Square Enix Montréal has announced a follow-up to its hit mobile murder puzzler, Hitman Go: it’s called Hitman: Sniper, and it’s coming soon for Android and iOS tablets and smartphones. Fans of Go‘s unique take on the series’ stealthy murder should read on, as Sniper is quite a different proposition.
Go reduced the tactical intricacies of the Hitman series to an elegant, turn-based puzzle. Sniper takes a step back toward the main series with realistic environments and fully animated character models, as opposed to Go’s board game pieces. The twist, however, is a focus entirely on sniping your target from a distance, rather than infiltrating and getting your hands dirty. If you’re familiar with the Hitman: Sniper Challenge game that preceded the release of Hitman: Absolution then you’re on the right track.
Hitting your target still requires the series’ signature problem-solving in the form of indirectly manipulating guards, targets, and the environment to set up the perfect kill-shot, but you’ll do it all through the scope of a sniper rifle. Blood money earned from completing contracts can be spent in between missions on new rifles and upgrades. Online leaderboards and challenges will allow you to compete with your friends for bragging rights about who’s the deadliest assassin around.
Hitman: Sniper has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the touch-screen capabilities of mobile devices. It’s designed as a free-to-play game, which suggests that in-app purchases will in some way be involved. We’ll have more to share on Hitman: Sniper when we see the game at E3 2014 next week.
