The third season of the American science fiction dystopian television series Westworld (subtitled The New World) premiered on HBO on March 15, 2020, and concluded on May 3, 2020, consisting of eight episodes.

The television series was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and it is based on the 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton. The third season stars an ensemble cast led by Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, Tessa Thompson, newcomer Aaron Paul, and Ed Harris. Vincent Cassel is introduced as the main antagonist.

The third season initially received positive reviews from critics, though reception became mixed during the second half. Reviews praised the performances, visuals and change in tone from the first two seasons, but criticized the story, dialogue and pacing, as well as the perceived lack of thematic depth.

The third season takes place three months after the events of the second season, with Dolores having escaped Westworld along with a few processing cores ("pearls"), including Bernard's. Taking residence in neo-Los Angeles in 2053, Dolores develops a relationship with Caleb and comes to learn how artificial beings and lower-class humans are treated in the real world. Meanwhile, Maeve finds herself in another part of the Delos park, one based on Fascist Italy during World War II.^[1][2] William, who also left Westworld at the end of the second season, is now haunted by visions of his daughter Emily and Dolores.

A third season of the series was announced on May 1, 2018.^[24] Production began on April 13, 2019.^[2] Parts of filming took place in Downtown Los Angeles and Singapore during June 14, 2019.^[25]

Additional filming took place over a ten-day period in Singapore around July 2019, which was used to present a version of Los Angeles about 40 years out from the time of the production of the show. Showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy had considered how they would introduce the "real world" outside of the park in the early days of developing Westworld. They wanted to go in the opposite dystopian direction that the 1982 film Blade Runner had gone and instead show a more optimistic view.^[26] The two had seen how Spike Jonze had filmed Her in Shanghai as a future Los Angeles, and took inspiration from many of Shanghai's designs.^[27] Joy, who had been suggested to shoot in Singapore by her friend and architect Bjarke Ingels, said the city was apt for the show as "It's the ways in which nature entangle with modernity here".^[28] The show's main cast, including Wood, Newton, Wright, and Paul had been spotted at several Singapore locations during the shooting period across Pulau Ubin, Chinatown and the Central Business District (CBD) within the city, and included specific landmarks such as the National Gallery Singapore, Esplanade Park, School of the Arts, the Helix Bridge, Marina One, the Parkroyal Hotel, LASALLE College of the Arts, and the Oasia Hotel Downtown.^[28] Additional filming took place at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain.^[27]

Filming also took place in Los Angeles, using computer-generated imagery to fill in actual buildings from Shanghai, futuristic buildings inspired by those from Shanghai, as well as those from Ingels' unused portfolio.^[26][29] The production team collaborated with Jon Favreau who led the advances in the special effects filming for The Mandalorian on how they combined full exterior filming with on-set filming and digital post-production to create virtually expandable sets at these sites as needed.^[27] When filming interior shots that took place in Los Angeles, the production team had a mandate to try to show as much of the city skyline as possible through windows or other features.^[29] Much of the city's brutalist architecture was also features given how frequently these buildings were repurposed from their original function.^[29]

While they had been able to film in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Millard House in Pasadena, as Arnold's home in the second season as it was available on the market, by the time they started filming season three, the home had been sold and they could not arrange filming rights. Instead, they opted to rebuild the home on set for this season.^[26] With Ingels' help to negotiation with Ricardo Bofill's son, they were also able to obtain rights to film one day at Bofill's La Fábrica near Barcelona, which stood in for Serac's laboratories and home, though they had to later build additional sets with the building's design principles for later filming.^[26] According to production designer Howard Cummings, they wanted to focus on concrete buildings that could look like the result of 3D printing.^[26]

The structure of the third season is more linear than past seasons, which Variety's Adam B. Vary said was a "sleek, fleet, Heat-style-crime-thriller-with-robots" rather than a "time-twisting structure" from the second season.^[27] Nolan and Joy stated that season 3 would have a much more comprehensible story line, with Nolan stating "This season is a little less of a guessing game and more of an experience with the hosts finally getting to meet their makers."^[30] However, they also said that they were able to take a more direct narrative approach as, according to Nolan, "We're very lucky in that we're at a place with HBO where they let us make the show we want to make" without having to "dumb the show down".^[27]