Hardcore Mode

 is a special difficulty added to Bloons Monkey City on 21 February 2014. It unlocks at city level 10. It makes dense bloon rushes and regrowth bloons more common, increases the cost of towers and upgrades to the equivalent of Hard Difficulty in the Bloons TD series, and also causes cuts to bloon income early on. Winning on Hardcore Mode grants double City Cash, Double Bloontonium (including salvaged Bloontonium, even if loss), Double Honor and, if No Lives Lost, 10. For newer players, it is not recommended to go hardcore mode on an MvM defense, as even easy maps can have incredibly overwhelming numbers of bloons in later rounds, making even lead rushes seem very difficult for a experienced player, and retrying costs 50 (much more than could be won by winning). Hardcore Mode also cannot be activated on Special Mission Tiles, or Bloon Beacon Tiles.

This type of mode is exclusive to the flash version only.

Trivia

 * Having Hardcore Mode on a Red Bloon tile will modify nothing to the Red Bloons, not even to loosely packed or tightly packed bloons, making it a good source for bloonstone farming when you first unlock it.
 * Hardcore Mode used to not give city honor soon after it was first released due to honor farming making the honor achievements really easy to get. It gave double honor again in January 2018.