This guide will help you get through the Don difficulty by providing gameplay, weapon and build tips.

To begin with, you've got two ways to go for the Don difficulty achievement:
- You can start a fresh game on Don difficulty, which will be slightly harder
- You can start an NG+ on Don difficulty, which will be slightly easier

if you are playing in NG+ you'll already have plenty of skills unlocked and you'll have more experience with the level layouts and the game in general, so unless you consider yourself good in FPS games you should finish the game on a lower difficulty to start with and then move on to Don difficulty.

Now, if you are gonna start on Don difficulty with a fresh new game keep reading, if you are planning to run an easier difficulty you can go clear the game and come back and read this before your NG+ Don difficulty run, but while you're here you can just keep reading because the tips I'll provide will be useful on any difficulty.

First of all, always make sure you are carrying SMG+Pistol due to ammo consumption, if you have Dual SMG or Dual Pistol you'll drain your ammo a whole lot faster because both weapons will use the same ammo pool and it's not just that, you will also receive less ammo when you use Hitman Executions because if you have SMG+Pistol you get ammo for both, but if you are dual-wielding the same weapon type you only receive ammo for that.

You should avoid using dual-wield combat as it is inaccurate and therefore wastes ammo. Always go with a single weapon in your hand, except when you're in a pinch of course. When in deep trouble you should switch to dual-wield and use your Gun Channeling power, clear enemies as soon as you can, and when the Gun Channeling is over, switch back to single weapon. You will hear different bullet sounds when it ends, because gun channeling will change their sound to a more high-pitched one that doesn't sound like regular gunshots.

My personal favorite build includes the M1887 for two handed slot, UMP for SMG and Desert Eagle/Cobra for Pistol slot. You should try every weapon and decide which you like more, because no matter what people say it's all about your preference. If you dont like how a weapon handles/feels while you use it, you can never perform good with it, so try out and find your favorites, but always keep in mind you should have SMG+Pistol, never dual-wield two of the same.

As you progress in the game you'll run into special enemies: Shield, Light Guy, Puller and Teleporter, or at least that's what I call them.

Lets start with Shield guy, he's easy to counter because he's slow, make sure you dont back up into some narrow space while kiting him away, you should shoot his shield to remove the darkness from it, and then tap Q only ONCE, do not spam the Q button or else you end up wasting your time and taking unnecessary damage, tap Q once and then spam E button, as soon as you grab his shield the easiest way to get rid of him is to shoot him once with shotgun or few times with any weaker weapon and then throw his shield back at him with Q, which should kill him. You can hang on to his shield and just shoot him instead but going around with shield isnt that good since you cannot grab people and execute them for HP/AMMO.

Light guy has a giant flashlight on his back and when you are exposed to his light, you'll drop whatever you have grabbed with your tentacles, shooting their light is very effective if your aim is good, but dont end up wasting whole clip for it, also keep in mind you are not allowed to turn your special skills on while exposed to flashlight, such as Gun Channeling or Swarm. Best way to counter them is to go behind a pillar and peek-shoot-hide, until they are dead.

Puller is possibly one that most people have trouble with, because he throws a chain and pulls your weapon out of your hand, which can possibly cause your death on Don difficulty and also very annoying to find the weapon as it bounces away sometimes. When you hear a chain sound you should know there's a puller around, and locate him as soon as possible, and use either Gun Channeling or Swarm and take care of him quickly. Also while killing him (except if you've used swarm on him) you should always stay behind cover and peek-shoot, then get back into cover. You should NEVER stand still in front of him with no cover, even if you cant get to cover try to crouch and hide if there's an object between you and him, if you play carefully you should be just fine.

Teleporter is a heavily armored, very agile soldier, which I think is the most annoying. Swarm/Gun Channeling works really good against these guys, but keep in mind if you use Gun Channeling he might teleport to some random location and you might end up wasting your Gun Channeling in vain, so watch his trails when he teleports and get rid of him quickly. This guy is very dangerous on Don difficulty, because every other enemy will walk up to you and you can rely on the cover, but this guy can teleport behind your cover and take you out if you are on low HP, so beware.

Also I should add, about non special enemies, you ALWAYS should hit them with your tentacle once, and when they stumble, grab them with Q and use either HP or Ammo execution, also keep in mind, while you are in an execution "cutscene" you are immune to all damage, so you can abuse that in Don difficulty in case you need to.

Also keep in mind, you should ALWAYS break light sources, I use SMG for that purpose, due to high ammo/low damage, but whenever you get free moment, or while proceeding into a new part of a map, look for lights and break them, you DONT want to get suppressed by lights accidently while in the middle of combat.

My kill order for specials is like this
Puller > Light Guy > Breaking Lİghts > Teleporter > Shield > Nonspecials

I will write down the talents you should get and in which order you should buy them. After you get everything on this list, you are free to take any talent you want, but make sure you got all these first, I value them much more than the others. Also, Black Hole's usefulness is arguable. I would rather avoid it, as I prefer not to replace hearts with Black Holes, because even if it's a low chance, it may cause your death at some point. Yes it's overpowered I know but I dont think it's neccessary.

1. Combat Belt
2. Weapon Handling
3. Health Executions
4. Hitman Executions
5. Gun Channeling
6. Hitman Execution Upgrade
7. Health Execution Upgrade
8. Demonic Lift
9. Air Darkling
10. Dark Blast
11. Dark Armor
12. Heart Health
13. The Destroyer's Channeling
14. Expert Channeler
15. Swarm

After you unlock these, in that order, you can add whatever you want to your build. At this point I'd suggest Demon Blades, Swarm Upgrades, Expert Grabber and optional Demonic Executions, I don't think it's that good but if you are dying often you can go for it.

Now that the basics are out of way, I should give some gameplay tips. You should ALWAYS grab pipes if you see one, they are your best friend on Don difficulty. They will oneshot almost everything, Teleporters will most likely avoid them (and only have their armor removed if you do manage to hit), and shields will be immune to them but anything else will be vulnurable and will get you an easy kill if you use the pipes.

Also keep in mind that when you kill enemies with Gun Channeling, you will not get healed and they will not drop hearts for you to eat, because gun channeling with destroy the corpse, but nonetheless it's a very powerful talent and will help you greatly at specific parts of the game.

You also should be aware of your surroundings, you dont wanna run into light accidently, especially because darkness armor, assuming you've specced for it, will simply vanish instead of absorbing enemy attacks, so keep an eye out. Also locate and remember where you've killed your last victims and go eat their hearts if you are about to die, also if you are about to die and have no time to get into cover just grab a weak enemy and use a health execution, because this will make you temporarily immune while in the "cutscene" and heal you up. If you are reloading and an enemy pops up in your face, always remember you've got tentacles and use your middle mouse button.

Never rush forward, always proceed with caution. If you rush in blindly without care you'll end up dying quite often, so always be careful, don't sprint, and break every light source you see.

If you get a shield, then use it's advantage to clear enemies quickly. You dont have to cover if you've got a car door (or similar) as your shield, which is a great opportunity to clear enemies quickly. Just keep in mind it wont stop Pullers from taking away your weapon.
Also, throwing your shield to kill an enemy just before it breaks is very efficient.

Also, tactical reloads (outside of combat so you start combat with full clips) are pretty much recommended. When you press 4 (dual-wield key) and reload, it will reload both onehanded weapons, so you don't have to reload them separately even if you use them seperately.

And, if you are a dual-wield player, tapping "4" again will make your weapons switch hands in case you want to swap buttons, i prefer having SMG in left-click and Pistol in right-click, and when I pop Gun Channeling, I hold left-click and tap right-click.

I will only talk about the hardest parts of the game, seeing as it's mostly easy if you proceed with caution and follow the advices given in this guide, but some parts can be troubling.

The beginning of the game (restaurant scene) can be troubling if your aim is not perfect, you should use right-click to aim and shoot taps of two, shoot-shoot-stop and switch target, and repeat. Reload OFTEN, if you see there's no enemy shooting at you, then reload, after a while you will be given a second pistol. Do not use dual-wield, manually switch by pressing 2 or 3 and keep doing what you were doing. This part is quite easy and I didn't ever die here but I guess it's possible to die if you miss too many shots.

There's three parts in the game you may have trouble with, and I'll run over them. If you ever need help regarding anything in the game, feel free to comment below. We will answer your question there and include it in this guide as we see fit.

Crane Boss Fight
This one will be your first "hard" part on Don difficulty. You need to watch the wrecking ball he's swinging around. You can survive getting hit once or twice, but if you get hit more than that you'll most likely die. When the ball breaks pillars, you can get free pipes out of broken pillars, and they are very useful and powerful. Use a pistol to aim with right-click then throw with Q, that way you're less likely to miss. Always take cover and always watch the wrecking ball: if it starts swinging get out of it's way. You should be taking care of thugs quickly as well, because they will hit hard if you let them loose, but do not forget throwing the bomb your darkling gives to you - the faster you throw the bombs the sooner the bossfight will be over.

Carnival - Ambush after second minigame
This might be one of the most annoying fights you can encounter on Don difficulty, and might take you a few tries to manage and pass it. Unlike the Crane Boss and the Mansion Ambush, you won't have "checkpoints" in this sequence, so even if you die to the last enemy, you'll have to do it all over, from the very beginning, which is frustrating.
What you should do is, as soon as the mini-game is done turn around and take cover behind a pillar to your right, and keep killing enemies across. After a while, a door will open just behind you and around 3-4 enemies will come out (there's one puller and one light guy if i recall correctly), when that happens you should pop your Gun Channeling and clear your way into that room, and camp in there. Enemies probably won't come in, and even if they do there will be only one or two at a time so you can take them out quickly. After this point it's quite easy, just peek-shoot-cover until you clear them all, after a few tries you should be able to manage it.

Mansion - Ambush upon using the photograph
This is the second hardest encounter in the game, but if you do it properly it's quite easy. You shouldnt stay out in the open, There's a place under a balcony where you can take cover, so you should be standing there all the time. There's also a pipe that you can use for a free instant kill. If you stay there enemies will come to you and make sure you use weak ones for healing/ammo refreshing via Executions. Around the end a shield and light guy will spawn together, you should clear them with Gun Channeling, remember to activate it while not in line of sight of Light Guy, then peek out and kill them both.

If you manage to pull these three off, you should be fine. Some may think that the Victor fight is a bit hard, but it's really easy if you keep being mobile and save your cooldowns to clear groups of enemies, Victor's damage output is about as dangerous as his looks are beautiful to behold.

Vaermina
Guide Author/Writer

Takku
Feedback/Editing