Yo, I fucking did it. Clear run took like 5.5 hours. The campaign is fucking long.
Tips and tricks I found:
-The fact you don't fail the campaign if you die on a non-showdown is really generous and a big deal. I was on the 3rd tier and 20+ mins into a perfect stealth 4 target run on Chongqing and I drop down into the center alley below the drones since my last target is in the lab, and since opening the door with a crowbar was going to be loud and alert the two guards at the entrance I figured I'd silencer pistol bam bam them and then crowbar the door. I did that and I got shot to death from behind because I guess there was a third guard in that alley I didn't notice. I thought I failed the campaign, but forgot you don't fail it in non-showdowns and so it honestly wasn't a huge setback. Yeah I lost my only silencer pistol which sucked for a few maps until I got another one, and I lost a few useful tools and some Mercers, but it's really not a huge setback if you die on a non showdown stage. The goal of this mode is to clear the campaign, nothing else matters. You can do most maps going in naked. Keep going.
-Showdown maps are both easier and harder than normal maps. By the end of the campaign every normal map has like 4 targets and enforcers everywhere and some targets can be really tough to take out. There was one in Paris in the dining area and it seemed the only legit way unless you want to explode the whole room and all the NPCs in it was to get a waiters outift and man the bar and serve the NPC as they walk by with emetic (or poison if you think you can get away with it). Meanwhile showdown maps only really have 1 real target. Once you identify the target you can walk up and syringe or drop a rubby ducky or whatever and bam dead walk right out ez pz. The problem with showdown maps and the real difficulty besides the higher stakes that you fail the campaign if you die, is the stupid fucking running away the targets do when they get spooked. The problem is that if 3 or 4 or 9 targets start to run because some body was found somewhere on the level you've lost and it feels really bullshit. I feel like the suspects get spooked way too easy even when nothing dangerous is happening around them.
-Anyhow, because of this I felt like the hardest part of showdown maps is finding a room where you can get a guard outfit and hide the guard body in a closet. There are so many enforcers and NPCs in these rooms I found it really tough just to get an outfit. In non-showdown missions I just kill someone and take their outfit and walk away not caring if anyone finds the body later on. But once you have a good outfit I feel like the showdown missions aren't bad. Watch the tells and appearance and take them out. Also there's no real penalty for taking out the wrong one so when it comes down to the few that hit all the appearances just take them all out as long as it doesn't spook the others into running.
-I found that the only things that really matter are silenced weapons, remote bombs and emetics. Remote bombs are so incredibly useful, I basically bombed my way through the Freelancer campaign. Just walking past a target, dropped a remote bomb, walking away and triggering it and escaping takes out almost every target. I always went for remote bombs in the RNG cases after a mission and I always brought one with me. Hell on the 3rd showdown mission for me in Miami there was a time where 3 purple suspects walked out of a door side by side, I didn't even take out the camera and look, I just threw a hail mary rubby ducky and hoped one was the real target and boom! success. Lucky, but also made the map go extremely quick.
-Mercers are helpful but not super important, always check the courier early on each map. The tool items are really cheap like 500-3,000 mercers. So you probably have enough to buy some tools and often there's an extra remote bomb you can get or emetic poison. I never really bought weapons. I never found a use for bringing a specific weapon in like a sniper rifle because you never know what part of the map you'll spawn on and where your targets will be. But every map I bought lots and lots of tools and used them.
-When choosing which syndicate, I stopped choosing the syndicate by the playstyle and sub-objectives and started choosing them by the maps. All my rage deaths yesterday were on Hokkaido and Colorado. So I made it my mission for these runs today to never take a syndicate that had Hokkaido or Colorado in the group. I really think that's what helped me clear. I still got some maps that I think were pretty tough, though some of it was because I didn't remember the maps that well. I got Marrakesh as my 2nd to last map in the entire campaign and I haven't done that map since Hitman 1 and barely remembered how to get around. My final target never left the 2nd floor of the consulate and once I got in there I couldn't remember or figure out how to get to the 2nd floor with the two frisking guards on each stairs so I ended up walking up to one and dropping a napolean blownapart and walking away and blowing him up and then waiting for things to calm a bit and then run up that staircase that now didn't have a frisker. My Bangkok run was also pretty rough since I hadn't done that map in forever and had some pretty difficult targets that never left bodyguards. Definitely had some extremely messy runs that were super close.
-Don't just choose the syndicate based on the maps, choose the syndicate based on the map you want to save for your showdown map. For instance in the final group of 5 I saved Dubai for the final campaign map because Dubai, no matter how many enforcers there are, is one of the easiest maps to get around, especially with disguises. And yeah, it wasn't too bad. Yesterday when I was doing Colorado and Hokkaido for my Showdown maps they were miserable. Fuck doing that again.
-OBJECTIVES. Sometimes I'd do them, sometimes they'd counteract each other (i.e. kill target with poison and kill target with non-silenced gun and there's only 1 target) and most of the prestige ones are bullshit, though the stealth assassin one is doable if you don't mind going slow and careful but honestly that can be less fun so I don't typically bother with it. I think the easiest one outside the safe one (which is the absolutely best prestige objective, but it only comes up rarely and doesn't always match up with a map that actually has a safe! - always double check that, I did Marrakesh with that prestige objective and discovered there was no safe in Marrakesh!), is the collateral accident one. This is because you can knock out your target and the nearest NPC and drag them somewhere alone and just put down a fire extinguisher or whatever and shoot it and get your +2,500 mercer. The timer ones are ridiculous and in my experience make you play sloppy and probably die.
-Safes are the bestttt. Especially if you're hoarding remote explosives. I never looked for clues. I'd just find them and clear the room and throw an explosive and get some free mercers.
I think that's about it. Mainly, pick your maps, pick your showdown, don't worry about dying in non-showdown maps, check the courier first thing and buy lots of tools, remote explosions are your best friends, get a silencer as soon as you can from assassin enemies, on showdown maps hide the bodies and be careful of causing the targets to run, go for safes and safe prestige objectives if possible, otherwise do the objectives you can but don't stress over the objectives or prestige objectives.
