PIGFACE Kill your way, every run

You wake up in an abandoned warehouse, in a pool of your own blood, with a kill switch drilled into your skull. A phone rings across the room. That is the setup, and the game wastes none of your time on it: you are a hostage with a job, and the job is killing people for money. Missions are open sandboxes with no timers and no forced routes. Everything on the map, enemies and items alike, is placed from the start, so what you find is what the level holds. Between jobs you hole up in your apartment, pick missions on your laptop, and take a van to the site, where you choose your loadout before stepping out. The story is thin and grim on purpose; the pull is what you decide to do once the van doors open.

Every mission can go two ways, and both are loud in their own fashion. Come in quiet: sneak, pick enemies off, use the map's corners and high points, and never be seen. Come in loud: a shotgun, a grenade launcher, a landmine by the door, and let the dismemberment physics do the paperwork. You can switch between the two mid-level, which is where the game shines. One moment you are picking off a helmeted rifleman from range; the next you are out of ammo, out of patience, and closing the distance with a hammer. The Black Market sells everything from kevlar vests to grenade launchers, and masks you unlock add perks with drawbacks, Hotline Miami style. Enemies shoot straight and hit hard, so cover, items and planning matter as much as reflexes.