So, I'm like a lot of people as in when i play stealth games, they often devolve into saving and reloading when things go awry, as the desire to remain uncompromised or even undetected entirely (and the resultant satisfaction of figuring the puzzle of where to go, when, to avoid enemies) is very nice.

It took Hitman's Freelancer Mode to remind me that Hitman isn't a stealth game; its an imsim puzzle game. By forcing you to play through your mistakes unless you do the "oops, an accident" method of alt-f4ing and making the game kindly assume a crash and allowing you to restart, I actually learned a lot of little things that made me believe HItman's stealth, while deep, is intentionally very forgiving and not meant to be a major hindrance to the more immersive sim elements.

Lets start with stuff you may already know but maybe not:

1. Compromised DOES NOT mean you're screwed. Look through 47's detective vision: any orange highlights are people who know what you look like in that outfit. You have two options: A, take them out before they can tell others what you look like; it actually takes a while for that to happen, as guards have to actually call in your appearance, and civilians have to find a guard to tell. Both can relay that information to those around them. B, you can also always just find another type of disguise but this might restrict your movements more.
   
2. Combat DOES NOT mean you're screwed. it DOES mean you'll have to wait a while AND find a new disguise. but all you have to do run away from people, round a corner or two and enter a hiding place and wait. Once again, only the orange guys know who you are until you get a new disguise and once everyone has calmed down, it becomes pretty much like normal.

General
-Distractions are amazing. They may gain the attention of a group, but only one will investigate. throw an object or shoot a wall to break an eyeline, lure someone for a disguise or to get a guard away from a door,

-You can often lure someone into another room, or a trap.

-moving a wet floor sign will cause a slip. Has been strategic in the past.

-I believe shooting a planted car battery causes an electric burst (citation needed)

-alt-f4 is the shortcut to instantly close the game. Annoying but useful for a lot of reasons, you will spawn in the safehouse with your inventory and objectives set, but not the mission, giving you a chance to change your mind about items to bring. I try not to use it for second chances unless i make a really stupid mistake, but you can.

-the alt f4 trick also rerolls store items, but be wary of the hassle.

-i say it elsewhere in the guide, but COOKS/SERVERS CAN OPENLY POISON FOOD. this is the biggest one for me, but remember the abilities of each disguise. Being able to openly carry weapons legally is nice for reducing the list of worries, almost every illegal action can be made legal with the right outfit (doors can be opened, and maintenance workers can often screw with machinery and other objects). Hokkaido makes this very on the nose, with each outfit literally BEING the key to open doors, including patient rooms.

-Doors can be forced open by certain silenced weapons (obviously attracting attention but if necessary). ASFAIK, only pistols are unable to break the locks of doors while shotguns are used IRL for that stuff so they are a guarantee.

-Shooting through thin walls with even pistols has saved me a lot of trouble. the game has deep and pretty logical penetration mechanics; pistols will often go through paper-thin walls (or in Hokkaido, literal paper walls) or sometimes doors, while basically any bigger caliber will do much more.

-most buildings can be scaled on the outside, often putting you in precarious stealth positions, but also often allowing for suit-only objectives (as long as you remain uncompromised, the old "no one will find bodies if no ones awake to find bodies" works) but speaking of.

-i take VERY few prestige objectives seriously. its worth just picking one almost always for option, but understand the RNG will almost always screw you over and place targets in poor locations or occasionally pick an NPC that literally does nothing.

-Leaders will ALWAYS interact with their traits, and often create the opportunity--watching in detective mode will literally highlight the exact moment a random drink or food becomes a poison opportunity

-Sometimes, you just get screwed by the spawn of a Target in a crowd (and they never leave Line Of Sight with others). This is why i take a silent pistol on EVERY mission (as long as i have a backup). you may have to forsake some optional objectives, but you can get somewhere no one sees YOU and take the shot.

-Crime Noticed doesnt mean much because it doesn't mean "They saw YOU commit a crime", it means "They saw A CRIME HAPPEN." if they see your target get shot, hit with an object, whatever, they "noticed" it. You get compromised IF they saw you do it or saw you near the scene afterward, but you can always get to where no one sees you and commit a crime on a target and get away without being compromised (but you will lose any "Silent Assassin" objectives since the body was found). All the crowded maps are a bit better because of this (Marrakesh, Whittleton Creek, Miami, China, etc)

-Seriously, ALWAYS have at least 1 backup plan from the safehouse--if Plan A is to do like a silent melee kill on a target with no one seeing you hide the body, Plan B should be a silent pistol and a quick escape. Understand the game itself will often screw you out of objectives, not because of bugs, but because you have no full understanding of any target before the mission is actually generated and the generation can and will usually throw a wrench in the works in your ability to do any optional objective. you are also full beholden to whats available on each level and where so be aware of the risks involved but take what you need.

-Cant save any found/crafted weapons HOWEVER, can save items run through the syringe maker in medical room in the basement of your house, including crafted vials. Fish and mushroom poison CAN be saved IF you distill it into a syringe (briefcase slots will not be highlighted but are still usable)

-Pills can also be turned to syringes at the safehouse (eventually).

-Slip and Fall traps are not crimes and therefore don't make being near the body a crime, so you can usually get a courier's reward without attracting attention.

i jumped into Freelancer without a great knowledge of the newer levels in WOA, but thanks to a lot of items just not being where they usually are, its not the worst. However, you really need a silenced gun and/or a rare knife.

to get a silent pistol and rare melee:
-do a mission on the Isle of Sgaol. 47 in a regular suit can make his way to a shovel pretty easily. work your way through and up the public part of the party to the old tree and one is behind the tree--work your way back through the party to the long tunnel between the bar area and the outdoor speech amphitheater (the hallway with a door you have to knock on). Go behind the curtains and enter the VIP party, but go through the first door to the right (kinda blends in with the wall) and down the ladder to the sewer, where one server is on the phone. knock her out and by her is a muddy wet area you can dig for a reliable silenced Hackl pistol.
-if you can access the helipad area, the warehouse there contains a bunch of crates you can break open with a crowbar and the right disguise. in them are a couple of good knives.
-theres a sabre you can shoot off the wall in the constant's building

SMG and Assault Rifle
-do a mission on Dubai, on the same floor as the server room, the maintenance workers, and the penthouse concierge is a security office with a sleeping guard and a safe containing a penthouse keycard. Just outside is a guard on his phone (who will blurt the safe code). knock out or kill the sleeping guard for a silenced one handed SMG and the guard on the phone carries a silenced AK.

-rare melees are actually pretty easy to find on almost every level, provided you look in less trafficked areas, or in heavily guarded areas.

-when opening crates, obviously prioritize stuff you can take back home (stuff with a rarity tag, from common to legendary). Explosives are WAY too risky unless you can remote detonate. Most mines and ♥♥♥♥ are also obvious and will be picked up by NPCs. Prioritize items that give you access, lockpicks are basically the best, but a crowbar is better than poison any day.

-dont bother buying Freelancer tools (except lockpicks or a crowbar). they are often the cheapest stuff you can get for a reason, you can probably just explore the level and either find it, or find a crate with it inside. Crowbars you find in the level tend to be rusted and one-use. Rusty nails are harder to find but are one use lockpicks.

-save for useful weapons; it can become really tempting to buy a new weapon to just fill out your wall, or buy something like a screwdriver to guarantee you're ability to set traps, but again, Freelancer tools are gone with any real failure and having a selection of actually useful weapons will reduce stress; the more silenced pistols you have, the less you will worry about actually losing one.

-I don't exactly when it does this, but when you start, opening level crates will generally net you either some money or a selection of melee, explosives, or poisons. At some point (i believe its related to beating a campaign), crates will start offering a single firearm to take--two handers will be visibly equipped so be careful. Once you start filling out your weapon wall, crates will start adding to it. However, when buying weapons, two-handed weapons are automatically given to you in a briefcase, meaning you can carry it around the level (or plant it somewhere for a guard to take to a security room for later). Around each level are a few empty briefcases that also allow you to conceal weapons or tools like jerry cans that otherwise take a hand to carry. You can leave a level with both hands full and you'll keep everything.

-Remember to explore your safehouse as you unlock it, there are a variety of useful stuff laying around--a banana from your kitchen will let you do slip and fall objectives, a car battery from the garage can be an electrocution trap, various knives and pointy stuff is around, as well as blunt weapons, and you can usually find a rusty nail on the pathway to the helipad for a free lockpick.

-Once you have the lake, 47 can fish, either getting him a blunt fish weapon, fishing line garrote or maybe he can catch something more poisonous, allowing you make your own sedative. Upon unlocking the shed, 47 can also make lethal poison with a chemistry set and a nearby mushroom.

-Basically, if you ever need to do a strangle objective, poison objective, knife, non-lethal, trap, etc and the item rarity doesn't matter, once you have the safehouse mostly unlocked, all your tools are there for free.

-There are no limits to equipment you can bring back so stuff your pockets with anything, the only stuff that disappears are the non-rare items like basic tools and melee items you can reasonably find in any level.

-money becomes less and less important as you go on but victory is "forever"--focus on actually winning first, side objectives are a convenience for more money, not something to strive toward. in the best of cases, fulfilling a side objective is like 5 more minutes of planning for pretty small reward, at worst, it has the potential to screw over hours of gameplay for a tiny reward. You will always get more money by just doing it than really risking more. The early game might seem less satisfying but the later game will be less frustrating.

-Try and pick levels you know well for Leader missions. they will require you to be able to get around easier.

-Assassins have a silent pistol, if you can figure out who they are and take them out. They will always be following a target (not THE target, but one of them) and will have a bit of an extra highlight in detective vision. From this, you can pretty much guess and get it right and you'll get a nice silent HWK21 out of it.

-when given an explosive objective (kill with explosives), a way to maintain stealth is by using the breaching charge--put it in a toilet and use emetic poison to get your target to vomit, and then trigger it. The breaching charge is the quietest explosive and bathrooms typically have an easy spot to store the body in.

-collect redundant weapon types to make losing a good less annoying.

-Collectors Weapons aren't the most useful, be wary. Their descriptions say they are persistent across campaigns, which IS true--with the major caveat of they are STILL lost on death if you were carrying them. if you fail a campaign by leaving a mission before finishing it, they are safe as they are on your wall rather than in the Freelancer boxes

-On death, you will always find roughly 1000-1500 Merces in front of your bed--if you died with only ~3k, you can essentially recoup your loss.

-at some point, you'll unlock the vault, which will allow you to test your luck on the stock market, getting you either lots of Merces or losing an amount whenever you interact with it.

fill up your freelancer box when you shop, each item is pretty cheap and it looks cool

this is where i lay out a few strats per level and also highlight nice things to take home.

NEW YORK
-It's rather easy to rob the bank in New York and for doing so, you'll get roughly 5k-15k merces.

1. Get good security disguise (can go for the guard in the first floor bathroom if you start before the frisk area)-+
   
2. Get vault key--either in the third floor security room, or in the basement security room near the vault. Will be easiest to pacify any guards who will potentially see you.
   
3. You can either rob it outright and kill guards who respond (i do this when i have an optional "kill guards with smg" or "assault rifle" obj) or disable the security and do it quietly. Either way, as long as you remain pretty much uncompromised, the rest of the level plays like normal
   
4. Remember to get master security key as well and rob the safety deposit boxes. Grab the escape truck key from the guards chair in one of the box rooms for an extra easy way out.

I do this almost every time to get money and it usually gets you enough to buy another objective weapon from the vendor--be wary that if you did already own whatever weapon you needed and you didnt bring it along, the vendor only sells stuff you don't have so if you needed a baseball bat, and already had one, you'd only get the collectors version or whatever. Apparently, i havent done it yet, but if you rob the vault as disguised as the bank robbers, following their route and taking all the gold bars, you also get a gold shotgun.

DUBAI
-Getting a high level disguise is very easy from basically any spawn. (Non Behind the scenes spawn) Go to the bar near the exhibit, from there you can enter the restricted areas, dodge a few people (often going right past the weapons dealer so bear them in mind as well) and climb to the security checkpoint below the penthouse. take either the guard on a call or the one inside sleeping for a disguise, and both carry silent weapons (an AR and machine pistol). When you spawn behind the scenes head for the same room, as you are usually real close.

COLORADO
-your most sniper friendly level, with most people being out in the open and a good vantage point at the water tower, however, be wary you're also very exposed. dealing with the five guys nearby will help A LOT.

CHINA
The Secret Lab code is spoken aloud by a woman trying to remember it in front of the door. It also works for the apartment across the plaza

WHITTLETON CREAK
-basically a weapon treasure trove. most houses are full of gear to take home.
1. Various poisons in the house with the drug lab in the basement (pills).
2. the Raincoat Guard base (house nearest the south plaza) houses an armory on the second floor (a Dak X2 and a few non standard rifles)
3. some guards here are equipped with a silenced two hand SMG as well.
-the suspicious cupcake cook disquise (pink hat and apron) can openly poison stuff at the backyard party

-Marrakesh and Mumbai are the biggest risks, i frankly never take missions in those levels because they likely put targets in the middle of a crowd and force finding a good sniping spot, or otherwise just being a crazed gunman. Isle of Sgail also presents this risk. My best advice is hope the side objectives are sniper related and bring one, preferably silenced.

-the English Manor level is just fantastic.

-Sapienza, Hokkaido, and Paris are my favorite leader levels for a very easy reason; i replayed those 3 levels a billion times when i first played Hitman 2016 on PS4. your favorite campaign levels, the ones you know like the back of your hand will ALWAYS be preferable for leaders, as i mentioned you NEED to be able to move around and follow targets, and execute plans.

Dubai: Black Fatigues/Beret Guard (Penthouse Security)

New York: High Level Security (Black Suits w/ Earpieces), Teller's Suit (approach the teller and get him to escort you to private room), IT guys

Ambrose: Militia (Still kinda hard with a fair amount of lookouts, but enter the caves (avoiding the camera and knock out the guard leaning on the crate after the other guy moves, hide him in the crate)

Sapienza: Caruso's Security/Staff (any guard at his house), Cave Security (for certain targets), Secret Watch Detail (The black suited guards across the plaza from Caruso's Mansion in the Tower)

Paris: Stair Security (dark suit guards by the stairs, lure one away and stuff him in a closet), Helmut Kreuger (the model that looks like 47)

Colorado: The Pointman, House Guards, situational by area.

Hokkaido: Situational. Certain patients at times are really useful, Basic Guard for the more public areas, Elite Guard (Suits) for the doctor/research areas. The Elites are also Yamazaki Guards and can enter her room, and the Head Doctor has free range over the place.

China: Street Guards, Roof Guard (mostly interchangeable), Secret Lab Suited Guards

Columbia: Mansion Security, Rain Coat Guards.

-these are not very easy missions, as they have extra lookouts who will just see through any disguise, and when alerted, assassins that follow targets will kill you almost instantly. If you're like me and not very good at this game, you need to do your best to set up your leader missions in levels you know well and make sure they aren't alerted--later syndicates will start with alerted territory and you should do those first.

-you will need to be able to move freely in these levels so knowing their layouts and best outfits is key.

• Remember, wait staff or chefs/cooks can publicly poison any food/drink! Otherwise, the Seiker emetic dart gun is literally your best friend on more public levels
  
• Suspected Targets will scatter at basically the first sign of trouble so you really need to be able to avoid combat. Usually a found body is no big deal but open combat will always end in your targets running to the nearest exit (on some levels, you can pick em off one by one on a sniper perch or something, but usually its a fail)
  
• I heavily recommend taking basically any silent weapon or melee, especially a pistol, as sometimes the game will absolutely screw you over with a bad spawn and you'll need to be able to take care of the problem before it escalates.

-Each Leader mission is like that one Dishonored level in the Boyle Manor where you had to find out which sister was your target, only you don't have to search the level for clues--you already have them, you just need to align them with the right person. Tells aren't important until Difficulty 2, as D1 Leader missions will never have two targets that fully match the physical appearance. The only one that kinda screws you over is a tattoo, because its often really hard to make out and very suspicious to examine them from every angle in the wrong area, or clothing specifically covers the tat.

-Once you hit D2 and on, start by going to any target you can get to and eliminate any who don't match physical description. Follow those who do and if they do any tell that isn't your target's, you can drop them too, as only one character will match all the clues.

-at the hardest level, you will also need to factor in their agenda, what they are on the level to do. All the suspects at any difficulty will sporadically meet and exchange casual words if they are in a position to do so, and each suspect has their own business to attend to with another suspect. Your target might be doing a business meeting, that means that at some point, they will meet with another suspect and physically shake hands after a dialogue.

• Business Meeting = Target and suspect will handshake
  
• Secret Meeting = Coded dialogue (ie, like code phrases that are just barely different from normal conversation)
  
• Handover Meeting = Target and suspect will exchange a package.

-a slightly riskier method of taking on your target involves something of a brute force approach. Pacify or eliminate a suspect quietly and--provided they weren't your target--you can pick up their phone and see when that suspect's agenda was. If it matches your target, you can set up a discreet location to call them from and arrange a meet with your target and take care of the mess. If the phone's agenda doesn't match, you can still opt to call the other suspect and pacify them and their assassin for one less purple target and a silent pistol.

You can't store anything found/fished/crafted here, so only make what you need.

Always grab the old nail!

KITCHEN

• Banana - In the fruit bowl. Use for Trap challenges by discreetly learning the Target's path over the course of the level, and place somewhere along. Very easy, but remember to actually "place" the item, (my key for that is Q), which turns the banana into a peel, otherwise it will remain a regular unsuspicious banana.
  
• Wine Bottle - On the table.
  
• Fire Poker - next to the fire place.

GARAGE

• Wrench - In a box by the bay doors. Use for melee challenges and in level puzzles. Quite Useful
  
• Car Battery - Shelf where the mop is. Trap Challenges for electrocution, can be placed wherever puddles are. Situational.

GYM

• Dumbbell - Melee.
  
• Baseball - Thrown Non-lethal. Surprisingly useful for pacify challenges..

OFFICE

• Letter Opener - Lethal/Blade/Thrown Melee. Very Useful.

BEDROOM/BATHROOM

• Soap on the Bathtub. Never tried (potentially a slip trap like a banana). If so, useful.

OUTSIDE

• Grape Knife - On the dartboard outside the shed.
  
• Old Rusty Nail. Along the path from the shed to the helipad. Single-Use Lockpick. (INCREDIBLY) Useful. (Use detective vision to find)
  
• Poison Mushroom - Either by a tree in front of the shed or along the path to the helipad (use detective vision to find). Use with Chemistry Set in the shed at higher levels to make lethal poison vial. Pretty Useful but unlocked too late. Can't Store
  
• Coin - by the helicopter somewhere, usually I find it on a stump by the chopper (use vision mode to see it easier). distraction.
  
• Fishing Rewards: Driftwood Log (non-lethal melee), Fishing Line (Fiberwire melee, very useful), Jarl's Pirate Saber (Sword Melee, Fun but not very useful), Starfish (Thrown Lethal), Rusty Crowbar (lockpick melee), or Fish (Can be used as non-lethal melee for the memes. Get a knife and bring it to the cutting board in the kitchen for free sedative poison vial-can't store it)
  
• Seashell - near the dock along the edge of the water
  
• On the roof is a Golf Club for non lethal melee.

Basement/Freelancer Hideout

• Stock Market in the vault, random merces rewards/losses
  
• Upgraded Medical room allows for putting the poisons you craft at home into syringes. Also in the Medical room are a stethoscope (fiberwire) and a scalpel

We all get bored of games in their vanilla state from time to time, and so over time, i have added a few mods that i think are cool, add some horizontal gameplay options, etc. I still have not tried mods like Rogueless Freelancer (and won't for this guide beyond maybe just trying it out--most of that mod would make the guide moot) but there are many that add depth and further your options in fun, if maybe overpowered ways. There are also MANY that add cosmetics, reskin 47 into different funny characters, etc.

Most of these are going to be even easier to install than normal thanks to Simple Mod Framework, which will automatically uncompress the mod zip files and then deploy them into the game, with just as simple uninstallation. All of them (so far) work without any false servers.

-Impact Poison Vials (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/1099)
Makes it so that poison vials break when dropped, releasing an invisible cloud of that poison in a VERY small radius. This is useful for dropping along an npc's path without alerting anyone, acting the same as if you poisoned a food item or drink. The cheesy thing this lets you do is just drop poison at peoples feet, not counting as a crime and causing the desired effect, HOWEVER, there is an even more broken option that makes the vials reusable. The first one is fun but makes the game too easy to recommend the second.

-Versatile Syringes (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/369)
Poison food and drink with syringes just like in Hitman Blood Money. Paired with Impact poisons, makes poison-only loadouts viable, pretty easy, and fun.

-Open Doors With Pistols (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/535)
Doors can now be shot open with the weaker silent pistols without mud shots. The games usual mechanics for this are just obtuse and a bit frustrating, with only full auto pistols and bigger guns shooting open doors. Still balanced by the fact you shot a gun and people may investigate while lockpicks/old nail/hack tools are quieter and less SUS, but makes repeated visits to some levels a lot less frustrating. Remember that doors opened this way cannot be shut again as well.

-Lockable Doors (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/699)
You'll never guess what this does! Lets you lock doors. Useful for controlling the flow of guards on a map for a while, like isolating you and a target for enough time to cover the mess you make. Guards can still break down doors given the time and in certain alert states this will happen faster, but its a feature that feels natural to the gameplay, and isn't THAT useful.

-Pickpocket and Plant Items (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/1087)
Kinda feels like a mechanic that should've been added by H2 or H3. Lets you pick keys and cards, and occasionally quest items off the NPCs that carry them without forcing them to drop it. Also lets you plant certain items on them, so if you know the NPCs and where they go, you can use them to smuggle items past frisk points or to your target for you. not THAT useful, but very cool.

-Hackable Everything (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/408)
Only slightly recommend as it seems to break instinct mode in most cases, but lets you use the camera to do a lot more than normal, a la Watch_Dogs. send messages to distract NPCs, turn off cameras and recorders, hack NFC wall panels like in Hokkaido or keycard readers to increase access, trigger distractions from a distance, etc. a bit annoying, as hacking just automactically happens when looking at an NPC, often resulting in Showdown suspects getting distracted by their phones while im trying to see if they are the right look.

-Freelancer Variations (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/437)
Must have if you're bored of the normal levels--adds basically all the day/night and setpiece variations of all the maps as well as other setpiece maps into freelancer, so the film set or meth lab in Sapienza, the Banker's casino in Paris, the Train mission in Romania, etc. the BIG caveat is that its not as easy to install thanks to its prerequisites (use the in-development R2 version of the SDK Mod Loader). somewhat requires configuration, but a webtool with toggles is available to create and download the file you want. is so far the only one that NEEDS the SDK Mod Loader. Kinda breaks the map, with some of the destinations being unlabeled and a guess as to where you're going to go (if you have a fix, by all means tell me).

-Black Market Suppliers (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/883)
Adds various Black Market Shops to the safehouse, balanced by a prestige level system. Not fully tested, but the description implies you can by disguises to start levels with, so that could be very cool.

-Briefcase Carousel (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/1032)
The stash of cases in your closet is no longer cosmetic! Choose briefcases to bring into the mission with a pretty good variety of styles and colors. not fully tested.

-No Penalty for Non-Target Kills (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/711)
Removes the merces penalty for killing non targets. Civilians/actual innocents cost 50, while Non--Target Showdown Suspects cost 1000s. Removes main penalty for the later game brute forcing/guesswork. Not Essential if you enjoy the process of staking out your targets and knocking out the potential ones, but i think in the last stage of a campaign the time that can take is not worthwhile.

-Pure Instinct (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/299)
Near fully configurable Instinct mode. Choose distinct colors for almost any type of NPC and thing that CAN be highlighted in instinct as well as distance, and a bunch of other crap. Essential for my color blind friends, and for quicker data collection, also can just be a novel refresh of the look.

-Customballer Gunsmith (https://www.nexusmods.com/hitman3/mods/1103)
least essential for most but is cool nonetheless--lets you replace an ICA19/Baller pistol with one of your customization, including slide lengths and colors, attachments, a few different silencer options, in some cases even the sound it'll make when fired. Itself is an application that converts your gun choices into a mod that can be installed with the Framework.