I enjoy FPS games with an element of stealth, so I really wanted to like this game. Sadly, after 8 hours and 3 missions, I uninstalled the game. I wish I could get a refund, but apparently there is a 2-gameplay-hour limit. I had hoped that, if I just finished the first mission, it would get better...but it didn't.

First, some things I did like:
-The gunplay is good. The shooting mechanics are fun, and reward practice.
-There are multiple ways to approach objectives.
-The story and its role in the objectives is interesting.
-Pretty graphics. Detailed character models.
-Detailed NPC dialogue.

What I didn't like:
-Omniscient enemies. If you shoot someone with a suppressor from 400 m. away, and someone sees them die, they immediately know where you are.
-Enemies have godlike aim. That enemy 400 m. away can shoot you reliably with his AK-47.
-Gadgets are useless, because they aren't nearly as lethal or effective as you would think, and trying to use them will immediately alert all the enemies, who will then proceed to murder you.
-No matter how well you plan and sneak, the first time you miss a shot, the entire mission devolves into a machine gun brawl.
-All the side objectives are tedious and boring. There is no good reason for them to exist.
-If you don't want to get caught, you have to spend the ENTIRE mission sneaking around, at half speed, across large maps. I like large maps, but in this game, they just make every mission tedious.
-On some missions, you start surrounded by about a dozen enemies between 10m and 300m away from you, and the second you kill one, they all start shooting, with the aforementioned omniscience and accuracy.

I'm sorry to say that this game just isn't fun. Don't buy it.

The game is amazing apart from one massive thing, the save system. Who hurt you? Like, who actually hurt you to have made you want to implement a save system like this? You complete an object and it doesn't save. You have to exit the "circle of bloody harmony" before it autosaves. So many ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ times I have completed an objective with absolute stealth, sometimes an hour or even more of stealthy infiltration, just to get shafted after everyone goes on high alert after the objective is complete. Whether it be some random dude with a shotgun or a camera that triggers the alarm or a fall from too high or a random turret. So you just sit there thinking to yourself "it's ok because it will have saved after I completed the objective" but oh no! Instead you sit there thinking "wow, that was an hour of my life I now need to do all over again".

I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone in its current state. (Playing on Sniper/Normal difficulty)

Bugs and questionable choices:
-Spotted through objects including but not limited too trees, boxes, the ground, and mountains. (Mountains twice now. Once by a person, one by a turret.)
-Underwater enemies. They fall underwater and spot you and shoot you from what seems like no where.
-Glitchy audio and video on at least mid spec pc's.
-When spotted every enemy in the area knows exactly where you are. Yes I mean ALL enemies in your area. (Edit: This one mainly has to do with turret systems that shouldn't be able to relay your location and is more so under questionable choices)
-All enemies have what feels like 80% accuracy, even from over 350 meters away. (Ties in with spotted by EVERYONE)
-AI sight mechanic are extremely iffy. You can be 100m away and they'll start spotting you, which is fine. Though You can be within 2m standing completely in the open and they won't notice you at all.

I feel like there's more that I forgot but whatever. This was four and a half hours of gaming and all of them happen on a pretty consistent basis. Again I wouldn't recommend this until these are fixed.

Do you want to relive the joys of Action Man comics you read when you were 5? The plot of Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is for you! Join the devoted fandom, including all 45% of people who actually completed the first mission, according to achievements. Enjoy infinite replayability as the borked checkpoint system forces you to go back through areas you cleared out entirely before you were suddenly sniped by a black spot half a kilometer away! Live the thrill of starting missions from scratch when you inevitably hit "restart mission" instead of "restart from checkpoint" for the third time, because the menu has both tabs right next to each other.

Challenge yourself with in game additional tasks that push you past the bounds of what you feel you can accomplish and, indeed, what the developers can reasonably expect anybody to achieve with the moveset and ruleset afforded to you. I particularly love how these challenges contradict each other, with "kill the target from 300 metres away" and "complete the mission using only a knife" being afforded to you in the same mission. This brilliant decision gives you an opportunity to further appreciate the boring levels as you trudge through them multiple times to get the completion above 50%.

I love how you can sometimes spend ages scouring the map to find your target, only to find that they haven't spawned in yet. It gives you ample time to appreciate the clumsy movement system, invisible walls, and climbing mechanics that will fail and drop you to your death as often as they work. Once, a target spawned right behind me inside a cloud of red smoke and gunned me down before I could even spot him. This was an incredible display of this game's incredible AI which, apart from this spot of physics-defying genius, largely involved ignoring me as I shoot their comrade in the head mid conversation, and they stand there gawking for several seconds waiting for their turn. Sometimes, I can crouch walk right through their line of sight without issue and other times I find them suddenly spotting me from across the map without warning and alerting the entire base.



EDIT: So I didn't expect this salty little rant to blow up as it did and somehow end up as one of the highest rated reviews. In the interest of fairness, I should also comment on some things I liked because this game isn't as terrible as I made it out to be above. While there are many more little frustrations I have not yet mentioned, I will still list some of the pros below. The things it does well, it does REALLY well. If this sort of thing appeals to you then it may be worth your time if you can abide the frustrations.

I like how some aspects of the mission can change when attempted a second time. I am sure that will keep things fresh for those going for 100%

The actual sniping is excellent, simulating realism while still being very accessible. It is very satisfying to curve a bullet around a barrier to hit an enemy who thinks they are hiding.

Levels are enormous and open. Huge compounds can be approached from a number of different viable positions.

No no no no no, no!

This game requires that cancerous spyware made by braindead incompetents.
EAC, you can't even run the game (via Steam and not the separated executable) to play single-player without having to install that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ piece of junk.

That's one good reason to not pay for this, unless they change it, which they probably never will.

Edit: If you want to play without EAC while playing on Steam, it's simple enough, copy / paste "SGWContracts.exe" from "win_x64", rename or delete Launch_Game.exe, rename "SGWContracts.exe" to "Launch_Game.exe" and voilà.

But anyway, the game isn't that good and i got stuck once and i had to restart to checkpoint, this is truly shameful.


Edit 2024: Having finished the main game, i can say that the game is a bitt enjoyable, difficulty wise it's okay-ish (even on highest difficulty it isn't too hard), game could be so much more though, and there are bug and glitches, i even hard to restart one mission from scratch once.
Game isn't that bad nor that good, it could be much more.
Hopefully they won't bring some cancerous DRM / spyware on future releases.

The AI still does not improve after 10 years. Once the enemies are on high alert, they will spot you wherever you are as long there is a visible straight line between you and any enemy.

This is the first review I have ever made on a game. I decided to make it as this game is just so freaking good, but is also just so disappointingly bad at the same time and I had to share my thoughts.

This is my first game from this developer, and I got it as it was on sale and also picked up every single DLC available to support the devs and also to get the 'full experience'.

When I first started playing, this was the best game I had ever played. Absolutely loved it! However the thing about this game is, the more you play it, the more the disappointment and frustration really sets it and just really brings you down.

Im not sure how to list the issues I have faced, so in no particular order. I apolagise in advance for how random this may be structured, Im just going to try and get my thoughts down as best I can. I have many.

THE SAVE SYSTEM
Im not going to go into too much detail on this as from previous reviews, the devs are well aware the save system needs a complete overhaul. The single player game should have a save function when the player sees fit to save. At the moment, the totally unpredictable and inconsistent 'checkpoint' mechanic is just absolutely awful. Basically the game saves whenever it feels like it. Playing through the same level twice, the game could save at a location, then the next time it wouldnt. I had this recently where I died, and the game sent me back a good hours worth of progress. Totally demoralising and not in the slightest bit fun.

TOKENS
There are three types of tokens in this game. Contract tokens are useful for buying weapons. If you are like me you buy the best weapons and then never use anything else. In my particular case I bought the DLC so already had the best weapons so in my case contract tokens are entirely useless, although for a normal player they do have limited use. You cant use them for anything else other than weapons, you cant unlock gadgets or anything of that nature.

Next we have the Intel/Collectible tokens. These are 100% completely and utterly useless. There is no point in them whatsoever other than seeing them increase in number. They help unlock nothing. Total waste of time having them displayed along with the other tokens.

Lastly we have the challenge tokens. Challenge tokens are literally the only thing that really matters in this game, as apart from very early on, money becomes not an issue as you just have enough of it progressing through the game. And here is the issue - the game becomes completely choked with the gaining of challenge tokens. They are used for all the good gadget and gear unlocks. Without them you cant unlock anything! And they are so painfully annoying to get. Challenges should be fun side things that you can do if you wish, not an absolute cornerstone for gear unlocks. We should be able to unlock gear / gadgets using the other tokens as well, so that progression helps you with unlocks, not completing annoying challenges.

Some of the latter unlocks require 3 tokens each. And specifically 3 challenge tokens. This is too much. Considering there are two other types of tokens, either make the unlocks cheaper, or make use of the other tokens that are literally building up and have absolutely no use whatsoever. Again I will say, the game is totally strangled with this idea of challenge tokens. I feel like a prisoner to them.

CHALLENGES
You cannot start a contract to simply complete challenges. Completed challenges are only saved when you exfiltrate, and you can only exfiltrate when you complete a contract. Once you exfiltrate to save your completed challenge, you then need to complete an other contract and the pain continues. Awful awful system. Painful.

CRIPPLED DRONE
The drone is a fantastic gadget. I probably use it more than any other gadget, but 70% of time when I launch it, it wont work due to the insane amount of drone towers! Whats the point in giving us this gadget if we cant use it most of the time! Not to mention the pitiful battery life/range when its not upgraded, or the painful lack of potential. Why cant I upgrade it to shoot? Or a 'mask' upgrade that allows the drone to scan like the seekers mask does?

RIDICULOUS MECHANICS
-Stupidly accurate heavy gunner. I was just killed, by a Heavy machine gunner, from a distance of 280m. So a guy carrying an LMG at waist height, just landed a killer shot on me from 280m away. No. Just no. I mean seriously, no. Snipers are less lethal!!

-Unexpected death. On the topic of dying, many times I have experienced being totally fine one minute, then my health drops to zero. No sound of a gunshot, nothing, im just dead. Incredibly frustrating.

-Impossible physics. Bodies floating in midair after they have been killed. Also when placing the remote sniper turret, I have yet to see it actually properly sit on the ground, its always floating in some comical fashion.

-Warping enemies. Enemies that you are looking at in your binos are there one minute, then instantaneously warp to a different location several meters away. Yesterday I was marking an enemy and he warped about 10 metres INSIDE a cliff!

-Base alert. In the mountains contract, where you need to kill the scientist in his lab, so many times doing this contract, has the base went on full alert for the most insane and nonsensical reasons. The last time I played that mission, I headshot an enemy who was completely isolated, the NEXT SECOND, the base alarm went off. Even if somehow someone had seen that, it should at least take a couple of minutes for them to realise what is going on. But this was like a switch. To make it even better, 80% of the enemies in the base remained 'white' (not in alert mode)...while the base alarm was going off... Makes no sense.

-Inconsistent bullet penetration. So when you line up a shot and you watch the bullet cam, you will notice the bullet, many times, fly through metal poles, edges or rocks and other terrain, straight into the targets head. Insane. But yet I cannot shoot someone that is behind a similar obstacle? Makes zero sense.

BUGS
Ohhhhh boy, does this game have some absolute cracking bugs. Impressive even! Which is sad as its a 2019 game and the devs are clearly still working on it releasing DLC and a sequel, but yet the bugs remain in this one.

-Drone bugs. It seems that when you have to 'load a checkpoint' thats when bugs really come out in force. To give an example with the drone, if you have the perk that allows the drone to hack CCTV, or to emit an EMP blast etc, these functions just stop working after reloading from a checkpoint. You fly the drone up to the CCTV and there is no prompt. It just doesnt work.

Another drone bug which ive just experienced in the last 30 mins - this is an amazing one actually - I launched my drone to get eyes on an enemy base, it was the mission where there are the two females that look the exact same - so I launch the drone and suddenly there are literally no enemies there! Everyone has disappeared! So I go back to my binos and scan the base, and low and behold everyone is back! Launch the drone again and they have gone again!! So when viewing through the drone, no enemies, when viewing through binos, enemies are present! I mean...how that bug even exists at all is super impressive.

-Map bugs. When you open the map and click on an objective, the map then moves itself to the area containing that particular objective. This just randomly stops working! Just out of the blue, bam - doesnt work. Probably after loading a checkpoint like the drone bug but it need to test this.

-Gadget bugs. With the remote sniper turret, pressing J should self destruct it as per the instructions in the game. I have yet to get this to work. It simply doesnt.

CONCLUSION
I started off loving this game. Honestly. It actually made me fall in love with gaming again, then slowly but surely it just drained away my enthusiasm, bug by bug. I simply could not recommend it as it currently is.

It's a fine game, let down by a lack of a manual save system.

Checkpoints are hit-and-miss. You can lose 20 minutes of stealth work, or find yourself stuck with a checkpoint just as you get shot. Unfortunately this ruins the whole experience.

EDIT (following developer feedback) - apologies, I wasn't clear in my review. The save system breaks the game for me. I enjoyed the first part of the first mission. Checkpoint systems can work in the vast majority of games, but this is not one of them. The punishment in terms of lost progress is unacceptable. Standard openworld games use checkpoints, but keep lost progress to a minimum by maintaining progress (collected items, marked targets etc). Stealth games are often played far slower, so a death would see me lose 40 minutes of work. Even limited saves would be preferable, to allow me to save at key moments when I know I'm not about to be spotted.

The downvote system exists for exactly this purpose. To point out flaws that prevent me from recommending (or even playing) the game.

I would be more than happy to switch to a recommend if a better save system is being worked on. But I do not believe that is the case.

This game is, to be frank, awful.
-The enemies can see you from insane distances without scopes or binoculars.
-On some missions all enemies are part of a hive mind.
-Despite the fact that this is a sniper game you always have to go and collect something near or off the target, making sniping them pretty meaningless.
-You, a professional sniper, can hold your breath for around 4 seconds (it's like six but time slows down so 4)
-Hip firing anything has a 10% chance of hitting a target from point blank range.
-Loud weapons and explosives serve no purpose as stealth is objectively better.
-The mechanics push you into playing a melee character rather than a sniper.

3/10

I bought this game full-price initially but ended up refunding it because it contained three of my cardinal video-gaming sins. I can put up with one. Maybe even two. But all three was too much.

See Edit: ((Firstly, unskippable scenes. Especially frustrating in the wake of point three.))
Secondly, controls bound to holding another button that I can't rebind. I realise that it was made for consoles, but I have a whole keyboard; let me bind all keys to press or hold whatever.
Thirdly, checkpoint saves only. No quick save, nor manual save. If you want to quit and haven't hit a checkpoint in a while it's rather frustrating. Especially combined with point the first.

Altogether it became a deal-breaker for me.

EDIT: I have been informed that the cutscenes are apparently skippable and merely mask load times. It seems to have been my poor luck that led me to believe otherwise. In the interest of honesty I am updating my review. All other points stand as-is.