Together, Square Enix and SOFREP’s own Brandon Webb have something right up the alley of every shooter fans’ dreams: actual range time with Brandon himself.

As part of an ongoing contest to promote the full game, a standalone preorder bonus has been made available exclusively through GameStop that provides huge incentives for fine tuning the Hitman craft. It’s not uncommon, lately, for big games to offer some form of beta game play or simply a demo; but, not typically do your early accomplishments carry over to the full game afterwards. Hitman Absolution, via this preorder bonus entitled, Sniper Challenge, does that and more.

Our friends at Square Enix provided us with the Sniper Challenge mission and we put it through the ringer. As expected, Hitman is back with his signature red tie, tailor made suit, and cold-hearted assassinations. This is the 5th title in the Hitman series and is easily slated to be the biggest and best yet.

From running through this Sniper Challenge multiple times, it is clear the audio, visuals, and game play were given great attention to detail and IO Interactive’s proprietary game engine, Glacier 2, is just what Hitman needed. There are a few areas of critique already, but we will hold our thoughts for a later review of the retail game.

The mission opens with a cut scene discussing the details on your next hit as Agent 47 rides an elevator to a rooftop for his chosen vantage point. As with any real-world high profile sniper op, there is a small window of opportunity to get the job done, extract, and avoid detection.

This mission stresses that very idea via an instant 15 minute countdown for you to quickly plan the successful takedown of all bodyguard staff andthe main target, himself. Despite being equipped with a silenced sniper rifle, you must choose each kill appropriately as to avoid arousing suspicion or detection of a dead body. Do it right and this rooftop VIP party will be none the wiser of what just happened.

As mentioned before, the game also has built-in challenges that, as completed, will carry over to the full retail game seamlessly and provide incentive to complete this op as perfectly as possible. However, there’s much more to it.

As these various challenges are completed and your score increases, you are automatically ranked in a global leaderboard against all other would-be Agent 47s. But, this is not simply for bragging rights; in fact, each month, there is a real-world reward for the top sniper on the leaderboards.

This is where SOFREP dives in: what better way to reward an individual that perfects their trade sniping in a game than to meet up and shoot with one who has taught countless others to perfect it in the real world, with real guns?

September’s contest reward will give one dedicated gamer and a friend the once in a lifetime opportunity to spend a day with SOFREP’s founder and former Navy SEAL Sniper Instructor, Brandon Webb.

The winner and a friend will meet Brandon in San Diego where he will spend a day at a gun range with them shooting some big boy guns and learning valuable tips in the process. Brandon is also an award winning author of the New York Times Bestseller, “The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America’s Deadliest Marksmen,” and is soon to release another book entitled, “Navy SEAL Sniper: An Intimate Look at the Sniper of the 21st Century.”

Those who know him know that to spend a day of shooting and learning with Brandon at the range is priceless. So, get out there, fire off some rounds as Agent 47, climb the leaderboards, and maybe you will be shooting your next rounds live with a former Navy SEAL.

Official contest rules

-CO