Here we come with out-of-schedule update solely focused on difficulty! If there ever was a moment to start a new game profile from scratch, it is now.
This update is a big experiment. We've added several new features to enemies and levels on higher difficulties, to add challenge beyond just higher toughness. Enemies shoot more, launch extra rockets, they have new appendages to block your shots or shoot beams at you, etc. It needs extensive testing. We made a ton of small additions everywhere because of this (it is a major global change to the game), so bugs are very likely. It might make some sections even unplayable, if we went overboard with it. There's no chance for us to test it all in a reasonable time. So please let us know, what have ve broken. Here's more detailed list of changes:

• New high difficulty features on all enemies: barriers, beamers, mine deployers, turrets, missile launchers, death bombs, retaliation fire.
• HARDCORE MODE should work now.
• Significantly reduced score/money.
• First few levels and bosses on Normal difficulty should be slightly easier to defeat.
• Vampirion's healing power is halved.
• Energy Barrier and Rammer have slightly smaller collision to avoid complete blocking of all incoming threads.
• Several minor bug fixes and improvements, including "NEW" tag for new items in the shop.