Ooh, this mode is looking really good! Can’t wait (and believe) that this is gonna be free.
Yes, you can make the case that it’s basically another “escalation mode”, but that’s avoiding the major changes and additions to IOI’s tried formula here.
Very hyped for it now. Though I do still have some (rhetorical) questions.
The Campaign system looks very cool, but also long. Not sure what you’d get for beating an entire one, but kind of being “locked” to an 18-mission challenge looks daunting, especially for something like the Sick Games one shown, where there’ll be random challenges every mission. Maybe I’ve got it wrong, but it looks that way. Each one will have 4 Big Targets.
I was expecting maybe each “campaign” has different amounts of missions. But the established way seems much harder?
I wonder if Merces can let you buy different looks for your safehouse, or if it’s strictly used for Missions. It sounds like the latter. In that case, that might mean constant Mastery Progression (safehouse Progress + unlocks) – it won’t be reset on a fail – that’s cool, but isn’t that kind of against the main draw of Freelancer, and the main “obstacle”, the Roguelike style?
The return of the three-choice crate from Ghost Mode is neat. It looks like a nice buffer to get a (always consumable?) item for free to give a slight edge if need be.
The change to a spooky red lighting when activating the Leader mission is very cool. I can see this tying into a certain musical leak a few weeks ago 
I unfortunately listened to, but sounds dope. 
If every Showdown Mission is a “find the real target in a sea of lookalikes”, I fear it might get old, but maybe there is some fun challenge in each one. Maybe it plays better when you’re actually the one doing the investigating, not being walked through a video.
I like how there seems to be a wide range of mission success, fail, or “return to safehouse” cinematics to bookend missions. I was hoping for that.
The Merces system is neat, but I think its presentation needs some tweaking. Just make each “Merces point” Equal 1000 Merces or something. Make it look cool, expensive, like 47 is working for Premium Payments, as such an experienced assassin would. Something about the “You get 5 more M$!” or 10, 15, whatever, looks kind of anti-climactic for the Freelancer Assassin vibe they’re going for here.
And how much is one Merces? What even is a Merces? 
The “lose half of your Merces” scares me, gives me NFS Heat flashbacks, with how much I’d get busted in that and lose so much of my hard-earned money. But such is the challenge of a rogue-like I guess. I did see a “Exit Mission (Objectives not Completed)” icon in the map – maybe that’s one way to leave, or change Campaigns without a penalty of money or items?
Chicken Fingers are majorly crossed that I can get an invite to the Freelancer Test. Would love to see this in action, and try out a lot of this myself, as some of the video was still a little confusing. Also would love to provide a bit of Feedback where necessary, to make it feel just right in the progression department.
And overall, despite this long list of questions and worries(-ish?), I am very excited for this. It looks like the perfect encapsulation of the WOA gameplay style, and something that should provide lots of extra hours of fun. The fact that it’ll be in its own Mastery, Progression, Level, and Save File system is especially cool.
And oh boy I have a lot to read
Oh yeah and there was a blog post too! 
Closed Technical Test does not include all features from the mode that you’ll play in January 2023. We’ve purposefully toned down or entirely removed certain elements
Equally, we know that some of you will absolutely rinse the mode during these days and we don’t want you to burn out either
Firstly, the CTT will only feature 9 locations from the World of Assassination (i.e locations from HITMAN 1-3). The full release will include support for 19 locations (with only ICA Facility, Hawke’s Bay and Carpathian Mountains not supported in the full release).
The lack of Hawke’s Bay is unfortunate, but I guess there’s just too few NPCs and it would be too much work to make it a lively, challenging mission for the “find the lookalike” Syndicate mission.
From 1pm UTC on 3rd November to 4pm UTC on 7th November, you’ll be able to freely play and share any gameplay from the CTT. Take and share screenshots on Twitter, stream gameplay on Twitch or whatever you want. No restrictions, maximum enjoyment.
This is very interesting, and especially smart from IOI. There’s no way they could 100% contain this test from leaking, so they’re taking the same approack as the Ghost Mode Alpha back in the day I think: where people were allowed to record and show images of their gameplay, giving us plenty of content and glimpses at the mode before launch.
Very glad they actually released an Open Invite. Signed up for the test, and I hope to make it in!
