, didn’t really strike as fun as I initially thought it would.
Berlin though fun, was a bit of a mess - troublesome to navigate through with all those enemies.
Chongqing was a nightmare. I absolutely hated the exit-phase of the map.
For my top three on the other hand, I say “Bravo!” the maps are beautiful, somewhat challenging, they’re fun - and they neatly so fits the story, without feeling slightly cliché or misplaced.
The entire hacking objective is optional after the first run so luckily you never have to do it again!
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Marry me, please! 
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Berlin for basically everything, bar the diversity of targets. You’ve got 10 ICA agents on site and they’re all boring GI dudes? Come on! This is the series that Eve and Maynard John. Give us something a little more interesting.
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well it was probably the best map they could make with the budget. they actually thought about making the Romania asylum map, but they realized it would be too big for their budget
it would either be a Hawkes Bay sized map or a train map, and IMO i’d rather get the train map.
(this isnt saying Hawkes Bay is bad btw. i just would rather something completely new, like a moving map, than a linear asylum)
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I absolutely disagree. As a payoff to the trilogy, Romania was actually pretty fucking cool. There’s something incredibly badass about a pissed off Agent 47 systematically moving through train carriage after train carriage, slaughtering every last Providence operative in his way. Playing this map silently feels like a waste.
It’s a shame that people don’t get value out of something purely because it is more “linear” (which isn’t a dirty word by the way).
14 Likes
I’ve only played through each level once at the moment, but for me Berlin wins on atmosphere and level gimmick, Chongqing on looks, and Mendoza on my experience playing it.
This might be skewed though as I’m pretty sure I accidentally found a secret/obscure way to beat Mendoza? I got a scenario where one target killed the other and Diana was taken hostage - does that happen every time? I was playing on Master so maybe that’s the most obvious mission story, idk lol.
Not gonna lie I adore every level in Hitman 3, but with that said if I had to pick one it’d be Berlin:
The club’s being underground really disorients when I’m trying to work out what floor I’m on relative to the exterior (although I’m sure to get better as I replay the level.) That sense of not quite knowing where I am really adds to the claustrophobia. I haven’t done an extensive exploration of the outside area but I love how freeing it is and the access it grants you to not just one but both of the outlying areas.
Last but certainly not least the music: As good as the rest of Niels Bye Nielsen’s Hitman soundtracks are, the diegetic electronic music in Paris, Miami, and Berlin has always been the music that stuck with me after the fact. The moment I got to that first overlook I had to stop for a minute and just take everything in. Between the lighting, NPC animations and the music, there was so much to process I nearly lost the NPC that was trying to talk to me.
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OP, put a poll in your first post!
And Chongqing btw… so far. Though I haven’t actually played Mendoza properly
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- Chongqing
- Berlin (very close 2nd, almost tied for 1st)
- Mendoza
- Dartmoor
- Dubai
- Romania
Chongqing and Berlin are masterpieces, I would put them among Paris and Sapienza as best maps of the trilogy. Optional/flexibile objectives are a wonderful choice (glad I don’t have to exfiltrate ICA every single time), and the dark, shithole (I mean this as a compliment!!) atmosphere finally breaks the monotony of the past 6 years of level design. I didn’t feel like I was playing a level I already had played 1000x before.
Particularly Chongqing gives me fantastic Contracts Hong Kong vibes, and The Lee Hong Derivation is possibly my favorite escalation since The Kotti Paradigm and the GOTY escalations from 2016.
Absolutely marvelous!
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Having played every map, with 20 hours played in the game, i feel like this is my definitive top:
- Dartmoor
- Chongqing
- Dubai
- Berlin
These four are very tied, Dubai gets better the more i play it, but it’s the one i’ve played the most, so maybe with the rest it’s the same
Then
- Mendoza
- Romania
Maybe i’ll learn to love Mendoza with the time, but it feels out of place, somewhat shallow and i don’t see why IO couldn’t think of another kind of map, it’s a mixture of Sapienza and Santa Fortuna. But maybe i’ll learn to love it with the time. Another thing is that i’m argentinian and that place is the least argentinian thing i’ve ever seen (except the asado moment)
We have to appreciate IO thinking of another layout for maps. I was afraid they were going to go to the 3 targets in 3 different places (a thing repeated, ironically, 3 times in Hitman 2, Santa Fortuna, Mumbai and Haven Island) but they thought of other cool ideas.
I certainly think a Hitman 4 with the same formula would give a closure to every kind of map. But in the other side, it feels like they did everything they could. I hope they’re smart with “re-thinking” the series.
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I’ve only played Dubai and Dartmoor but I have to ask, why Dartmoor?
I did love it, don’t misread my question 
First, i love the atmosphere. Second, i wasn’t expecting much and the surprise made me love it more than i should. Third, i like the distinct characters, the different approaches the mansion has, the secret rooms, the detective story. Fourth… that ending, one of the few times this game really made me feel that the story was something more than just the over-the-top thriller it is. It sets up the feeling of both Berlin and Chongqing.
That’s also (maybe) the answer to why i don’t understand the placement of Mendoza in the game.
3 Likes