A solid hit — Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 hands-on preview

I enjoyed Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts quite a bit, praising the simulated complexity of sniping, the expansion of the world into a sandbox open-ended approach, and overall level design in my review. When the team at CI Games offered me a chance to get behind the glass to check out Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 a bit early, I jumped at the chance. It’s time to settle into a prone position, empty lung, and send the shot.

Before we dig in too deep, I’m going to hit the tutorial and show you how things are done. This intro does an OK job at demonstrating the mechanics of marksmanship, but in this video I’ll talk through it in more detail, and I’ll demonstrate the principles in practice. If you’d like to be a better shot, take a moment and watch this video.

After 20 years of death-grip control, President Al-Bakr of Kuamar has been assassinated. His wife, Bibi Rahida, took over the country. Some within her government were unhappy with her ascendancy, gender, and western education, but she’s not as weak as she might appear. She plans to launch an offensive against a neighboring state, and with a tight knit support network of warlords and mercenaries, she represents a serious threat in the network. Your contract is to dismantle her network and ultimately put an end to her rise to power.

Antwan Zarza, quartermaster, Cpt. Ronald Payne, a disgraced S.A.S. officer with a spectacularly bad haircut in charge of training, and Col. Fyodor Novikov, a Russian GRU agent in charge of logistics and supplies are three of Rashida’s trusted lieutenants and represent the primary leadership infrastructure. Your mission is to end those threats, as well as sabotage two satellite antennas that Rashida’s group are using to orchestrate strikes in the area. Let’s see what we can do about Zarza in part one of our Let’s Play.

As you can see in that video, I completely forgot how to play the game for a minute or two, but Zarza suffered from a severe case of lead poisoning at over 1100 meters. The voiceover mentioned a secondary target, so I spent a lot longer on target trying to figure out what that could be, but ultimately chose to move on.

In part two we set our sights on Cpt. Ronald Payne. His absolutely awful haircut didn’t get rearranged, but I did give his femur more than a scratch. Watch what happened just before that shot though — needless to say, that was a surprise!

Only one target remains…

In this final video I take aim at Col. Fyodor Novikov and the two satellites that support this terrorist organization. It took me a few extra shots, but I can’t say I was displeased with the outcome.

Headed back into these missions after the fact, I was able to land a single shot on all three of them without as much trouble, even taking out one while he absent mindedly walked past an explosive barrel. I’m not sure why bad guys need so many of them, or why they put them on walking paths, but that’s their problem.

All in, these missions take about an hour and a half to complete, but I’ve already logged just under four hours. Why? The CI Games team has tweaked the formula to the point where landing that perfect shot is rewarding and feels less open to random chance. By my last attempt I was obsessed with trying to only take out the specified target without being spotted. The current longest shot on record is a staggering 3,540 meters. I’m looking forward to trying to break it.

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is headed to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on June 4th, 2021. Stay tuned — this one just jumped up to my most anticipated list.

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