~Professional~ Mode

Professional mode is a new difficulty mode that was added with the January patch and is available for the story missions.

It's terrible.

It has a few good ideas such as guards reacting to cameras being destroyed and certain items being suspicious to carry while in certain disguises, but even those good ideas are taken too far. Can't carry a fire extinguisher while in your suit? That's good. Can't carry a large sniper rifle as a regural guard? Seems reasonable. Can't carry a wrench as a guard? Come the fuck on.

The changes in the level are specifically designed so that prior knowledge of the map doesn't mean a damn. All "free" disguises have been removed and enforcers and cameras have been added to spots where they block paths in such ways that dealing with them just isn't worth the effort.

But the worst part by far is the "progression". Instead of new unlocks and new challenges, the Professional mode offers unlocking the same starting locations again, by doing the same assassination challenges again. The challenges are an absolute joke as a vast majority of them relies on following the opportunity system to achieve a heavily scripted kill. Nothing challenges me like following a railroad to the same kill I've already done on normal mode. It's like I'm a real Professional!

And don't even think about just grinding the challenges out of the way quickly, unlike on normal mode, on Pro you actually have to complete the mission for the challenges to count and you're limited to a single save per playthrough, for maximum tedium.

How I think difficulty should be done in Hitman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1OaYvHS9AE

Oh and the patch broke how spotting works on both normal and pro. Don't even think about attacking someone from behind on stairs, he'll become an unconscious witness and you'll lose the Never Spotted bonus and SA rating. You can still get the SA challenge because that's not the same thing as the rating. You know, because everything is so good and functional.

Meanwhile, NPCs still see through walls and behind their backs, dead targets spotting you as they're dying ruin your rating and 47 still feels the need to stop running when the inventory is opened. But at least the suits are in a nice order in menus! #priorities

Yeah, I'm a bit salty.