Every player has that one friend who takes far, far longer to get through a level than everyone else. It's the person other gamers shy away from playing online titles with, the one who repeatedly gets accused of camping, who inches their way through single-player games at what feels like a snail's pace compared to the way most people hold down the run button until their stamina meter can't take it anymore. Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is a game specifically designed for these players, although it's a little too rough around the edges to recommend for anyone else.
In Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts players take on the role of the Seeker, a Hitman-style assassin specializing in sniping. Like other protagonists of the best sniper video games, the Seeker will kill anyone and everyone his handlers ask him to, and he is aided by a state-of-the-art mask in an attempt to offer in-game justification for HUD elements like objective markers, enemy tagging, and the like. For when things get up close and personal, Seeker is also armed with a knife, a pistol, various assault rifles, and a pocket full of infinite rocks to throw as a distraction. Utilizing all these tools, as well as different types of ammo, is key in order to turn the Seeker into the silent killing machine he needs to be, since his body is fragile and will fall quickly when shot in battle.
There are a few issues which keep Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts from being all it could be, but it's hard not to enjoy the objective-focused gameplay of the title in an arcade-like sense. Dropping into a mission for the first time can be quite an overwhelming experience, especially considering both the size of the map and the litany of tasks Seeker is assigned with completing, but the game thankfully utilizes a segmented checkpoint-based system which sees most areas being broken up into relatively easy-to-manage chunks. Death, which will come frequently to players who still think this game is about running and gunning, is handled in a similar checkpoint-like fashion and has deceased players popping back up outside of the area they died in with unlimited chances to try again.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is a title meant to be played slowly and methodically, which makes those moments when AI errors or game glitches appear all the more annoying. Occasionally the player will be crouched, unseen from any direction, and yet Seeker will still be spotted and an alarm will be raised from around the corner. Level load-in issues persist throughout the title, with each new area's opening cutscenes (all unskippable no matter how many they've been viewed) sometimes ending by dropping the player inside the level geometry, forcing a restart.
One extremely annoying glitch in Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts saw the complete disappearance of an objective item inside the game's first level, making the final mission impossible to complete. After hours of searching the marked mission location, repeated re-loads of the most recent checkpoint, a console reboot, and finally an entire new game file creation, the objective item did eventually appear, but the whole ordeal left a very real fear in mind that the situation could repeat itself at any point, thus halting any further progress. This looming worry about game-breaking bugs was far more threatening than any of the title's enemies were, which is fortunate since Seeker will be facing off against a ton of them.
Besides the normal assassination missions players would expect from a game in the Sniper Ghost Warrior series, Seeker must also complete objectives like stealing documents, hacking computers, and placing C4 in select locations. Although it's possible to only kill the assigned targets and simply utilize stealth and gadgets in order to sneak in and out of enemy bases to complete side missions without being spotted, players would be better off taking their time and eliminating as many enemies as possible from afar with their silenced sniper rifle. While these moments may be broken up more than some genre fans would like, the sniping itself is where Contracts shines.
Distance and wind direction are the two biggest enemies of any sniper, but thankfully the Seeker's fancy helmet allows him to see the arc of wind resistance through his weapon's scope. The scope itself is enjoyably adjustable and offers clear distance indicators as well as options for zoom and dialing in shots. Players are encouraged to utilize a binocular function in Seeker's mask in order to zoom in and tag targets in order to get an accurate reading on their location and distance, although it would have been nice if Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts had taken the Ubisoft route and allowed players to tag enemies simply by hovering the rifle's crosshairs over them by default.
On a PS4 Pro Sniper Ghost Warrior Contract's graphics are serviceable but not jaw-dropping, and the occasional glitches only serve to make the small imperfections more noticeable. NPCs completely disappeared out of existence in the middle of gameplay on two different occasions, both while being looked at through the rifle's scope, and although the game does offer a multitude of different ammo types, lures, traps, and weapons, nothing is ever as easy or as efficient as simply sitting on a hilltop two hundred yards away and clearing out an entire base before entering, which, unfortunately, leads to fairly repetitive game loops as the missions progress.
In 2016 a game called Alekhine's Gun released to very little fanfare, received moderate reviews, and quickly disappeared from the public consciousness. Alekhine's Gun was a third-person action-stealth game set during World War 2 and was clearly inspired by the Hitman series, as players were tasked with infiltrating enemy bases in order to assassinate high-value targets and complete objectives. Alekhine's Gun even included the clothes changing mechanic Hitman games are best known for, and although the end result was not as technically proficient or enjoyable as the title it drew inspiration from players still lauded it for trying to recreate such a specific formula.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is the Alekhine's Gun version of what it could be. Fans who have stuck with the franchise for years have seen the game go from being mission-based to the fully-open world of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, and while Contracts does not offer quite as much freedom as this previous title, its tighter structure helps keep players from feeling confused or overwhelmed with what their next goal should be. As a game specifically designed for a very distinct type of player, Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts delivers exactly what it promises, but people who are looking for a less hardcore, more faster-paced, less unreliable shooter may be better off with something a little more forgiving.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. A PS4 code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
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