

So despite the game being delayed only on PS5, everyone on PS5, PS4, Xbox X/S, Xbox One and PC will get the DLC for free.Īdditionally, both the digital and physical PS4 iterations will launch with a free digital upgrade to the PS5 version, ready to download upon its release, to ensure PS5 players can still purchase and play the game on 4th June 2021. This is no first person shooter, despite featuring guns and using that viewpoint, it’s a sniper game and moments when you’re not taking enemies out at range feel clumsily ill-conceived.Although the news is disappointing, the developers have decided that as a gesture of goodwill they will provide the first major DLC release (a new and extensive map complete with brand new contracts) free of charge to the entire player base across all versions. Dropping the unhurried, analytical sniping in favour of faster paced action using your automatic rifle and silenced pistol highlights the flatness of the gunplay and all-round absence of finesse. Unfortunately, these engagements are interspersed with shorter range battles, which neatly spotlight the game’s weaknesses. It’s a slow, methodical business that requires patience, as well as skill in lining up and taking each shot. Doing that involves careful observation through binoculars, tagging enemies, looking for movement patterns, and spotting potential props to use while taking out each area’s arch-baddie. The game’s high points are missions where you need to take out targets a kilometre or more away. That’s also where things start to go awry for Contracts 2, whose meat and potatoes is undoubtedly the long-range shot. This is almost reminiscent of Hitman, in the way you can use pieces of scenery or combinations of different ammunition, to execute your mark and it adds a welcome sense of variety, something that can easily go missing when a game has such a singular focus. These range from killing everyone in a particular camp without raising the alarm, to finishing your target in various offbeat ways. You buy all these using currency earned by completing additional goals in each mission, which turn out to be the most satisfying and challenging parts of the game. The latter includes armour piercing rounds for taking out heavies, EMP, lures, and agile bullets, which self-guide and don’t require you to compensate for gravity or wind. A drone lets you spot enemies, hack CCTV systems, and fire poison darts a remote turret can be used for sync shots or automatically popping the head of anyone who spots you and there’s also a variety of detectors, anti-personnel mines, and special ammunition for your gun. To assist in your quiet trail of destruction, you unlock a litany of gadgets, many of which are quite fun to use, even if none turns out to be exactly essential. Doing all that naturally requires more than just bullets. As well as killing people – sorry, neutralising targets – you’ll also sabotage equipment, blow up vehicles, and down communication systems. The campaign is split into discrete contracts, each of which has you tracking down and assassinating members of the network. The scene set, you’re helicoptered, completely alone, into the fictional country of Kuamar, ready to take down its tyrannical leader and her network of warlords and financiers.
