Hi, everyone! Using this brief intro as an excuse to place this awesome Hatred artwork! This guide will touch on the essentials you'll need to incorporate in order to complete the game on insane difficulty. Below you'll find all the gameplay tips, environmental usages and strategies I could think of. I hope that you'll find the information useful! :D

Something that sets the insane difficulty apart from the other difficulties is the fact that there are no respawn points. If you're a gung-ho kind of player and you're struggling to stay alive on the higher difficulties then you're definitely going to want to change your play style for now.

The first piece of advice I can offer is only attempt insane difficulty when you have a good amount of free time to spare. You can't save your progress during a mission so you have to complete that particular mission in ONE SITTING! So make sure that when you're going to attempt an insane run, you allocate yourself enough free time to complete at least ONE level or at the very least get in a few attempts before you have to stop playing.

The next bit of advice will vary player to player, but it may help get a general idea:

The 1st half of the game could take 1-2 hours per level.
The 2nd half of the game could take 2-3 hours per level.
This time differs greatly depending on if you're trying to complete sidequests and the related achievements too or not and is suggested with completing the sidequests included in the time.

Take note however I'm a very slow moving player and there may be people faster or slower than myself so take it with a grain of salt :P

This may be frustrating for some but an essential element of completing insane is to move slowly. It feels completing wrong initially, especially if you've completed your first run or two sprinting around like a madman (pun intended), but is very useful in maintaining more situational control and keeping your health up as healing on higher difficulties isn't always ideal.

Running past enemies on insane is not recommended as they have pinpoint accuracy when you're standing and can dwindle your health down to nothing even if there's only a handful of them.

It may sound obvious and a bit daft but it's true!
Walking around upright in this game is looking for trouble as you're going to get mowed down very quickly. Crouching gives you a fighting chance and you need to use it! The law enforcers and army in this game have only ever had one type of training, it seems, and they're very good at it. Thankfully though by channelling your inner Gollum and moving around crouched, you'll be outsmarting them and preserving your life.

You aim with your mouse believe it or not, but there are definitely some ways you can maximise your chances of success by fully utilising the mouse's options to get some advantages over the competition.

Advantage #1:
Use RMB to see far further than you normally would. Fairly obvious but combined with crouching and slowly moving forward you're often able to see enemies who spawn in certain areas before you're close enough for them to engage you. This allows you to render their attacks useless as they cannot fire at you while being shot. As a bonus any enemies nearby to the one you're shooting won't engage either allowing you to finish him off before inching your way forward to repeat the process on the next enemy.

Advantage #2:
Some players may not know this but you can actually change the size, colour and shape of your reticle! The game by default has a very stylised colour system and depending on how good your eyes are, sometimes you can lose your small red aiming reticle against a grey and red background. Thinking you're defeating waves of enemies but you're actually mercilessly gunning down your neighbour's hedges. As an example, I changed my reticle to green and made it a bit larger which meant I could keep track and do precision shots with a quick reaction time to reduce unexpected incoming damage.

Firing:

Tip #1:
Use controlled fire by shooting in bursts rather than just holding down LMB until you have to reload. This greatly improves accuracy and saves ammo.

Tip #2:
If enemies start standing shoulder to shoulder (next to each other) while firing at you, fire at them by panning over them rather than killing an individual before shooting the next one. Doing this causes each enemy to stumble, therefore unable to shoot at you until they can recover. This greatly reduces their damage against you.

"You gonna come out? Or do we gotta come in?!"

The answer 90% of the time is they gotta come in. At least until you've wiped out a few and their numbers are more manageable. Enemies in Hatred are rather dense and a lot of the time can be channelled into a narrow pathway, allowing you to take them out one by one.

Something I've noticed is that if you're camping in a corner with your mouse fixed on the door, a lot of the time majority of the forces won't come in. They'll instead aim blankly at the room or building you're in. To counteract this I've noticed that enemies will begin approaching your camping spot if you aim away from the door. So if you're ever pinned down and they aren't entering, aim your mouse away from where you're pointing (eg: behind you) for a few seconds and some might start trying to sneak up on you. You'll definitely seem them start to reposition and once you see one getting close to the entry point, face them again so you're ready to blow them away!

This has definitely helped me in a pinch and it is reliable to get them to reposition but not always to get them to try enter. It was still worth mentioning though as being able to indirectly manipulate the enemy positioning may give you the opening you need!

Murdering civilians through a brutal take-down animation is the only way to heal in this game and the higher the difficulty, the less health you'll get per civilian. That means preserving the amount of civilians running around the map instead of just killing every person you come across.

This can seem counter productive as you have to kill a certain amount of civilians per level in order to progress, but always keep the thought of keeping some alive until you need health in the back of your minds. The number you need to progress will naturally decrease as you play through the level so don't stress out too much about it. The important thing is to not kill them all the moment you encounter them!

Throwables:
This is entirely player choice but I have found throwables to be a burden more than an advantage so I rarely used them. Molotovs and grenades are great for killing groups of civilians quickly and that's what I reserved them for. When dealing with the armed enemies any time I used a throwable it would often end up blowing up in my face. See what I did there? ;)

They'd usually bounce off a wall above the doorway or fire would spread to me, dealing massive damage so after several accidental deaths I didn't trust myself to use them effectively unless in large open areas where your accuracy didn't have to be perfect because the throwable was far enough away to not damage you.

Don't be afraid to fall back!
If the enemy force is proving too challenging at the moment then don't be afraid to slowly move back. Depending on the intensity, you may just want to crouch and slowly move towards a doorway/corner before standing or you can just sprint back. It's situational and you should use your judgement.

Destructive Environments:
There is a setting that can turn off destructible environments in the game. Likely a setting for the players who don't have very powerful PCs therefore making it more accessible to them. For some though, this can be a valuable setting to ensure walls of places you're camping in/moving through can't be destroyed. Some players may consider this cheating which is fair enough. Each to their own. For those who are looking for an additional advantage though, this could be the setting you need to try. It can only be accessed in the main menu options.

These are just some additional tips that don't really need their own sub-section as they don't require a lot of explaining:

- Always be aware of your proximity to cars. They can be shot up while you're fighting and you may not notice they're about to explode! The same goes for explosive canisters.

- Use the same weapons as your current enemies. This will make your journey so much easier as you don't have to worry about ammo too much!

- Try stay near buildings as much as you can. Having a wall at your back when enemies try to swarm you means you can't be surrounded and are more likely to survive!

- Be careful of short walls and large windows. Sprinting towards them sometimes makes you fault over them and right into enemy fire. It is best to sprint towards them but as you approach hit crouch so you don't accidentally leap lovingly into the enemy's arms.

- I know I just said use the same weapons as your enemies, but avoid the shotgun if you can. In the earlier missions you take on police officers who have shotguns. Rather use their pistols. The shotguns are far too inconsistent to be reliable. Only really useful in tight civilian crowds.

- Some enemies use vehicles to get to you and will attempt to run you over. Try waiting until they're fairly close before diving out their way or they will simply steer into you anyway. Better yet get behind something solid if you can!

- Vehicles have such low health on higher difficulties its better to not use them as a few rounds and they will be set alight. The animation to climb out takes a while and you may be close enough to die because you have to wait for the animation to finish before you're able to run! The vehicle must also be completely still for you to exit which could cost you.

- Memorise the locations of body armour. Knowing how much body armour is left and where it can be found is great if you know you're heading into a big fight.

- You don't have to do it, but playing a level on a lower difficulty before attempting the insane run can help you remember key spawn points, number of enemies, camping spots, etc. Knowing the battlefield is always beneficial.

Probably the most infuriating level on the hardest difficulty is the level known as "Downtown." Not only is it a busy town filled with open spaces but there are also six inconvenient side missions and some of them involve armed people. A lot of people who have done well on their own might have found this guide purely for this mission alone and I get it. All this stuff in one life! It's a real spanner in the works.

I based my strategy off of a video guide which I shall link below as their video definitely provided me with some thought provoking ideas and they deserve the credit. Whoever played during the run in the video are a much faster player than I am and when I tried their strategy, I was often overwhelmed as it was not what I was used to. So I used some of their approaches but also added my own so feel free to play in whichever way you feel most comfortable!

*I took the necessary screenshots on an easier difficulty for the purpose of providing more information so that's why I'm driving the armoured vehicle everywhere*

What I did was:

1. Grenade/burn the crowd.


2. Immediately kill the politician as he tries to run away. (Not sure if he can despawn.)


3. Head over to the coffee shop side objective nearby and destroy it. (flamethrower is good if you have one as one quick burst on the customers/kitchen canister and you can move on.)


4. Run towards the gun expo, give a wide girth to the building by keeping right of the cars in the parking lot and go in through the back door (storage room) to camp. The expo visitors and cops will come in one-by-one through the doors. A SWAT team may arrive too. Note the direction they came from!



5. Slowly enter the showroom and take out any show-goers who may still be alive. (There often are.)


6. Grab some armour and ammunition. At this point a SWAT team may have already arrived so keep your eyes open for their vehicle as you'll need it. If you are able to find a SWAT vehicle with a mounted gun, just remember where its parked (or park it somewhere you'd think is a good place). I don't recommend using it this early in the mission as it doesn't have a lot of health. I parked mine around the back of the Aphone launch building so it was ready to be used but park it where you see fit.


7. SWAT vehicle or not,make your way towards the bank in any car you can find just to avoid being shot up by a cop squad that often spawns in while on foot.

8. As you cross the bridge, immediately turn left down the narrow path next to the bank. Around the back of the bank building, there is a single explosive canister next to the vault. It is difficult to see in the image, but it's located on the outside corner. Simply shoot that and its detonation will ignite the money inside the vault.




9. Using the car that you're currently in, continue down that path and run over pedestrians that are around the edge of the map. You only need 15 so hopefully a lap or two will be enough. Often a squad of enemies will spawn. Simply run over them or speed away. If your car is destroyed there are others near the bank to finish off the stragglers. (Be sure to take the corners on the edge of the map slowly as coming at speed can make your car roll off the map and there is no way to get back, forcing a restart. I made this mistake TOO MANY times. So drive carefully.)



10. Once all this is completed there should only be one remaining side mission. the Aphone launch expo. This is the time to go back to the vehicle you (maybe) moved with the mounted gun. Head over to the front of the expo and blow away the people in there with the mounted weapon. This should hopefully be enough people killed to trigger the soldiers. If it isn't, then hopefully you'll only need a few which can be found nearby.


11. NOW! The reason why you preserved the vehicle with the mounted gun. Park it around the back of the Aphone expo building. The army will come from only one direction and you wipe them out with the mounted weapon. Exercise patience here and be careful of army vehicles who may appear with their own mounted weapon. You can drive along this wall to get the soldiers who aren't moving to hopefully try come to you. (Destructible environments setting on means the wall can be destroyed so you can shoot/be shot through the openings.)
- Adjust as you need to but it's recommended to stay as far away as possible from the direction they come from as it reduces their chance of hitting your precious vehicle. Same applies if on foot.






12. Once the army is dead, head over to the exit. Hopefully your vehicle survived and you can drive but if not, carefully walk towards the exit.



Here is the video I based my strategy on! You will likely see some obvious similarities. Huge thank you to Dante Crusader!

Note:This level is the reason they call it "insane." That's exactly what you end up being after finally completing it. Prepare to die. A LOT. The SWAT vehicles in particular are the most annoying part of this level as there are two types. One with a mounted gun and one without. The one without is great for running over pedestrians at least, but the one with the mounted gun is essential to defeating the final wave. I don't understand the RNG to which one will end up spawning and it is frustrating when the one without the mounted gun keeps spawning. That's why I said if you find one, preserve it!

Good luck everyone as that about does it! I hope you'll find greater success armed with this new knowledge and that I was able to teach you something! If I have made any grammatical or factual errors that I somehow missed then please feel free to let me know. I'm quite proud of this in-depth guide but more importantly was I wanted to share some knowledge as someone who has completed it on insane as it is some advice the community has definitely been in need of.

Have an amazing day and happy killing!
:P