"Welcome to Kuamar."
Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is a 2021 stealth-based, sniping focused First-Person Shooter with large, open-ended levels, and the sequel to ''Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts'' by Polish developer CI Games.
The player takes on the role of Raven, a mercenary sniper contracted to take down the regime in a fictional, oil rich Middle Eastern country named Kuamar in order to prevent the destabilization of the global economy.
Taking the "sniper" in Sniper Ghost Warrior up to eleven, Contracts 2 features maps with targets well over 1000 meters away, alongside a few "classic" maps more focused on infiltration and shorter engagements like its predecessor.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abnormal Ammo: In addition to a weapon's standard rounds, special rounds, such as armour piercing, high explosive, or EMP can be loaded for different effects.
- A.K.A.-47: Like the previous game in the series, all of the guns have altered names.
- The All-Seeing A.I.: Enemy soldiers have the ability to be able to detect and even occasionally hit Raven from literally a mile away if alerted, although it's justifed because they use binoculars and to make sure the long range shooting galleries retain a sense of threat.Yahtzee: Makes me wonder why I blew all my money on the sniper rifle equivalent of a Porsche 911 if a bunch of rusty AKs that a rogue nation picked up at the CIA’s last rummage sale can achieve the same result!
- Armor Is Useless: Most Mooks are Faceless Goons in helmets, which doesn't make the slightest bit of difference, as most of Raven's hardware will go ignore them anyway. Averted with Heavies, who are clad in so much armour plating that only specialised ammo, explosions or an upgraded melee attack can reliably put them down immediately.
- Back Stab: Raven can take his knife to patrolling soldiers to either take them out right away or interrogate them, then stab them to death.
- BFG: Heavies come equipped with machineguns for More Dakka. Raven can make use of various .50 calibre anti-materiel rifles, including his default rifle, the UK50.
- Big Bad: Bibi Rashida, the ruthless president of Kuamar.
- Call-Back: When hacking into one of the cameras in the training area, Seeker's mask can be seen half-buried in the snow.
- Cool Mask: Raven has one with a visor that provides him with all kinds of tactical information.
- Cold Sniper: Raven is a Consummate Professional with a gruff voice and occasionally snarky dialogue.
- Contrasting Replacement Character: While Handler in the first game was a cold, clandestine sort who was pretty clearly Obviously Evil, Control in this game is more earthy and informal and is apparently a former special forces operator himself, and the organization he works for seems to be much less overtly suspicious than Handler's organization, which were heavily hinted to be the Greater-Scope Villain.
- Excuse Plot: There's really little in terms of plot. Raven's part in the story is that he's been paid to assassinate a dictator and perform operations to destabilise her regime in order to get to her. The game also doesn't tie into the plot of the first Contracts game in any way (Raven's employer seems to be a completely different organization than Seeker's).
- Exploding Barrels: Red barrels will explode upon being shot. Averted with yellow barrels, which will simply fall when shot.
- First-Name Basis: After finishing all the main missions, in a heartful farewell, Control opens up to Raven by revealing his real name: Alex. Given how dramatic the game plays up this reveal, you might think it's a name from one of the earlier Sniper Ghost Warrior games. It's not.
- Full-Circle Revolution: The heroic opposition journalist that Raven and his employers manuever into becoming the new President turns out to be just as corrupt as his predecessor, becoming the game's final assassination target.
- Gorn: The Bullet Cam kills pop up occasionally and show a gratuitous entry and exit wound. If you score a headshot, there's a chance of seeing the unfortunate victim's brains spill out. You can also rip off limbs with a well-placed shot.
- Gun Accessories: Every gun can have a plethora of scopes, sights, muzzle accessories, camo paint jobs, and ammo available for it.
- Heavily Armored Mook: Heavies, of course. They won't go down with a simple headshot unless you use specialist ammo, such as armour piercing. They're also immune to melee attacks unless you've unlocked the relevant upgrade.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: The more important enemy characters are helmetless, particularly your targets. This makes them seriously stand out as important among a sea of Faceless Goons.
- Improbable Aiming Skills:
- Raven is capable of making kills at some very long distances. There's even an achievement for scoring a kill from beyond 1300m.
- Alerted enemies are also capable of hitting Raven from said distances if alerted, using bog standard assault rifles. Justified in that if they couldn't, there would be little challenge around sniping.
- Limited Loadout: Raven can carry one Sniper Rifle, one secondary weapon (rifle, shotgun, SMG, or bow), and one sidearm. He can start with two different gadgets, but upgrades allow him to carry more.
- No "Arc" in "Archery": When sniping, bullet drop and wind resistance need to be accounted for when taking shots. Lower difficulties provide a red dot that shows where your shot will land and the scope needs to be calibrated for elevation as well as distance.
- Non-Linear Sequel: There's no tie-in to the first game's plot. The Protagonist, employer, and setting are totally different from the first game. There's no tie-in to the earlier Sniper Ghost Warrior games either.
- One-Hit Polykill: Sniper Rifle bullets penetrate in such a manner that two (or more) people can be killed with the same shot. There's an achievement for doing this for the first time and one region has doing this several times as a challenge, including the final target, which requires Raven to snipe the target and his two armoured bodyguards, necessitating the use of armour piercing rounds. You can also get multikills by shooting at the grenades attached to most enemies.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: The blurb on the back of the box describes the Sniper: Ghost Warrior franchise as the world's best selling first person sniper franchise.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Averted. While the revolver has the best stopping power of any sidearm, it has the usual drawback of lower ammo capacity. Besides the Glock, it's also the only sidearm that cannot mount a suppressor (which even the game's other Hand Cannon can do), a huge drawback in a Stealth-Based Game. And any advantage from the extra stopping power is negated by the fact that pistols will mostly get used for close range headshots, which are a One-Hit Kill anyway.
- RPG Elements: This appears in the form of upgrades for Raven's gear, such as his mask, drone, carrying capacity, etc.
- Short-Range Long-Range Weapon: One accessory for sniper rifles is a side mounted reflex sight that allows Raven to make close range kills with them. One region has a challenge of making ten kills this way.
- Sniper Scope Sway: As per standard, this is in effect, though different rifles and bipods can alleviate this. As usual, there is a breath hold mechanic to allow for stability while shooting.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Control, your handler.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: The game is divided into different regions. Each region has a number of objectives that can be undertaken in any order the player chooses.
- A Winner Is You: The final mission has a higher-value target than the earlier missions, but is otherwise not much different. When you finish it, Control reveals his real name, and that's that.
