Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3

For all the temporal distractions, the near-mandatory attitude and dictation its open-World formula ends up presenting may end up dealing a blow to Sniper Ghost Warrior 3‘s small and hidden joys of explorative distraction. But the heaviest of blows will no doubt come from its near-constant technical issues that are varied in scale but frustratingly, persistently present throughout. And when these bugs end up damaging stand-alone playthrough’s or go so as far as to punish players without any real indication as to the cause, it paints a fairly unsettling shade atop what already is a rather magnolia-like palette of open-World AAA familiarity. Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 comes across then as a title having cut a few too many refined corners, seldom befitting of the bloated content its back-end simply can’t handle on a seamless basis — as varied its mechanics and offer of “choice” may well be. Which for the well-crafted environments and World-building on show here, proves the biggest detriment of them all.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is a mediocre shooter, elevated only by its smooth shooting controls and let down by its lackluster gameplay, boring open world, terrible writing, frequent crashes, bugs and performance issues. If you're a tactical shooter junkie like me there's some substance here, but there's better, more stable products out there that will respect your time a helluva lot more.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is by no means a great game, though its value is raised by short and varied missions, fun action elements, and an ability to make me feel like a legit action hero. Regardless of how much it borrows from other games, I can’t deny that I had a good time blowing through missions and enemy troops. However, the poor graphics and technical issues like long loading times and crashes occasionally ruined the fun. And, minus any sort of multiplayer, there’s not a lot of reason to go back.