Last month, Candywriter released yet another major update for its long-running, still-popular life simulator game, BitLife. The Secret Agent Expansion Pack, as it’s known, allows players to live out their spy movie fantasies, at least in the game’s virtual world, as Bitizens can now start up their own spgy agency, hire several operatives to carry out a wide range of missions and match wits with other agencies, stealing their resources while you protect your funds, agents, and missions from getting pirated by these rivals.
Compared to many of the expansion packs we’ve seen roll out over the past year or two, we have to admit the Secret Agent update is one of the more interesting we’ve seen. As we’ll be mentioning again later, this is one of those special occupations that won’t interfere with your day job, so if you’re looking for a good source of extra virtual income, you just might want to open your own spy agency.
But there are a lot of other things you need to take into account before doing this, and we’re going to be discussing that and a whole lot more in this BitLife strategy guide, which covers everything you need to know about the Secret Agent Expansion Pack, including every type of mission and all the twists and turns that could come with your new life as a secret agent in the BitLife universe.
Getting Started with Your Spy Agency — Make Sure You’re Loaded!
Much like many of the new things you can do in BitLife thanks to Candywriter’s semi-regular expansion packs, you’re going to need to have quite a fortune in your bank account so you can make the most out of the Secret Agent update.
That’s because it will easily cost you millions of dollars in cash to purchase a Spy Agency Front — that’s an average, everyday building that could serve as a good front for your agency due to one perk or another. Fronts that are at more desirable locations cost more than those that aren’t, and the number of agents you can hire and security upgrades you can install will also play a part in pricing.
You may need to have at least $20 million in your bank account to afford yourself a top-of-the-line Spy Agency Front, so with that in mind, your best bet is to embark on some sort of celebrity career. Being an athlete in most professional leagues or a musician would be most advisable here due to the income potential. And don’t worry if it’ll cost you an arm and a leg to buy that Spy Agency Front (or to pay its mortgage) — you can concurrently run your spy agency without having to resign from your erstwhile job!
After you’ve chosen a front, you will then be asked to choose a name for the agency as well as your spy code name. These can be any name you wish, or you can let the game randomly choose for you, though if you opt to pick your own agency name/spy code name, it goes without saying that you should avoid any type of offensive language!
Hiring Your First Few Secret Agents
Now that you’ve opened your spy agency, the next step would be to hire some secret agents. Use the Agent Recruitment function for this, and you’ll be directed to a list of potential assets, complete with a brief rundown of their credentials — BitLife’s fog of war system won’t immediately tell you what their specialization is, but you can make inferences based on their dossier.
You can hire Stealth, Honeypot, and Assassin specialists — Stealth agents are skilled in performing certain actions without getting caught, Honeypots are experts in the art of seduction, and Assassins are, quite obviously, really good at killing people.
Below the dossier, you’ll see each potential asset’s basic information — their age, gender, sexuality, and profession. You’ll also see a Potential bar below those basic details — ideally, the ones with a green bar that’s at least 70 percent full should make the best assets.
You can choose to recruit them straight away or pass on them, though there’s another option between those two, and that will allow you to perform a background check (worth $1,500 for U.S.-based Bitizens) and verify the individual’s identity. Doing so may reveal their Potential is higher or lower than stated, and you may even see their sexuality, profession, and other details change following the background check — such comes with the territory in the world of espionage!
Next, of course, is the decision whether to hire the asset or pass on them — if you opt to hire them, you’ll see much of the same basic information, as well as the commission they’ll be receiving for each completed mission.
Don’t be discouraged if their skill levels (the Proficiency bar) are still firmly in the red territory after you hire them — if their Potential is good, they should quickly become more proficient in their craft, especially if you deploy them on missions that maximize their specialization, e.g. sending a Stealth agent out on a mission that requires one to stay as incognito as possible.
The Secret Agent Mini-Games
There are different types of missions available through the BitLife Secret Agent expansion, though we’re going to be getting to them later. First, let’s take a look at the two mini-games that you’ll be playing most often while running your spy agency.
The maze mini-game usually pops up when the mission you’re trying to complete involves some sort of hacking or encryption. The instructions, as illustrated on the screen whenever you encounter a firewall, may seem easy at first — connect each number (from 1 to 4) next to their identical number on the board without any of the lines you create crossing with the others.
You’ll need to think quickly here — each puzzle would require that you solve it within 15 seconds — but for the most part, this should be quite easy to learn. However, this is also where we should warn you that the maze mini-game is hard to master. You’ll certainly notice this in the more difficult hacking-related missions, as you may need to bypass three to four firewalls, with each one progressively more difficult than the last!
The next mini-game can probably be described best as a wordplay/vocabulary mini-game, as the objective here is to choose the correct “password” among the four options based on the context clue above the four options. On very rare occasions, the answer will be blatantly obvious, though in most cases, there will be one or two red herrings that could ALSO qualify as the correct answer — for example, if the clue says “munchies,” you may see “marijuana” and “starvation” among the choices, with the former being incorrect despite how smoking weed does give one the munchies.
And while this is thankfully rare, there may be questions where the correct answer is an absolute mystery. Sometimes, you may need to think out of the box — for example, the clue “Freddie Mercury” may have “Prince” and “Zanzibar” among the options. The former would be incorrect despite “Prince” being another type of royalty (and another late rock/pop music icon), while the latter would be correct as that was where the Queen vocalist was born.
Quite obviously, completing these mini-games would allow you to proceed with the next part of the mission, while failing them would fail the mission itself, with the agent on the mission losing a generous chunk of Proficiency or your spy agency front’s cover getting slightly blown, depending on what type of mission you’re on.
You Can Infiltrate Other Agencies for More Resources
The next command in the Spy Agency menu is Infiltrate, and the special missions contained here are designed to improve your Performance as the agency’s Spymaster. You’ll either be asked to play the maze/logic mini-game or the password mini-game, with high-security agencies generally requiring about three or four successful completion of the mini-game, midrange security ones requiring two completions, and low-security ones requiring one completion.
As we mentioned above, failing the mini-game even once would lead to the entire mission getting botched, and since you’re trying to steal resources from your rival agencies, your agency’s Cover will get blown a bit, with your Performance bar likewise suffering as well.
Just what type of resources could you steal from your competitors once you’ve breached their security systems? The first would be Funds — you can steal as much (or as little) money as you want from their bank account, and any amount you steal will automatically go toward your Bank Balance. You can also poach rival agents by offering bigger amounts of money — this should be very useful early on in your career as a BitLife Spymaster, as skilled and experienced agents will have a better chance of completing the riskier missions than those who haven’t been on the job for too long.
Lastly, the game will allow you to steal Mission Files —this gives your agents more to do, increases their Proficiency, and helps them level up. Depending on how quickly you want your Spy Agency to gain traction, you may choose to steal these files or you may opt against doing so. At any rate, you can only choose one type of asset to pirate from your rival agency, so make sure you choose wisely!
Purchase Some Spy Gadgets Before Deploying Your Agents!
Moving further down the Spy Agency menu, you will want to visit the Spy Gadgets sub-menu before sending your agents out on missions. This is mandatory, so before anything else, make sure you buy all the Level 1 Spy Gadgets and understand how they work. The Banana Taser is just what it sounds like — a banana-shaped taser that is used to disable targets.
The EMP Bracelet disables computer security systems within a 50-foot radius, the Fuzzy Handcuffs are used to “coax any information out of any target” through their “feel-good” qualities, and lastly, Lastly, Suction Cups can help you scale tall buildings, just as you may have seen in many a TV show or movie, especially the animated ones.
These are just the Level 1 gadgets, and as your agency’s Prestige bar fills up with each mission completed, you’ll gradually unlock all the other Gadgets, which only become available once your Prestige reaches a certain level. Make sure you’re bringing the right type of gadget based on what you’re told in the Mission Briefing, or you just might end up failing the mission!
Hacking Missions Are Typically the Easiest
Moving on to the Missions screen, this is where you can start sending agents out on a variety of top-secret operations. Regardless of the mission type, you can view its name, its classification, the objective, the client, and the amount of money they’ll be paying you, as well as a brief description of what your agent should be doing.
The Risk bar ostensibly tells you how much risk is involved in the mission, but this can also be seen as a difficulty indicator — low-risk missions are usually quite easy to complete, while in high-risk ones, there’s a much bigger chance of failing the mission even if you’re theoretically doing all the right things.
We’re going to go through all four primary mission types, starting with the Hacking missions, which are designated by the computer icon on the left side. Anyone can go on these missions (as is the case with the other classifications), and Hacking missions in particular are a great way to build up a new, inexperienced recruit’s proficiency. So with that in mind, you’ll first have to take note of the Mission Briefing, specifically the file name, the drive name you’ll have to access, and the objective, or action you’re supposed to perform on the file.
Next, you’ll be playing one of the firewall mini-games — you may have to play more than one, depending on the Risk involved in the mission, but once you get through the firewall, you’ll have access to all the drives and files contained in the computer. Make sure you remember the file name drive, and action from earlier, or take them down if you have Notepad or a similar app open at the same time.
Choose the correct drive, the correct file, and the correct action, and you’re all good — there’s nothing to it!
You’ll Also Need to Pay Attention to Stuff During Honeypot Missions
For Honeypot missions, you’ll also need to pay very close attention to the Mission Briefing, as that tells you the target’s name, gender, and sexuality — of course, you’ll need this handy so that you can choose the right agent (and the right Honeypot) for the job. After tapping on Begin Mission, you’ll be directed to the Meet Cute screen, which includes the target’s turn-ons, turn-offs, and favorite hobbies.
This is also important information, as this could help you choose the right disguise, location, and/or approach. For example, if the target’s turn-ons include Artists and Feet, you’ll want to choose a creative job like Fashion Designer. Location doesn’t seem to be super relevant, as you can choose anything in most cases and your target will still want to go out with you.
Lastly, don’t forget the target’s preference in lovers, as this will inform your Approach — do you play dumb to satisfy someone who’s into partners who aren’t as smart as he is, or do you act mysterious to enhance the unpredictability that your target is looking for?
After BitLife informs you of where your agent and the target are going on their first date, you’ll be patched in so you can suggest a second date — go by the theme of the first date, but don’t make it the same type of date so your agent doesn’t blow their cover! If all goes well, you’ll be patched in again to coach your agent on how to make love to the target the right way — if they included Feet in their likes, for instance, your agent needs to be tickling their feet or doing something similar.
This isn’t such a difficult mission type, and there aren’t any mini-games involved, but be warned — it is possible to fail this mission if you aren’t careful with the choices you make!
Stealth Missions Boil Down to Your Choices
The third mission type we’ll be covering is the Stealth mission (designated by the eye icon), and once again, Stealth agents are preferable for this type of operation. This is where your choice of gadget becomes more important than ever, so look for context clues in the mission brief — the type of stealth you’ll be doing may require a certain gadget or type of gadget! (For example, you’ll want to have an EMP Bracelet or something similar with you during Stealth missions that require you to break into the target’s computer or security systems.
There aren’t any mini-games here either, but there are dialog boxes aplenty where you will, for one, have to choose one or two doors, each of which has a different sound emanating from behind it. Typically, it would be plausible to find people on the opposite sides of each door, so just go with the door that is least likely to have someone waiting to take you out when you open it up.
You may also need to “guess” the color of the wire you need to snip, based on the color of the erstwhile secured door you’re trying to open. We say “guess” in quotation marks because sometimes you’ll be snipping blue wires for blue doors, but more often than not, the door will share a color family with the color of the wire you need to snip.
That means snipping the red wire to open a wine-colored door, a black wire to open a sable-colored door, and so on. Then you’ve got the oh-so-common situation where you’ll be asked whether you want to make up a story, ignore, or assassinate when you bump into somebody during the mission. Your choice here will depend on your agent’s Proficiency — don’t expect to successfully kill the person you bumped into if your agent’s Proficiency bar is red!
Assassination Missions Require Highly Skilled Secret Agents
Last, but not least, Assassination missions are designated by the knife icon, and these are the hardest to pull off. If you don’t have any Assassins in your team of agents, or if your Assassins don’t have the proficiency and experience to pull off a hit, you may want to assign your best agents for these jobs.
The first thing you’ll be asked to do is to choose an agent and a gadget — for the latter, you should be looking at gadgets that can stun or cause damage to your target. Next, choose the method of murder (the less conspicuous, the better — think sniping them or injecting them with something) and pick a location for the hit. Next, it’s time to play the waiting game.
More often than not, your target will be accompanied by some people — family members, bodyguards, children, you name it. Keep waiting it out until the target is either alone or daydreaming, and make the hit. Of course, there’s a chance your agent will botch the mission, even if the target is all alone and perfectly vulnerable, and that’s why we strongly advise against deploying your newer agents for Assassination jobs. Even if they are Assassins by trade, they just wouldn’t be good enough at their job just yet.
You Can Communicate with (But Not Be Friends or Partners With) Your Secret Agents Too
The secret agents you hire for your spy agency can be treated like your average BitLife NPC in most cases, but as you’ll find out soon enough, there are certain things you cannot do that are otherwise possible with other NPCs, even if the Relationship bar is present as it is in any other interaction between player and NPC.
Many of the old interaction standbys are still there, including Compliments, Conversation, Gift, and Insult. But there are special actions unique to the Secret Agent Expansion, starting with Assassination, where you can order one of your agents to kill a family member, friend, or coworker at your 9-to-5 job (if applicable); this is one of the two ways where you can make your Assassins especially deadly with a little patience. Expose lets you accuse your agents of working for other entities (e.g. rival spy agencies, the feds, etc), while Fire lets you relieve an agent of their duties and kick them out of your agency. Reissue Codename is purely cosmetic, as it’s here where you can rename your agents.
Train, as teased above, gives you the choice of training your agents in their area of specialization, or combat. Either option works well in improving an agent’s Proficiency! Lastly, Warn lets you flex your muscles as Spymaster, warning your agents for their recent behavior.
As you may have noticed, BitLife does not allow Spymasters to be friends with, or to date their agents. And no, you also can’t even have a casual hookup with one of your agents. This is completely understandable as the world of espionage has even less room for conflicts of interest than regular jobs do!
Make Full Use of Your Security Equipment Slots
The Security tab in the Spy Agency menu is where you can upgrade your building’s security equipment, and you must make use of every slot that you have allocated for the building. You should also be aiming for the most expensive security equipment available — it may sound simplistic, but the more expensive the equipment is, the better it is in securing your facility and protecting it from intruders…or rival agencies.
You’ll also want to check the credibility of the people installing the security equipment — each installer has a Credibility bar, and those whose Credibility is red or orange may do a shoddy job of installing the equipment, or worse, may likely pilfer some money from your agency, with “some” being relative. You may end up losing a million dollars through these installers after paying “just” $50,000 to have the equipment set up in your home base!
Why is having ample cover through a full suite of security equipment important? We only realized this later on in our play-through, but rival agencies can counter back by stealing some of your funds after you steal from their bank account! Not only does this leave you a few million dollars poorer — the Cover bar takes a hit as well, and the best way to counter this (and the only way we know so far) is to uninstall some of the cheaper equipment and replace it with newer, more expensive systems. The same also applies to your agents and your mission dossiers — if you can steal some from your rivals, they can do the same to you if you aren’t making good use of your security options!
Spying Outside the Spy Agency Menu — You Can Also Spy on Everyday Folks
BitLife’s Secret Agent Expansion isn’t all covert missions given out by clients who don’t even appear as NPCs. You can also use your spy skills outside of the Spy Agency menu, and that would be by using the Spy function, which is now available to use on family members, friends, or workmates.
How does this work? Simply put, you can assign one of your agents to trail any NPC in your ongoing BitLife game, and once they’re assigned to the job, they’ll come back with embarrassing or incriminating information about the person.
Most of the time, it’s going to be inconsequential dirt of the former variety — things like sleeping with a Jar Jar Binks pillow or doing cringey stuff on OnlyFans, but sometimes, you may hear about a loved one or coworker selling drugs on the side or engaging in some other form of illegal activity. Regardless of what type of dirt it is, you can try to blackmail your target, start a rumor based on what your operative gleaned about them, or ignore the intel entirely.
Starting a rumor works as it usually does outside of the Secret Agent Expansion — it will almost surely have a negative impact on your relationship with the target, and they may retaliate by starting a rumor of their own or through physical violence.
But blackmail is where things can get really dangerous. The target may or may not attack you physically in retaliation, but they can also turn you into the police and have you arrested for espionage! It seems that you can serve up to 11 years in prison for such a crime, so be careful when using this feature — or better yet, don’t use it at all and keep your focus instead on the actual spy missions.
The Rest of the Spy Agency Menu
Going back one last time to the Spy Agency menu, there are a few other options we haven’t covered yet, starting with the Mission Log, which contains data on all the missions your agency has completed — this includes the payout, the codename of the agent who was deployed, and the risk involved in the mission.
Move down to Activities and you’ll see the option to change the code name, relocate your headquarters, or rename your spy agency. Renaming yourself or your spy agency is completely optional and you can choose not to bother with either, but you can certainly consider relocation as your spy agency’s Prestige increases through completed missions — as you grow larger, you should be looking to move to a facility that allows for more operatives and more security equipment.
And lastly, there’s the option to step down as Spymaster and leave your agency — this, of course, closes this particular chapter of your virtual life, though we don’t see any reason why you’ll want to leave the secret agent life behind, considering how lucrative and exciting it could be in the BitLife universe!