Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 was not an overly positive experience for CI Games. It was delayed twice and suffered from pronounced technical issues when it launched, leading the studio to admit a couple of months later that it was "just too ambitious" for a relatively small development team working under tight deadlines. 

The stumble won't spell the end of the series, but it will result in some big changes in the next game, which was announced today as Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts. (The colon has apparently been dropped, although we'll see how that works out as it approaches a more clearly-defined state of existence.) The open-world design is gone, and instead players will take on "tailor-made contract missions that offer a clear main objective with a fixed monetary reward." Completing secondary objectives will earn bonus payouts, and contracts can be repeated for better payouts—if you do a better job. 

"We were too ambitious in terms of the scope of Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, but we’ve learned from our missteps," CI Games CEO Marek Tymiński said. "Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts will be more focused on emergent gameplay with an open-ended mission design that the team feels strong about, but it will not be set in an open world. It is going to be a more tactical, more condensed experience and the game will offer plenty of replayability, both on the single player campaign and on the multiplayer modes." 

Those ugly technical troubles will hopefully be taken care of too: The studio said that the game engine will be optimized to provide minimal load times and stable framerates—but, rather like the status of the colon in the title, we'll have to wait and see on that.

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts is currently expected to be out in 2019.    

Update: The following article initially suggested Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 was part of this deal. The games included are in fact Sniper Art of Victory, Sniper Ghost Warrior, and Sniper Ghost Warrior 2. Apologies for any inconvenience caused. 

Original story: 

Fanatical's Star Deals Week is live and brings with it seven limited-time Steam deals over the course of the next seven days. I missed its 8am PST/4pm BST kick off time yesterday because I'm a terrible person—which is why I'm hurried pointing you towards it now. 

For the next couple of hours, Fanatical has the Sniper Ghost Warrior trilogy on sale for $1/£0.75. 

Back to Star Deals Week—Fanatical informs me that 2D cyberpunk sidescroller Dex is next up, on sale for $1.49, 93 percent less its recommended retail value. I've never actually played this one, but Steam reviews speak very positively of it. As before, it launches today at 8am PST/4pm BST.  

Elsewhere, Fanatical offers 20 percent off Battletech—check out Chris Thursten's review and guide—till later today. PC Building Simulator, on the other hand, will be subject to a ten percent reduction from 8am PST/4pm BST.

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What's this, every Total War title except Shogun and Shogun 2, with all accompanying DLC for just £8.74 / $12.49? What are you doing to us, Steam sale? I was planning to eat, and perhaps sleep this weekend but NO, you have to throw hundreds of hours of world class strategy gaming at me for a price that my buying finger can't not click on.

Wait, there's more? Gravity mangling platformer VVVVVV, for just 99p / $1.24? That's less than I paid for my cup of coffee this morning. The slick shouting-at-people-until-they-crack simulator LA Noire, which has only been out for two minutes, is half price. And Fallout: New Vegas and all its DLC packs are available at prices that make the upcoming Ultimate Edition seem a little redundant.

Also on sale today:

Red Orchestra series
Operation Flashpoint franchise
RIFT
Sniper: Ghost Warrior
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3: Platinum
Two Worlds franchise

 
The deals will change around again in six hours time, so keep an eye on the Steam front page. The Autumn sale will wrap up on Sunday, giving us some time to play everything we've bought before the big Christmas sale kicks off.

 
Become the bane of enemy soldiers who can't quite take cover properly in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. City Interactive will bring their CryEngine 3 powered sniper sim to PC next March. It'll hit Europe on March 16, and the US on March 20. The in-game footage above is taken from Sniper's Gamescom showing, and feels a lot like Call of Duty 4's Chernobyl level, in which you spend a lot of time dressed as a bush, being told what to do by another man dressed as a bush. But imitating greenery is the second most exciting thing about being a sniper. The first is the feeling of god-like power as you hover your sights over a distant, unaware foe. Expect plenty of that come March 2012.