Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 Review

"Open Sniping"

Campaign

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is an open world sniping game that aims to provide a realistic approach to the experience. It's a bold choice considering the previous entries and one that is much larger in scale. The core of the story is a man that attempts to find his brother after a kidnapping some time before. This is accomplished my working with the military in the region while having a side objective. It was a fine story to go from, but there really wasn't much of an emotional connection given off of it and the story felt like nothing new. That aside, it does have a lengthy story and many side missions to take part in. I wish that these side objectives were pushed more as you need to go out of your way in order to find them. Aside from going through the main missions or even side ones, you have a number of large open spaces to explore.

There are regular people living in these landscapes among many negative and neutral soldiers so it's best to use caution when approaching areas. I liked the setup of the campaign with many missions of varying lengths and goals to accomplish so it's solid if you want something with quality time to it. There was also a certain great thing in having free choice when tackling areas and with so many gadgets you can pick an approach of any design. I did however continuously think about the game perhaps being linear instead, but by the end I feel the open world approach worked.

Gameplay

I was really impressed with the variety of terrains and buildings you could venture through. They had everything from high tech buildings to ancient ruins. It also wasn't just a straight shooter as sniping was a better option with so many tools available to make it easier. There were also options for doing detective like work so not just single dimensioned with shooting. The world looked fantastic for the most part and you could see there was time spent crafting each area. That being said, the loading was horrendous.

I love getting the loading done at the start of a game, but these chunks were five minutes each and moving areas was an absolute nightmare. This really was unacceptable for a modern game, but it does just run smoothly after the loads. There were many glitches to be found in the game whether that was with enemies or missions. This continued with some visual issues and poor performance in certain situations that could make shooting awkward. Enemies were also way too either incredibly stupid or lucky knowing your exact location which had a weird balance. I like the idea of weapon gear breaking so you'll need to craft ammo, fix gear and spend time at your safehouse doing prep work.

The Conclusion

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 was solid, I had issues with it but the game was generally fine. It features a lengthy story and tons of side activities to take part in. I found the story to be a mix of exciting and then boring at times, but I certainly enjoyed playing through it. The loading took too long and there were many glitches so be prepared for that. These are small costs in comparison to getting a large world and with more polish this could have been top notch. The sniping was well done with realistic options though never too intense that casual players would feel out of place. I liked the game, but there were issues that held it back from getting to that next level.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 Review on Xbox One
Review Code Provided by Evolve PR

Rating Overall: 7.2