Beef-up Hitman's Freelancer mode with this variant map mod

Agent 47 walks in profile, holding a pistol and looking away from the camera towards sunlit mountains in the background.
(Image credit: IO Interactive)

Hitman's new roguelike freelancer mode is pretty excellent, giving you the opportunity to hunt Agent 47's criminal quarry across almost all of the maps from the first, second, and third games. But what if that's not enough? What if you want to play in the additional variants of those maps—like Sapienza's bonus nighttime mission—rather than their standard iterations? Well, then you'll just have to install Hitman's Freelancer Variations mod.

Spotted by Dominic Tarason, the Freelancer Variations mod beefs up Hitman's new mode by chucking each possible destination's alternative versions into the mix of potential levels. You can now freelance across the Hokkaido Snow Festival, Dartmoor Garden Show, and pretty much every other map variant you can think of, rather than being stuck with the default mode. It even adds "alternate times of day" for maps "where no bonus missions existed".

It's not just a change in lighting, either. The uploader, Chucky, says they tried to "bundle in at least one ET/Special Assignment" on top of each new variant. They've also slipped in "little bonuses" and Easter eggs into the added stages, promising a bigger variety of NPCs and "some unexpected cameos" in the new levels.

The Freelancer Variations mod requires Hitman's Simple Mod Framework in order to function correctly, which is (true to the name) pretty easy to install: You just download and activate an executable. You'll also need to download OrfeasZ's Modding SDK and drop it in your Hitman 3/Retail folder. Once you've managed that, it's just a matter of grabbing Freelancer Variations' .dll and .json files off of Nexus Mods and dropping them into the Mods folder in your Hitman 3/Retail directory.

Then launch the game, tick "FreelancerVariations" in your mod list, and you're off to the murder-races. Be warned that Chucky says "major bugs" might still lurk in the current version of the mod, since they've not been able to verify that every map variant works flawlessly, and there are a few comments from users running into glitches and crashes. But it's not really a big deal to uninstall the mod if you run into problems. And if one particular map variant is causing you trouble, you can download a new .json file that deactivates it over at the variant picker website.

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Read more
Dark Messiah duel
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic gets co-op mode and extra content thanks to the mod community's collaboration with Ubisoft: 'To see it all come together has been very emotional for us'
The starting chamber in Portal, but the floor is covered in lava.
Portal Randomized mixes up Valve's beloved puzzler by turning the floor into lava and filling chambers with a deadly neurotoxin
A noir Chicago with Combine metro cops from Half-Life 2
If you missed it over the holidays, this noir Half-Life 2 mod turns you into a hardboiled detective in Prohibition-era Chicago
The cover of the video game Doom
Nightdive's remaster of Doom + Doom 2 gets multiplayer mod support, spectator mode for co-op play, and stops you from losing your mind searching for red doors
DoubleWe demo
DoubleWe blends Guess Who with Hitman, and its demo is one of the best I've played in ages
RoboCop in GTA 5
The best GTA 5 mods
Latest in Third Person Shooter
helldivers 2
Helldivers 2 composer recalls stomping around his apartment and channeling 'Super Patriotism' to capture Arrowhead's satirical vision in music: 'The satire works because the music believes it's a pure patriotic love without irony or criticism'
farcana
'The Middle East's answer to Marvel Rivals' is an 'AI-powered', crypto-infused hero shooter that looks like hot garbage
Marvel Rivals characters - Invisible Woman preparing to cast a shield.
'Searches for Invisible Woman went up 3,000%': Marvel Rivals devs innocently reflect on how popular some of their heroes have become
A Helldiver charges through the fire and flames in Helldivers 2.
Helldivers 2 CCO Johan Pilestedt says the industry's got it backwards by putting features over fundamentals: 'We talk way too little about the core philosophy'
Marvel Rivals codes - Venom and other heroes
'A developer who actually listens': Marvel Rivals' devs fix accidental Peni Parker nerf just 9 short hours after saying they would
Two characters from Warframe 1999 lounging in a bar.
The warframe with a guitar that shoots fire is out today alongside a bunch of metalcore-inspired skins, cementing Warframe's spiral into Y2K madness
Latest in News
Inzoi
Ultra-realistic life sim Inzoi has officially shoved Hollow Knight: Silksong and Deadlock out of the way to become Steam's most hotly-anticipated game
New shaders in Minecraft following Minecraft Live 2025
In the year of our lord 2025, Mojang is finally adding shaders to Minecraft, making reflective lighting and water effects more accessible for all
Decorations in TCG Card Shop Simulator
TCG Card Shop Simulator finally adds the ability to decorate our stores, and suddenly all my profits are being spent on adorable Pigni posters
bulky headphones on black made using x rays
'We essentially created a virtual headset': Scientists transmit inaudible sound using ultrasonic beams to create single person 'audio enclaves'
A promotional image for the Compal Adapt X modular laptop, as presented by the iF Design Foundation
If you've ever wanted to upgrade a laptop with 'modular AI units' then Compal might just have the very thing you're looking for
Gabe Newell in a Valve promotional video, on a yacht.
Gabe Newell had his eyes on a social network in the '90s that 'was not in a games context at all'—meaning Valve-owned social media could've been a very real thing