Video Game / Entry Point (Roblox)

To prevent a massive amount of white from filling the page, all spoilers prior to the release of The Scientist are unmarked. Spoilers relating to The Lock codes and information relating to them, however, are marked. You Have Been Warned!

Halcyon is hiring, Operative - Let's get to work.

Entry Point is a four-player cooperative Stealth-Based Game made on Roblox by Cishshato, the sole developer of Freefall Softworks, where you, as a Freelancer, join the ranks of Halcyon and perform high profile operations, either stealthily, or go all out loud and unleash hell on the police forces.

There's also various PVP modes available, most notably the Shadow War game mode, in which you compete against other players in firefights, either siding with Halcyon with the fiery Rose as the announcer, or Phoenix with the serious and to-the point Jackdaw as you either defend or hack the servers in a 4v4 match.

You can play the game over here.

Troper unit is here to play. Show 'em a good time.

• Anime Hair: The hairstyle option called Anime Hair, and the Animazing hair, alongside other hairstyles take it up to ridiculous levels.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • Case File Summary #010416 revealed that Halcyon's founding date was on July 4th, 1987, which consisted of former agents from the CIA, FSB, MSS, DIH, Mossad and the MI6. While the CIA, MI6, Mossad and MSS have founding dates that make it plausible to fit in the timeline, the FSB was not formed until April 12th, 1995^note Since the Soviet Union was still intact by the time Halcyon was founded, it should've been the KGB instead, and the DIH was not formed until January 20th, 1997.
  • A retcon changed the MM20's design date to 2005, while its real-life counterpart, the KRISS Vector, was not designed until one year later.
  • The UP9 was created by United Defense in 2002, while its real-life counterpart, the CZ 75, was designed in 1975, making it an inversion.
  • The S97 was created in 1997 by Seigel Arms Company and stopped manufacturing it in 2012, yet its real-life counterpart, the Heckler & Koch MP7, was designed in 1999 and is still produced today.
  • The 480 MCS was stated to be produced by Cascade Technologies in 1973, yet in real life, the Remington Model 870 was designed in 1950, making it an inversion.
  • The F57 was created in 2004 by United Defense, yet its real-life counterpart, the CZ 805 BREN, was designed in 2009.
  • The CBR-C was stated to be created in 1990 by Tricorne Co., yet its real-life counterpart, the Kel-Tec RFB was not designed until 2003.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes:
  • Having all the Golden Badges during the Anniversary event nets you the Aegis mask, while already having the mask prior to the event netted you the Aegis Elite mask, while completing the events netted you the Mystery Mask, Welding Shades, Paintball Shades, and a eyepatch. Speaking of which, having all the Golden Badges including the Ironman Golden Badge awarded you with the Golden Aegis Mask.
  • Collecting all gifts in A Halcyon Holiday 2018 event granted you the Winter Bandana, Snow Shades, and Ski Shades.
  • Participating in the April Fools' 2019 event netted you the Clever Disguise.
  • Participating in the Halloween Hitlist events granted you different rewards if you destroyed all the pumpkins:
    • In 2018, netted you the Bat Shades.
    • In 2019, awarded you with the Secret Agent Shades, Vampire Shades, and the Cursed Aegis Mask.
    • In 2020, awarded you Jackdaw's Eyepatch, which is a mirrored version of the eyepatch (Jackdaw's eyepatch covers his right eye, while the regular eyepatch covers the left eye).
  • The 2021 Anniversary event had a event shop that allowed you to buy accessories from previous events, and various additions of its own, including its own challenges. The first 4 gave the Cove Shades, Sleek Shades, Pilot Shades, and Classic Gold Shades, while the final one instead gave the Gold Split Raven Frame as well as unlocking the Raven itself without the Expanded Arsenal gamepass.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The Rookie difficulty removes the deployment cost. This is to prevent a situation where the Freelancer can go broke and also prevents certain builds from being Awesome, but Impractical. Additionally, you can still use equipment even if you go broke, so that you can at least try to recoup some of the money if necessary.
  • Should one reach the camera room and neutralize all the guards over there in the Blacksite, all Freelancers will be teleported over there, which is a good thing considering that the area preceding it is a Hostile Zone. That said, equipment bags aren't transferred unless the Freelancers equip them, so make sure to have it with them.
  • The Golden Badge for Black Dusk allows the Freelancer to kill enemies without facing repercussions, and also makes it achievable in Loud. Considering that the final level would be nightmarish, this can be seen as a necessity.
• Anyone Can Die: Starting from Dedication, important characters are beginning to die off, and it shows:
  • Wren is killed by Jackdaw, who saves the Freelancer from execution.
  • Rose is confirmed to be KIA by Falcon after her role as a spy for Phoenix was revealed.
  • Falcon is canonically confirmed dead at the end of The Scientist.
  • The Freelancer dies from being unable to escape from the explosion in Black Dusk.
  • The Director is killed by Jackdaw in the Epilogue.
• April Fools' Day:
  • The 2019 April Fools allowed players to obtain the the Clever Disguise, and the developer's notes included certain sentences such as "Halcyon stopped hiring Freelancers because of their unreliability", "Wren was fired for hiring so many unreliable freelancers", "Rose has his job now. We're all doomed". "The annual Halcyon And Phoenix Enemies For Life picnic is today at 4:00. Jackdaw will be hosting this year.", "Still waiting for someone to find the code in the Killhouse", "Having two players for interrogation lets you do a Good Cop/Bad Cop routine. It doesn't get you intel any faster. It's just fun.", "Because SOMEONE recently fired a thumper in the shooting range, all thumpers are being confiscated so she can't do it again", "Someone left a Raven in one of the deposit boxes in "The Deposit"", "Cincinnati trust has decided they're better off not doing business with Phoenix", "Rose will bring you a hotdog after "The Financier" if you do good" "Dropping Ryan Ross off of his penthouse will get you fired from Halcyon", "The process of termination is having your shades ceremonially slapped off your face", "If you take out the manager in "The Withdrawal", Jackdaw will get disappointed and then cancel the mission", "In the event you are spotted, the government will not send SWAT. They will send an airstrike", and "Disguises will no longer work and you will be recognized by every NPC in the game instantaneously. You are an extremely wanted federal fugitive. I don't know why you didn't expect this. You don't even wear gloves", only to finish with "One of the above was actually added", which that one being obtaining the Raven without the Expanded Arsenal gamepass.
    • Also of note: the game description was changed to something more humorous, and the game icon was changed by Bunpunk into something more crude, and the title was changed into "SECRET AGENT OBBY TYCOON SIMULATOR!!! GOTY EDITION!!!", all in comic sans.
  • The 2020 April Fools event had the game icon changed to Sparrow Point, and fittingly enough, all NPCs have their color changed to light blue, and Sparrow herself provides commentary for cutscenes in game.
  • The 2021 April Fools event gave a free Blindfold to all Freelancers who played the game that time, which blinded your vision, and changed the main story's script to being more humorous with numerous fourth wall breaks.
• Armor Is Useless: Defied - Armor is essential to surviving assault phases when the mission goes loud, and not having any is effectively a death sentence. In fact, the armor is most likely to go out after you go through all your Medkits and probably die.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • According to the MM20's description, the gun was made for use by the Chinese SOF. In reality, the gun is not used by Chinese Special Operations Forces.
  • SWAT, Steel Cove, TRU, and ETF forces can be seen using guns such as S97, K45, F57, and the CBR-C. While the K45's real-life counterpart, the M1911, did see use in police forces in the United States, the S97, F57 and the CBR-C's real-life counterparts, the Heckler & Koch MP7, the CZ 805 BREN, and the Kel-Tec RFB, are not used by any police forces (and even though the MP7 is used by police forces, it's only used by the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety; other police forces use other firearms instead).
• Ascended Extra: Downplayed for Falcon, as he was merely the pilot of the escape chopper in The Blacksite, but gets a face in the announcement of the Halloween Hitlist 2019, and becomes a major target in The Scientist. Information from The Lock reveals that he was also responsible for killing Rose.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Some weapons have great stats, but suffer from ammunition availability and deployment cost. Keep in mind most of this applies to the main game, unlike in Shadow War and other PvP game modes in which they are free of cost. Here are some notable examples:
  • Heavy weapons are very costly, averaging at $1,000 for deployment, and reduce your movement. This issue is further exacerbated with the Thumper, which is a grenade launcher that can destroy doors... but also has limited ammo and in higher difficulties, can actually hurt your own allies.
  • Both of the Expanded Arsenal weapons suffer from this:
    • The Raven. It hits very hard, but it's hard to find ammunition for it, and it has high recoil to boot.
    • Downplayed with the MM20. While a great weapon overall, its ammunition is also hard to find.
• Bank Robbery: Both The Deposit And The Withdrawal focus on this, in addition to The Auction and The Cache.
• Bittersweet Ending: Phoneix won the war only with three losses, Halcyon is obliterated after the events of the Black Dusk, and the Director eventually follows soon months after, but Rose dies along the way after the Lakehouse, and the Freelancer is unable to escape from the bunker's explosion in time. Sparrow, Rivera (supposedly) and all members of Phoenix is eventually able to move with their lives, but Jackdaw was unable to move on due him being left forever scarred by the Freelancer's death even four years on and the events of the game. While Sparrow is the only one to get a happy ending while Jackdaw doesn't.
  • Leaning more towards a Downer Ending for the Freelance Heists, "Departure" reveals that the Freelancer and Harvey had conned Jade and Dimtry into participating in the heist, there being no Broker in the first place, and shoot the two dead. Unfortunately, Harvey decides at the last moment to attempt to betray the Freelancer, though they're faster and shoot him first. Regardless of whether you choose to spare or kill Harvey, the Freelancer leaves the gold and sets off onto a path that leads to their death almost a decade later.
• Black Site: Wargate is specifically designed as this and is the focus of The Blacksite, as it takes place in a top secret facility that Rose is being held in.
• Bladder of Steel: An average Ironman run can last up to an hour, and maybe even further if most of the missions were done in stealth.
• Book Ends: The Killhouse involved drilling the vault with a Diamond Drill. The final mission, Black Dusk, involved drilling a vault to plant bombs over there.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Your stock UP9. It isn't flashy, but it has no deployment cost and is very useful for stealth missions, and is a good backup weapon as well.
  • For assaults, the F57. Being a fully-automatic rifle has its benefits, but it also has the ability to improve its damage output, and combined with the insane amount of reserve ammo (the majority of Police wield this weapon), this makes it very valuable to carry around, and its stability and accuracy issues can be migrated.
  • Lockpicks. The starter tool for thieves, it can open doors quietly without any sign of breaching compared to the others.
• Boss in Mook Clothing:
  • Agents Hemlock and Nightshade in The SCRS act and look like guards, but they detect the Freelancer's disguise at a higher rate, can't be taken hostage, and they wield Ravens to boot, and you'll need to neutralize one of them to get the USB needed for the third hack.
  • The SWAT Van turrets combine the tankiness of a Gunship, the fire rate of Onyx Unit, and the power of a Sniper. They also tend to be fought in places where it's very hard to shoot them as well.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: As per standard for Roblox games, there exists gamepasses which allow for doubled experience, expanded arsenal, and more characters to use and an increased level limit.
• Brick Joke: During the Entry Point Anniversary 2019 event, solving "The Financier"'s secret revealed a hidden golden Sawblade that wasn't obtainable. About two years later, you can actually get the Goldsaw as a skin for completing daily missions.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Both heist expansion gamepasses have extremely punishing difficulty curves even by the game's standards. Thankfully, they cost about 800/1200 Robux to buy, and they are not in Ironman mode.
  • The Night Heists, which aside from failing the mission if it goes loud, has some unique gimmicks that make stealthing a bit harder than usual.
  • The Freelances Heists, which contains a stealth level with a condition similar to the Night Heists meaning that the mission fails if stealth is broken (and in harder difficulties, violating canon by killing a single person). And while The Lockup is pretty much a standard-of-the-mill mission, The Score is pretty much PAYDAY 2's Armored Transport heists, complete with SWAT Vans and almost no cover!
  • While not a gamepass heist, Concept is basically "The Deposit" if Cishshato had implemented more ambitious plans for the heist, and it shows: Aside from a bigger layout, since it was also developed post-Deposit, this means that any guards that are lured will always have a radio on. Speaking of lures, there's a slight chance that the cam appearing before the fence to not spawn, meaning that you have to either cut down the fence with a blowtorch to get access to other camera lures or bite the bullet and stick with the employee disguise for a while. To top it off, there exists four types of keycards: The basic blue-colored keycard, which opens only certain areas, the security keycard, which opens all areas except the Manager's office, which can be opened with the master keycard, and the vault keycard, which opens the vault. How do you get the second and third keycards? Well, you have to take out an Elite Guard, which cannot be intimidated unless you have the Mercenary perk (which, given that it's not usually an ideal perk for Stealth, means that you're unlikely to even know about it unless you found it out through an accident or search up the wiki) and are usually found within Trespassing areas, meaning that you have to be very quick to take them out, and getting the master keycard requires you to take out the manager (and you still have to interrogate him for the code- not the vault code, but the code to access his computer, which can otherwise be accessed through a Hacker). Fortunately, opening the vault doesn't attract a guard, but trying to get in is the hard part: You have to take out the Elite Guards and the normal guard that will always stand near it, which you have to lure out either through disabling a network sensor. Miss that, and you will also have to risk luring them outside through other methods. Unfortunately, you don't get a badge for clearing it on Legend without killing anyone.
• Camera Spoofing: While disabling a camera is an option, camera looping is also useful, since it doesn't attract guards and doesn't count as a disabled camera.
• Cap: Used to be Level 60, which can be extended to 80 with the Legends gamepass. The update in 5/8/2020 increased the level cap to 75, which can be extended to 100 with the Legends gamepass.
• Challenge Run: The entire point of Ironman Mode, which basically forces you to play through all levels in chronological order except The Killhouse and The Night Heists without dying. The difficulty also increases, though whatever tactic the Freelancers used to complete the mission will either have the detection meters decreased (Stealth) or enemies do more damage (Loud).
• Character Customization: There are multiple customization options for the Freelancer, with their hairstyle, their choice of shades, and a massive amount of clothing choices, with even more customization options with the Extended Customization gamepass.
• Chopper on Standby: Most of the missions involve helicopters in one way or another.
  • Falcon is your escape pilot in The Blacksite, where you extract Rose from Wargate.
  • Sparrow acts as an escape pilot in The Withdrawal, The Scientist, and The SCRS.
  • On the flip side, Gunships appear in The Lakehouse and The SCRS when the missions are forced to go loud, and they deal and take tons of damage.
• Cosmetic Award: Completing 4 daily challenges will reward a random unique paintjob for a specific weapon.
  • Completing 264 daily challenges and unlocking every paintjob in the game awards you with the Chrome Slide paintjob for the Raven, finally allowing you to recreate the Freelancer's custom Raven.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Explosive Flashbangs are able to kill you, but not the enemies.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: The grips have some misinformation about how they work. In theory, the Ergo Grip is meant to be the best grip due giving a massive spread reduction while the Stubby Grip is practically a Joke Item. In practice, the Ergo Grip does decrease spread... When moving, and it only applies towards semi-automatic fire, while the Stubby Grip actually gives a 33% spread reduction regardless when moving or not.
• Convenient Escape Boat: A boat is where you make your exit in The Lakehouse.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Pistol Mastery, at least the dual-wielding pistols part. Yes, it looks cool, but it's not really optimal to use pistols in higher difficulties and it's simply better to opt for an F57 for firefights and another weapon for bigger nasties.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Gunships require massive amounts of gunfire to take a single one down, though the gunship in the SCRS endures less in exchange for missile launchers.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The conversation with the Bank Manager in the Withdrawal depends on the skin tone, hair style and color. Normally you would introduce yourself as Alex Shaw to the Manager, but if you arrive with Ryan Ross' hairstyle, you can introduce yourself as Ryan Ross (even though it's possible for you to not have the exact same hair color and skin tone as Ryan Ross). Additionally, you can instantly start the conversation if you start with the Capitalist's Suit, but given that you need to disable the sensors first, this is not recommended.
  • "The Score" has a very unique conversation if you start out the level alone.
  Freelancer: Why am I doing this solo, this is crazy
  Harvey: You're not. Solo isn't canon, you need three trucks to hold twenty million
  Freelancer: Stop breaking my immersion
  Harvey: Stop doing challenge runs
  • Normally, the missions "The Blacksite", "The Lakehouse" and "Black Dusk" doesn't have any units wielding shields. However, should Shield Swarm appear as one of the restrictions imposed by the Daily Mission, shield units will appear, likely to prevent a wasted slot of a restriction.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The CH-A. Has a somewhat slow rate of fire, and its ammo cannot be replenished, but it hits hard and its reserve ammo isn't too bad. The main challenge is mostly to remedy its problems, such as acquiring Sniper Mastery to have it pierce through everything, and acquiring its related perks alongside Vital Targets to enhance its One-Hit Kill properties, and getting Hidden Reserves alongside Deep Pockets to increase the Reserve Ammo count. Doing this will allow an experienced Freelancer to instantly kill at least 2 enemies per shot, and even camp near bulletproof windows to perform cheap shots on them, alongside being the one of the few weapons that can reliably take down Snipers.
• Distant Finale: "Sunset" takes place a few years after the Epilogue.
• Easter Egg: Very rarely, an alternate soundtrack will play instead of the original one when a mission goes loud.
• Expansion Pack: Two of them:
  • The Night Heists, which have missions that have a major focus on stealth, with any possible exception for going loud being forbidden.
  • The Freelance heists, which are missions that have focuses on the events before Entry Point.
• Fackler Scale of FPS Realism: Semi-simulationist. Cover is emphasized. Until March 16, 2021, the option to use a reticle was not available, meaning that to aim accurately, one must aim down the sights or use a laser sight. A stamina bar prevents you from running all the time, even with upgrades, which is emphasized on Shadow War in which the stamina bar is heavily reduced. A maximum of a Choice of Two Weapons is allowed, though two primaries can be considered. One Bullet Clips is played straight even though there are unique animations for reloading an unloaded gun. Ammunition is scarce even with upgrades, though this is made up for the fact that most enemies can be easily killed with a few bullets (and in the Shadow War gamemode, even with armor, a well placed headshot can easily kill most Operatives). With perks, it's possible to run and shoot at the same time. Guns Akimbo is possible, though it works as much as you expect in real life: Impractical. Probably due to the lack of high floors, there is no fall damage. Enemies will prioritize either the heavily armored unit or a shield unit to protect their less armored targets. Armor is essential for blocking out bullets, with light armor being good against handguns and tougher armor, such as the Aegis armor, give enough protection to withstand enough bullets from assault rifles at the expense of speed, and also not great against explosives. Even shotguns are portrayed realistically here, as they are still capable of scoring kills beyond a distance. There's also no health regeneration, but this is mostly negated by the fact that you can still pretty much stand up after suffering a huge amount of bullets and then use a medkit to pretty come back in well-shape. Rarely there are bosses, and the ones faced are massive gunships which take a tremendous amount of bullets to take down and a supersoldier who can pretty much tank a direct explosion. There are bags which allow for carrying various equipment such as medkits and keycards, and also other types of bags used to carry bodies and important objects. During stealth, Freelancers can eliminate guards, and can also knock out them to prevent ruining their uniforms which allows them to take their clothing and be disguised as them, though it's still possible to get detected if facing a person directly and certain disguises will cause you to still look suspicious if they openly carry a firearm out, and if a guard was eliminated just as he's contacting a radio operator, the Freelancers must try to finish the call with them, but only up to two calls, and certain maps feature guards as reinforcements.
• Final Boss: Was the Black Dusk forced to go loud? Have fun dealing with an Onyx Unit, which wields a minigun to gun you down.
• Fragile Speedster: The result of any build that does not include armor. They're fast, but multiple bullets will likely take them down without mercy.
• Foreshadowing: The "???" mission exclusive to Halloween 2020 uses part of the same map as "The Score".
• Game-Breaking Bug: Don't try to equip a restricted weapon in any restriction that doesn't allow you to equip certain weapons. Just don't.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality:
  • Downplayed with Rose in The Blacksite, as while she can die, she respawns fast enough to make it look like this, which is notable on high ping.
  • Subverted with Rivera in The Scientist, where it's possible for her to get killed by Halcyon if the mission goes loud before the vault containing her is opened, or if breaching charges were used to breach the safe room wall before she leaves, but played straight if none of them happen after she's freed.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • It's entirely possible to have at least more than 30 seconds remaining on the clock even on Legend during the Black Dusk mission, yet the epilogue reveals that the Freelancer didn't have enough time to escape.
  • During the The Auction heist, Rose informs the Freelancer that the auction will start in thirty minutes. Should the Freelancer actually wait that long, the auction still doesn't start for some reason.
  • In the Lakehouse, Steel Cove will launch their assault when the mission reaches the 9-11 minute mark. However, when the player starts the mission loud, then Steel Cove will arrive earlier.
• Glass Cannon: Because of how the way Ironman works, especially in Legend, all Freelancers are completely unable to take sustained gunfire even in Aegis armor, but the sheer amount of firepower provided by their weapons more or less make it up for the vulnerability. In particular, with knowledge of critical positions, it's possible for a simple group of Freelancers to completely take down squadrons of SWAT units.
• Given Name Reveal: Looking at The Lock information counts as this, and some information is also revealed in the cutscenes. However, this is somewhat downplayed as sometimes, they specifically reveal their Code Name rather than their real name, and sometimes, parts of their full name are revealed. The code names and real names revealed so far:
  • The Director:
    • Code Name: Kingfisher
    • Real Name: Mason Wolfe
  • Roselin:
    • Real Name: Rachel Thorne
  • Wren:
    • Real Name: Eric Reed
  • Falcon:
    • Real Name: Blake Danger
  • Jackdaw:
    • Real Name: Jack Miles
  • Sparrow:
    • Real Name: Sophia Pearl
  • Rivera:
    • Full Name: Celeste Rivera
• Grenade Launcher: The Thumper, which fires a single, yet lethal 40mm grenade round and damages Gunships significantly. Needless to say, it's quite dangerous.
• Guide Dang It!: Invoked with the Lock codes, which are very well hidden throughout the entire map, and entering them in a certain area reveals more of the game's lore. However, Cishshato allowed the code spoilers to be leaked after one too many incidents involving toxicity with them, along with the nearing of the final mission, so you're allowed to discuss them, thankfully.
  • Speaking of codes, finding the code for The Killhouse can get annoying at first. You have to find 3 circuit boxes that contain a dark wire, which can be anywhere, and once that happens, you then have to drill the vault. Said vault timer lasts 15 minutes.
  • Also a minor example, but there is an alternative way to disable the metal detectors in The SCRS: Hacking the computer near the checkpoint. Since Freelancers mostly likely are Breachers, and hackers are unlikely to notice it, they tend to simply opt to drop their weapons in places where guards cannot notice them.
  • There is a way to bypass the Takedown Limit: Rather than simply knocking them out, they can instead hostage the person. Unfortunately, this is not ever explained in-game, which is crucial towards Daily Missions with strict Takedown Limits. Also, you have to be very careful where to hostage them, cause if they are in the wrong place, they can get up and sound the alarm!
  • There's a way to detect the Head of Security in "The Lakehouse" without interrogating the camera operator. Simply put, you deliberately have to expose yourself to the camera so that you can lure the Head of Security. Unlike other examples, this will only lure the Head and nobody else, something the game never tells you.
• Guns Akimbo: You can dual wield pistols with the Pistol Mastery skill.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Guards in this game will sound the alarm upon seeing you as a suspicious person, and will also sound it upon obtaining too many suspicious items (though this can be exploited by baiting a guard outside the patrolling area and into a place where they can safely be made an hostage), though they are opting to not look at the Freelancers even though they differentiate from them if they wear disguises (though wearing guard disguises will cause them to eventually get suspicious of you), multiple ways of disabling alarms, and the Steel Cove and SCRS guards also have an armory which can be used against them.
• Halloween Episode: The Halloween Hitlists focused on shooting pumpkins in exchange for cosmetic rewards. The 2020 Halloween Hitlist, on the other hand, is much more serious. After shooting all the pumpkins in the Killhouse, the Freelancer is teleported to mission ???, in which Jackdaw congrats the Freelancer, but apologizing for how it ended up like this. After surviving a Elite-ranked assault wave, Jackdaw reveals to the Freelance that he successfully killed the director of Halcyon and subsequently ended the Halcyon organization, and wishes that the Freelance was still alive to see Halcyon's downfall. He then pays his respects to the fallen Freelancer.
• The Hero Dies: The Freelancer completes the Black Dusk mission at the cost of their life.
• Hitbox Dissonance: For some reason, all of the NPCs have a very wide head hitbox, which is something you'll notice if you aim at the side of their heads.
• Jack of All Trades: Commandos border on this and Jack of All Stats, as they possess both useful loud and stealth skills. However, they don't have the movement penalty reduction from the Engineer's class, resulting in them becoming a bit slower than Juggernauts. What keeps them out of Master of None is that they are very useful in missions in which encourages a mixture of both loud and stealth, particularly in The Scientist, in which keeping a low profile to the point where you can save Rivera is beneficial, especially if you somehow kill Falcon too early, which places you in a time limit in which you must rescue Rivera before she gets shot.
• Karma Houdini: Jackdaw, Sparrow, Phoenix and The Freelancer (regardless dying in Black Dusk) all gets no punishment for their crimes.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • If you play The Auction or The Cache heist, be warned that certain info may change the context of certain heists.
  • Try not to play the game during April Fools 2021 unless you risk spoilers being revealed much earlier, such as Rose dying later on and the Freelancer dying in the Epilogue.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Juggernaut builds will most likely result in this. Not only they have armor tough enough to withstand multiple assaults, but the Engineer's mobility penalty reduction allows them to move fast even in Aegis armor, and can potentially wield powerful guns to fight back, which can be further enhanced with the right perks.
  • Aegis units. Not only they are fast, but they can take quite a beating, and even have shields to protect them from gunfire.
  • Steel Cove Shredders are even worse. Not only do they deal quite the damage, they also move fast in spite of wielding Sawblades, with the only reprieve that they don't wield shields unlike the Aegis units. Halcyon Juggernauts are also this on virtue of being Palette Swaps of them.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shield units have shields that protect them from the front, with the Aegis unit taking it up a notch.
• Marathon Level: The Ironman mode forces you to go through all of the missions in chronological order, and you cannot die in either of those missions or your run will end.
• Master of None: The Hacker class is considered to be rather subpar, because while they do get early access to Surveillance State and Interference, they don't have lockpicks unlike Thieves, and are nigh-obsoleted in loud due to them not being near any useful combat perks, and while they are near Sniper and Pistol mastery, both of them are slightly impractical, making them reliant on Medkits and are very situational on certain heists that can go loud (i.e. hacking the 2 computers in The Deposit to retain access to the bonus cash). While they do have a Keycard Scrambler, real Keycards are found commonplace and don't attraction suspicion unlike the Keycard Scrambler, and certain Keycards are available to access certain locations that the Keycard Scrambler cannot.
• Mighty Glacier: Armored builds initially start as this until they get the Engineer class, as while they can dish out and resist boatloads of damage, they move slowly, even moreso with heavy weapons.
• Mind Screw: The nature of The Killhouse. It's stated to be a simulated training experience for Halcyon members, but the real explanation is very complicated. After Cishshato made an edit to the wiki article of The Killhouse stating that it happened after the events of the Epilogue (where the Freelancer is a Posthumous Character, by the way), further supported by the speedrun section listing The Killhouse after Black Dusk, heavily implying it to be some kind of purgatory for the Freelancer, not being helped by Rose being the mission coordinator for that even though she died around the events of The Lakehouse and Retribution. It does, explain, however, why the heck are there explosives used over there given that Non-Fatal Explosions is subverted. And then there's the whole Nightmare Assault, which heavily implies that Rose is talking to not the Freelancer, but Jackdaw. Yeah, it's that complicated, and its real nature remains a mystery.
  • Another explanation is the Halloween Hitlist 2020 after you shot all pumpkins, you go to this "heist" called ???/Aftermath, Jackdaw can be seen talking to the Freelancer's grave after burying their body, He tells them about the fall of Halcyon, how he regrets not saving them, and how he is proud of the Freelancer's work.
• Money for Nothing: Once you pretty much buy every weapon in the game (Expanded Arsenal weapons included), you'll find out that money is used only for buying stuff and not equipment costs, which is very easy to bypass given the Anti-Frustration Features.
• Mood Whiplash: The 2021 April Fools main story script is full of hilarious fourth wall breaks. Doesn't stop the the Epilogue from being depressing though, and unlike the original in which Rose questioned whether if it was really the right thing to destroy Project Onyx, the edited script, while still containing a few jokes, ultimately has her declaring that they really screwed up this time, and that there's no redemption for them.
• Murder by Mistake: It's entirely possible to teamkill a fellow Freelancer if they happen to wear a costume that resembles an enemy unit, especially if they happen to wield the Aegis Mask, which may cause them to mistake them for Steel Cove Shredders, resulting in a rather unfortunate situation where Poor Communication Kills.
• Mugged for Disguise: Knocking out employees and guards will allow you to obtain their disguise. However, they cannot be obtained if they were killed rather than pacified.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Wren really shouldn't have suspected the Freelancer of being a traitor to Halcyon due to their connection with Rose, and if he never shot them, they wouldn't have defected to Phoenix in the first place.
• Noodle Incident:
  • The main reason why Thumpers aren't allowed in the Shooting Range is because Rose likely fired one in there in the past, though it's never further elaborated upon.
  • Whatever happened in The Lock file for Concept has yet to be explained, as most of it is corrupted and fragmented data.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • As seen in Not the Intended Use, Thumpers can be use to breach doors, but you're going have at least a spare one if you want to deal with SWAT Van Turrets, since they OHKO them even on Legend. They're also great against Gunships, since they have effective damage against them.
  • Grenades. Normally because of how overkill they are, they're only viable in Shadow War where Grenade Spam is a viable option. However, they also deal effective damage to gunships, and is practically mandatory in "The Lakehouse", since you just happen to be right near a cover that allows you to throw grenades against it, and especially on daily challenges that have One Shot.
• Not the Intended Use: The Thumper is intended to be a crowd-clearing grenade launcher. However, it also works as a breaching tool for doors (though you have to be wary of your surroundings, as it can potentially kill off your fellow teammates if they aren't standing clear).
• Oh, Crap!: The description itself does this for the Daily Challenge regarding the Explosive Revenge restriction (which involves an combination of Flashbang Revenge and Explosive Flashbangs) wondering if this is some kind of conspiracy before being taken away by someone.
• One-Hit Kill: Any explosive counts as this, such as frag grenades, Thumper, C4, proximity mines, and the missiles fired from the gunship in The SCRS, due to their damage exceeding that of NPCs.
• One-Man Army: Let's just say there's a very good reason that Halcyon recruited the Freelancer. Because if the stealthy approach doesn't work, they can pack one hell of a punch, shredding through waves of SWAT teams, soldiers and even operatives like themselves
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: The SCRS has the highest payout and experience on all difficulties. While experience gains for stealth-based Freelancers is pretty risky, the risk is mitigated by loud-based Freelancers, who have the bulk and firepower to endure multiple assault waves.
• Play Every Day: Starting from August 2, 2021, Freelancers can partake in Daily Challenges, which forces them to take some restrictions in various missions. Completing every four missions nets you a paint skin for a weapon.
• Posthumous Character: The Freelancer was dead for the entire game development, since the Killhouse was their purgatory, which was set after the epilogue. Along with all the missions and cutscenes being flashbacks.
  • This also includes Rose, Falcon, Wren, The Director, Ryan Ross, Jade and Dmitry who was also dead for the entire game. Rivera, Harvey, Nightshade and Hemlock counts also (if killed)
• Point of No Continues: The Ironman mode combines this with Marathon Level, because if you die in either mission, your run is ended.
• Private Military Contractors: Steel Cove is noted to be this, and to differentiate them from the police, they don't wear helmets and wield different weaponry, most notably Sawblades for the Steel Cove Shredders.
• Punch-Packing Pistol: The Raven, which outside of The SCRS, is only available to be purchased through the Expanded Arsenal gamepass.
• Pyrrhic Victory: While Phoenix won the war with only the death of three members, Jackdaw was forever scarred by the Freelancer's death and the events of the game, while others including Sparrow managed to retire peacefully.
• Real Time: Case File Summary #010416 revealed that the date Halcyon was declared defunct was exactly on May 9th, 2020, the day Black Dusk was released.
  • The "Sunset" cutscene is also set on April 16th 2021, the day it was released during the 2021 anniversary event.
• Retcon: Prior to the release of the Freelancer Heists, the MM-20, which is based on the Kriss Vector, was stated to be made in 2010. When the Freelancer Heists were released, the date was changed from 2010 to 2005. Also qualifies as Anachronism Stew, because the Kriss Vector was only designed in 2006.
• Robbing the Mob Bank: As retroactively revealed in The Auction, The Withdrawal mission turned out to be this, as it involved robbing money laundered by Halcyon.
• RPG Elements: You gain experience for finishing missions, leveling up gains perk points to be spent on perks, and there's a class system that determines a Freelancer's abilities.
• Rule of Three: Upon the third radio an Freelancer with Deception answers, the alarm will be sounded. Also in Legend difficulty, if a third camera is disabled, the camera operator will sound the alarm.
• Safecracking: Safes contain multiple important items, and can be opened in various was, such as cracking them (which can be made easier if the safe code was obtained from interrogating a guard), drilling them open, or using a blowtorch.
• Sentry Gun: A SWAT Van Turret appears in "The Score", and depending on the amount of players and difficulty, a second one might appear.
• Self-Deprecation: The April Fools 2021 script for Black Dawn says that this game was "Developed by one person pretending to be an entire group called: FREEFALL SOFTWORKS" and "The person to blame for this is Cishshato". Additionally, the game description during that time said "Join us for the world premiere of Terrible Actors: The Movie: The Game".
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Downplayed. The 480 MCS is quite a powerful shotgun, especially at close range, and in Stealth runs, has a very good intimidation range due to Shotgun Mastery. Unfortunately, it's high spread as well as it's poor range makes it a less than ideal weapon.
• Super-Soldier: Project Onyx is heavily implied to be this, as the boss of Black Dusk is named Onyx Unit and takes far more punishment than a Gunship.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: Meta-example. Hours before the release of Black Dusk, the level limit was increased from 60 (80 with Legends gamepass) to 75 (100 with Legends gamepass). Not long after, Black Dusk is released.
  • Also, the fact that Halcyon Juggernauts can drop medkits. You're going to need all of them.
• Take That, Audience!: The developer notes for April Fools 2019 noted that Halcyon stopped hiring Freelancers due to their unreliability and that Wren was fired for hiring so many of them.
• There Was a Door: There are multiple ways of breaching doors, such as using lockpicks, blowtorches, drills, and also blowing up the door with C4 and the Thumper (though that comes with the risk of damaging everyone near it, including the Freelancers) and Breaching Charges (much safer and less audible, surprisingly).
• Timed Mission:
  • The Lakehouse has either a 11-minute or 9-minute limit before the mission is forced to go loud.
  • Black Dusk also features a time limit with either 20 minutes or 15 minutes. Unlike The Lakehouse, however, if the time runs out, the mission automatically fails.
• The Unreveal: Played for laughs during the April Fools 2021 event, where in "Critical", Rose denies the Freelancer the information about her true name (the unedited version of "Critical" had Rose state her first name as Rachel).
• Universal Ammunition: While this is mostly downplayed as most of the guns can refill ammo only from certain dropped guns (for example, the MM20, which is based of the KRISS Vector, refills its ammo from dropped K45s, which is based of the M1911 has both guns use the same ammo type, which makes sense because both of their real-life counterparts use .45 ACP rounds), both the UP9 and the S97 use the same type of ammunition. Their real-life counterparts, on the other hand, the CZ 75 and the MP7, only use 9x19 Parabellum and HK 4.6x30mm, respectively.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • Killing civilians count as this, as they void your No Kills bonus for that mission.
  • If the Freelancer drops off Ryan Ross out of his penthouse, not only will Rose call you out for this, your reward is significantly reduced by half.
• Video Game Tutorial: If you play Entry Point for the first time, after going through the Black Dawn cutscene, you can go through the Freelancer mission which teaches you how to play the game. It's skippable, but highly recommended for beginners.
• Weld the Lock: The Precision Drilling perk allows players to close drilled doors and make it look like it wasn't drilled, though anyone will notice that it was drilled if they open the drilled door.
• Wham Episode:
  • Dedication began to ramp up the stakes for the plot. For one, after Wren informs the Freelancer of catching another traitor, he then immediately shoots them, informing that their squad was compromised. However, before he can finish off the Freelancer, he is shot and killed by someone else, and after the Freelancer woke up and recovered, that someone else happened to be Jackdaw.
  • Earlier, Payoff managed to provide early clues towards what happened to the Freelancer post-Retribution, well... see Wham Shot below.
• Wham Line: Should you complete the Nightmare mode for the Killhouse, Rose' dialogue for that mission can be quite unexpected.
  Rose: It's done. It's over. Had to have your revenge, didn't you? Couldn't just walk away... I wish it hadn't ended like this... You had to know this is where it would take you. Au revoir...
• Wham Shot: Payoff's opening cutscene somehow managed to be this due to being released before The Blacksite, and it starts off with the Freelancer waking up next to Jackdaw.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Rose will call you out if you throw Ryan Ross out of his penthouse.
  • Rivera will also call you out if you detonate the breaching charges at the safe room wall after she moves. On the other hand, if a Halcyon guard kills Rivera or you inadvertently kill her by using the breaching charges, Jackdaw will call you out for this.
  • Jackdaw will call you out if you take out the manager before they open the vault or if you take out the employee before interrogating them.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • Ashes reveals that Jackdaw was betrayed by Halcyon for his services to them, which motivated him to start up Phoenix and warns the Freelancer of what Halcyon plans to do with them.
  • In the Departure cutscene, after Harvey and the Freelancer shot Dmitry and Jade, Harvey attempted to kill the Freelancer to keep the gold for himself. It does not succeed.