Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 Dev Admits Mistakes, Will Scrap Open World With Next Game

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 developer CI Games has admitted it made mistakes during the open-world title's development, saying it "spent too much effort trying to catch up with other AAA titles."

In a statement, CI Games CEO Marek Tyminski said the company "made the wrong math considering the size of our team and the originally given timeframe." The challenges were apparent at the game's launch, which was blighted by load times of nearly five minutes on PS4 and the last-minute delay of the game's multiplayer mode. The title was also delayed multiple times.

"We've learned a lot as a team over the course of development for Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, much of which I believe has shaped the talented individuals within CI Games and the entire studio for the better," Tyminski said. "When we began development of SGW3, we decided on such a relatively large scale of the game with its open world that now we realize it was just too ambitious versus what we could have been able to deliver in any reasonable amount of time."

The learning experience has already impacted the direction of the studio's next game, says Tyminski, with the nascent project ditching Ghost Warrior 3's open-world design: "All of that was a huge lesson for us and we're now moving forward without any tag attached to our next project. We're planning to make a great tactical shooter where we can focus on exciting gameplay, some key mechanics, and missions that have depth without all of the trappings of a large open-world setting. We want to make this game even more tactical than SGW3, and I believe the last three years have created a wonderful foundation that we can build upon for our next game."

CI Games says it will continue to support Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 with updates "through 2017."

In our Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 review, critic Richard Wakeling said the title "feels like a B-tier, budget-priced game," and he awarded it a 5/10.

"Even the predictable, profanity-laden story is reminiscent of the type of gritty B-movies Steven Seagal is known for," he wrote. "There's certainly merit to its accomplished sniping mechanics, especially when missions hone in on the planning and precise execution that makes playing as a sharpshooter so thrilling. Yet it falters whenever it veers away from its strengths, and the plethora of nagging glitches and technical problems are a persistent nuisance that make Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 difficult to recommend."