First big heist
Commit your first robbery.


The beginning is set
Complete the first chapter.


Experienced Thief
Complete the second chapter.


Free Man
Complete the third chapter.


Loyal Friend
Complete the fourth chapter.


Savior of Mankind
Complete the game.


Just progress the story. Completely unmissable.


The Harsh Test
Complete the entire game on high difficulty.


Tough but not impossible, your biggest obstacle will be the Ministry building. Its a big difficulty spike with your skills not quite developed yet. If you get past that the game opens up with other options to help you along. some tips in general:

• Hard mode throws people with the bloodhound and sixth sense traits at you much earlier, Both of these are a problem but Bloodhound is much more so due to them following your trail you can corner yourself if you panic. Keep calm and if they do pick up your trail remember that distance is your biggest friend for losing the trail along with hoping in and out of windows, anything they can't naturally cross themselves.
  
  
• Hard mode in addition also locks up a lot more things and increases the difficulty of said locked out things more, this is more an opportunity in disguise as the more things you break into the faster your skills will level, always try to burn through your tools as much as you can so you're leveling as much as humanly possible, especially if you're using the mechanic specialization that restores your tool's durability anyway. No longer as valid as this skill has been changed with the more recent updates, still worth using your tools as much as you can and repair them at the hardware shop.
  
  
• Get into a habit of using up what helpful items you find on the heist especially if its become partially consumed anyway, items retain their current use value so they become useless to bring to a heist like that and they also sell poorly. Items can be merged in the latest versions but still better to make use of them in the heist to make your time easier.
  
  
• Raider skill can largely be ignored on hard, I personally stuck to stealth and used books so raider didn't lag too far behind, the few times I deliberately used raider tools it was always the apathy toxin which needs no training in the tree to use. Petards aren't super useful due to the raising the alarm level and they hardly keep them stunned long enough to do anything or get away, this includes using them to escape since the more aggressive pursuit AI wont probably easily let you escape. Later on you'll get the chloroform specialization and that's free raider leveling for the rest of the game.
  
  
• Make wise use of your quick saves, many heists have check points as well which act as a freebie save. In general try to save your quick saves so when you pass a really finicky, inconsistent part of a heist, for example many of mine were on very inconsistent pick pocketing early on. The Devil's contract exists as a save scummer's wet dream but keep in mind this also leaves you short one slot that could have been used on a useful specialization instead.
  
  
• With the challenge update comes a new perk from completing the black eagle challenge which can turn hard into a joke, the comfortable shoes perk gives you permanent "forward march" and makes people with bloodhound lose that ability. The irony of course is if you can clear this challenge you're probably more than capable of handling story mode on hard anyway but either way if you find yourself struggling, unlocking this perk would make a world of difference in difficulty.

Survivor
Complete the entire game on the "survival" difficulty.

Here we go. The Ultimate Test. There are several changes to survival mode, outside of the big ones, many items have been switched up and replaced. Many on site procurement tools are replaced with food items or nothing at all. Aside from that you have the expected locked to hard difficulty along with several other major changes.

Hunger


After every heist you need to supply your pantry with food or suffer penalties. Largely being satiated is enough, though I went to feast for the 5kg carry bonus on a few of the later heists. Also to note the more people you have under your roof (Claire, Andrew) the more food you need to provide to reach the thresholds.
It has 4 states

Hunger: Carrying Capacity is reduced by 10kg, all skills are decreased by 20%
Poor Diet: Carrying Capacity is reduced by 5kg
Satiated: No change
Feast: Carrying Capacity is Increased by 5kg


Wanted Level/Police Search


Every heist you do will increase your wanted level based on "evidence you leave behind" This typically means anything you do that increases your in-heist alarm level, will contribute to your wanted level. A higher wanted level will cause your alarm level to raise faster but its really not that bad, I think I went into the last heist around 65% wanted without reducing it much at all. there are 3 ways you can reduce it.

Pay Bill to reduce it: for $200 bill will reduce your wanted level by 2/3rds its value, every time you do this the cost will increase by $200 the next time you want to do it ($200, $400, $600, etc)







Wanted Posters: Starting with the status of "suspicious person" in the police search category levels will spawn wanted posters, each one you tear down reduces your wanted level by 2%. I don't think I've ever seen more than 2 a level, so you can't reduce it by much, at best you may cancel out your wanted level for the heist.














Food Stamps and charity: If you keep giving food stamps to the beggar you can choose now from one of two choices. The first gives you +1 Perk points while the second now reduces your wanted level by a set amount. I highly recommend against ever reducing your wanted level this way unless you're desperate, the skill point is way more valuable.

Changes to Perks

Survival comes with penalties to the perk system. They now have an exponential cost.

0-5 perks cost 1 point to acquire
6-14 cost 2
15+ cost a whopping 3 points each
This will limit how many skills you can take, but not enough you feel incredibly limited.

Clearing the mode

I highly suggest a play through on hard or normal to get yourself familiar with the heists first. Also doing so will unlock the challenge maps and their rewards to use in survival. Comfortable Boots and Pumpkin Mask are invaluable in this difficulty and I highly recommend having them before attempting. I also recommend when getting to chapter 3 and the choice of helping or turning in the runaway soldier to help him for the Rookie perk. It'll be very useful to haul more loot out to sell and keep up with essential skill/food stamp buying and repairs. You can buy food to keep the pantry stocked if desperate, there is enough money to still do that comfortably but there is also enough food to go around stealing from heists. It is also highly recommended to get a handgun to make into the EMP gun as soon as possible.

Largely though if you can clear Hard, you can clear this. Good Luck!

Master Thief
Thief Mastery is 100% studied.


Master Raider
Raider Mastery is 100% studied.


Master Cracker
Lockpicking is 100% studied.


Master Robber
Rough Break-in is 100% studied.


Master Pickpocket
Pickpocketing is 100% studied.


Master Hacker
Knowledge of electronics is 100% studied.



The trick to getting all these done in a single run is hoarding antiques, you should only donate as many antiques as you need to get perks unlocked and progress comfortably, natural play can easily get most of the skills to 70-80% to which you can then focus antiques on skill books for a single skill to get it to 100%, re-load your save, and do the next.

The only one I personally had trouble with was rough break-in, this can be easily fixed by deliberately breaking open anything you see and can do safely. Try to do everything on the heist in general as it can only level your skills.

Specialist
Gain 12 specializations.


Not hard at all, strangely enough I could swear this popped from me adding perk points so they may count towards this. However, even if they do not its very easy to accomplish 12 specializations, talk to every character fully and take any training offered. There are also a few books that give you feats and some given for free as story progression. There is a total of 20 specializations in the game.There's more now with the updates.

Altruist
Give Albert 100 food stamps.


Albert is a beggar just outside of Karl's place who asks for food stamps and gives "nothing" in return, at first. This achievement should happen naturally because you should be giving him all your food stamps as the gains from it far outweigh the little money the food stamps are worth. Also, at the beginning of each major act, most shops also refresh their stock of carrying food stamps, which you can buy and give to Albert as well.

Perfectionism
Commit a robbery without raising the alarm.


Easiest to complete on the very first heist, The butcher shop. Note that "without raising the alarm" doesn't mean just not alerting anyone, the alarm gauge has to stay at 0% the whole heist. The easiest way to fail this that people don't think of is swiping stuff out in the open and a hostile noticing it later. This is also not difficulty locked either so feel free to do it on easy if you need to.

Scoundrel
Attack 5 hostile characters in a single heist.


Any person that can be alerted counts as a hostile, it must be 5 different people. One thing the achievement does not tell you is the heist has to be complete to be awarded this. For this reason the Slaughterhouse District makes the best place to do this, as its main objective is easy enough to accomplish quickly. You will also need a minimum of 3 Petards to accomplish this achievement as well.

Librarian
Read 15 books.


There's many books found in heists, also every antique you trade gets you one book as well. In addition completing the 10th anniversary medal side quest to the antique dealer gives you 1 of each skill book as well.

Curiosity
Read 75 notes.


There's closer to 100 notes in the entire game, so you can even miss quite a few and still safely get this achievement, the end of heist stats tell you how many notes a heist had if you want to find them all.

Complete Collection
Find 10 antique items.


Starting with the Commandant's mansion and continuing for the rest of the game, each heist will have one antique you can find. there's more than 10 available so you can miss a couple, but not many.

Smuggling
Find all the rare alcohol.
Early on you'll get a request from a gentleman in the bar who is looking for rare alcohol. He gives you 20% of the market value of any bottle found, unfortunately you cannot sell them yourself. Finding all of them will net you the achievement, the bottles do not appear if you didn't take the quest.

Noble Wine: Fortune Teller's house

Located in the fortune teller's 1f bedroom out in the open. If you wait till her routine changes to do loops between 1f and 2f. Its possible to steal this without raising the alarm level








Merry Gin: Money Lender's Mansion

Located in the 1f servant's kitchen of the mansion, its easiest to steal this and then jump out the window to escape. Otherwise its very hard to sneak back past the maid. This one is never noticed to be stolen.






Purified Vodka: Red Hearts Hospital

Located in basement of the main administration building, in the room where all the lighting controls are and near the numb skull doctor. nobody enters this room so its 100% safe to swipe












Excellent Wiskey: The General's Apartment

Located on the 2f of the building, in the other bedroom opposite of the room with the computer. mind the wall camera, the camera however will not spot the stolen wiskey.








Quality Beer: Warehouse

Located in the far left code locked building, high risk of being noticed being stolen. Alternatively can be stolen in a second location since the Warehouse is a miss able optional heist.















Quality Beer: Prison "Black Eagle"

Located on the 3f Towers, can be safely stolen without any increase of alarm.












Slumdog Savior
Find 3 cures for fever.

This side quest becomes available during the beginning of chapter 3, Rudolf will speak of an impending epidemic in the slums and ask you to find medicine to help people survive. he asks for 3 crates of fever treatment. The medicine crates are found at Red Hearts Hospital and only if the side quest is active. This quest has to be done now or it is missed.

The crates weigh a whopping 5kg each as well, bring second breath's if you want to carry more loot than just them out. Secure all 3 and you'll get your shiny achievement and +2 perk points. Each major structure of the hospital has a case. Worth noting that pretty much all of these cannot be stolen without causing some alarm.

The first Case is in the Recovery Wing in a storage closet













The second is in the small office next to the administration wing.











The third is in the basement of the administration wing. In the room with the numb skull surgeon.

A new update added 3 challenge maps to the game, Now 4 with the Halloween map. Clearing these while accomplishing an optional side objective unlocks an item for use in the main game along with shiny new achievements. All the challenge maps default to hard difficulty and throw quite a few dirty tricks at you.

Silver Pipe
Get the unique reward for completing the challenge.
Optional Objective: Find the Silver Pipe and leave the level with it in hand.


Optional objective for this one is very easy. which is good since the level is pretty long and has plenty of spots to mess you up, especially the end. The silver pipe is located in a filing cabinet in Bills house, since you have to go here for objectives anyway this one is practically unmissable.
The pipe itself can be used in the last sections to distract guards, but I'd advise against it due to their bloodhound, it rarely worked out in my favor.



Pouch of Ashes
Get the unique reward for completing the challenge.
Optional Objective: Do not raise the alarm at all


Hoo boy... this one sucks. Make strategic use of your quick saves here. also its worth noting that except for the painting that covers the laser panel on the 2f, a single piece of food on the far side of the pantry and an iron in the basement, you cannot steal anything out in the open to maintain 0% alarm. You also will want to pick pocket the house maids and wife for their keys to make your life a lot easier here, you can also pickpocket the police officer outside the front for a key but its not required. The maid that goes into the pantry is easy to pickpocket so I advise you to not grab anything till you've pick pocketed her so you can build up your warm up skill for the other maid who moves around way too much, your place to get her is when she moves to the far side of the dining room, you'll want the ring off her.

Once you've gotten those two, the nightstand in the dinning room has a brain stimulator to help you pick pocket the wife a lot easier. The idea for getting the key off the wife is to wait for the right moment and activate the phonograph to lure her here to stand still long enough for you to pick pocket her under the effects of brain stimulator then quickly get out of sight. With her key you can get to the room behind the dinning room to get yet another key. Be warned, that once you enter this room cameras start activating in a pattern all across the mansion. With this key you can go over and deactivate the laser grids on the 2f and gain access to the other rooms, if you steal from every open container you should have just over 200 value to escape, meaning you shouldn't have to deal with the safe, thank god.


Comfortable Boots
Get the unique reward for completing the challenge.
Optional Objective: Craft every available item


The level is far more intimidating than the challenge this time, the challenge should pretty much happen as a consequence of playing the level unless you deliberately forget to craft the lower items. Only make one night blindness toxin, and save every other resource for the far more useful sweet dreams toxin.

As for tackling the level itself its going to make you zig zag around a lot to get to certain places. Key things you'll need for your escape are:

The Spirit of The leader in the 1f office
The Rusty Whistle in the 2f Interrogation room, pick pocketed off the guard.
The Key off the patrolling 2f guard can get you past the unbearable door leading to the item lockup on the 2f which holds tons of useful stuff (use a well placed sweet dreams and pick pocket away)

Be prepared to lose concentration levels to get places and to do several actions without concentration if need be, you can find second breath's around the place. Once you make out of the prison you'll need to make it to the bridge on the far end of the map. First use spirit of the leader to get dogs off you, the first guard you can get to look away with the rusty whistle and carefully walk around him or run using forward march, at this point you're pretty much home free as long as you've still got two sweet dreams toxins to use on the last two guards in your way going up the side, do not try to do the bridge the guard is staring at.

Pumpkin mask
Get the unique reward for completing the challenge.
Optional Objective: Setup at least 4 accidents

Being a seasonal map I felt this was easier than the 3 challenge maps, still has its moments. The first thing you should do is pick the front door, followed by the car nearby. Once you make it inside you have a couple of options but I suggest grabbing the Halloween mask as it makes you completely immune to civilians as long as you don't do anything questionable, its just inside the kitchen very close to where you enter the front door, you can use one of the charges of the brain simulator you got from the car to get into the kitchen faster since the 1f hall way can tend to be a bit crowded and chaotic. To access the 3rd floor you need wire cutters found on the 2nd floor.

When it comes to the 3rd floor attic its a little pressured to get by but with the right setup you can get by not too bad. the middle room on the second floor has a desk which contains a forward march which you want since you need to run past guards and that's about all the time the moment gives is to run. once you have the forward march enter the room and get behind the first patroling guard you want to activate the switch for the lights when he's about halfway down the rectangle of boxes near you, if you wait too long he'll round the corner and come to check on the switch from the other side, combined with the other guard you'll trap yourself. wait for them to approach and quickly run by. In the back room is a switch you can permanently shut the lights off.

Your main objective is to kill the general on the 3rd floor but to get the unlockable like before you need to clear the optional objective which means killing 4 people total making it look like an accident. The general counts as one of these so you need 3 more. They are:

    
• The General, use lard and then use the pipe wrench on the pipes near by, then hack the panel next to it, this will cause the general to be electrocuted when he comes to check up on it, since he's the main objective, you cannot mess up the timing or order. if you cut the lights before breaking the pipes he'll periodically keep checking the switch till conditions are met.
      
• The man at the fire place. You can break the chimney on the second floor with the pipe wrench to cause the man in the room to die from smoke inhalation. You have to block the door to exit the room with a chair first or he'll just leave the room instead, pumpkin mask is required to get past the dinner table stealthily.
      
• The Pervert past the kitchen and pantry. In the room with fireplace you can lockpick a nightstand for a whistle, this whistle is unique that if you play it near the pervert the rats will come up and devour him.
      
• The chain smoker who goes outside. you can wait in the room at the back of the attic for him to go smoke which you then crush him with a box hanging from a crane. Timing is actually important, you can miss.
      
• The man in the bathtub. You can craft a sweet dreams toxin which if you use on him he'll drown in the tub.
      
• The glutton drinking wine on the 2nd floor. In the general's office there is poison in a desk. Which you can add to his wine. If you try to use it when he's around it'll say "I can't poison the drink with witnesses" I think realistically you're supposed to lure him away with the record player. But I found it easier to use my last sweet dreams toxin and then manually push him away by walking into him.

There's at least 2 other possible kills I believe but I couldn't figure out how kill the pervert or the man at the fireplace, if anyone figures these out let me know. Found and guide updated.

If found this guide useful, leave a like.
Updated 10/27/2023 to reflect challenge mode.
Updated 4/9/2024 to reflect survival mode.
Credit XChronos and toomanynights for the missing Halloween map kill methods.