Polish game development studio CI Games has announced that it now has a live service tactical shooter in active development, continuing the lineage of its Sniper: Ghost Warrior franchise and its Contracts offshoot. Its most notable recent release was Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2, which applied a Hitman-esque gameplay loop to the studio's established sniper-focused FPS property.
While Sniper: Ghost Warrior games have always been firmly in the category of smaller-scale AA releases, the fact that they're almost unopposed in this niche means that they're fairly noteworthy on their own. Now, however, it would seem that CI Games may be ready to leave the franchise behind to focus on something entirely new and potentially rather innovative to boot.
Namely, CI Games' latest investor roadmap plainly states that the studio's previously dedicated Sniper: Ghost Warrior team has moved on to producing a mysterious new live service game with the working title of Project Scorpio that's slated for a 2024/2025 release. Fans of Sniper: Ghost Warrior Contracts 2's advanced gameplay mechanics aren't being left out to dry, however, as CI Games appears to be working with an outside partner to keep the Sniper: Ghost Warrior series up and running.
CI Games explained that there are plans to support Project Scorpio with events, microtransactions, and potentially even an esports angle, suggesting a competitive experience of some sort. Since live service games tend to glow up after their release in many cases, CI Games could very well be trying to leverage its long-lasting expertise in an unprecedented way for the studio. According to the roadmap, CI Games is now also working on an Unreal Engine 5 survival game, Project Survive, which appears to be a collaboration with Batfields, the team that produced the Dead Effect games.
Of course, it's also worth remembering that CI Games' Lords of the Fallen reboot got revealed earlier this year and that it's currently targeting a 2023 launch. This means that the studio now has at least three major new titles in active development, which is no mean feat. Since neither Project Scorpio nor Project Survive have yet been assigned their official titles, however, Lords of the Fallen is almost certainly further along its development pipeline.
The future of the Sniper: Ghost Warrior franchise and its Contracts offshoot now depends entirely on the partner studio that takes it over, at least for now. Thankfully, the games' focus on a specific FPS niche means that any potential sequel is practically bound to follow the formula that fans know and love. More importantly, it might lead to crucial gameplay-level fixes that Contracts 2 never received.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: CI Games