After more than a dozen months, I decided to push from Prestige 6 to 7 in Hardcore mode, thinking it would somehow speed up my progress. After a few attempts, I concluded it makes absolutely no sense. Even though I previously completed the campaign on Hardcore twice and have enough skill and knowledge to do it again, it’s completely pointless and a waste of time.
With the massively increased difficulty, there is no proportional reward. I would understand a high-risk, high-reward structure, but this feels like content designed for masochists who just want to feel they’ve achieved something by making their lives harder.
Even though:
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running creates noise
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there are 2x more cameras
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every fifth NPC is an Enforcer
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all Showdown targets are Enforcers
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a Prestige Objective is mandatory
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everything is in Alerted Territory
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any failure wipes the entire campaign along with all funds
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bullets kill in 2–3 shots, almost like Assassin-level lethality
And yet:
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you earn the same amount of money
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cash rewards are identical
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there’s no increased chance of getting gear from crates
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essentially, there’s no meaningful reward for the extra effort
There is absolutely no reason - none whatsoever - to play on Hardcore unless you want to waste your time and inflate your ego. The mode is badly designed and, after all these years, clearly needs some kind of overhaul. Progressing through Prestige levels is tedious, adds nothing new, and turns into a pointless grind that doesn’t properly reward the effort invested.
Instead of developing a meaningless co-op mode that nobody really asked for, they could have created a “Freelancer 2.0” - expanding the system with new mechanics, more variability, and meaningful changes to keep the mode engaging over time instead of letting it grow stale.
This is some of mine ideas which could be add some freshnes to this mode:
Freelancer mode needs to get some fresh updates!