Hide in plain sight, strike from the shadows and walk away. But be careful, for the hunter is also the hunted. Around every corner, a foe may lay in wait to pounce. Will you gain the favour of Mr. X?

I was recently thinking back to the Assassins Creed multiplayer and was longing to play it when out of nowhere Murderous Pursuits came to my attention and filled that void perfectly! You have been invited to high society parties on an airship by the rich and powerful Mr. X, except now you need to gain his favour. How do you gain it you ask? Simple! Through stealth manoeuvres and of course murder, while also avoiding getting killed yourself.

You pick your character and select 2 special skills that will help you over the course of the game. You and 8 others (some may be bots if there aren’t enough people to fill out a full game) will face off in a battle of skill and subterfuge. Once you spawn in the world you will need to wait for Mr. X to assign you a Quarry, a target, whom you need to find and take out without with as little exposure to yourself as possible. Remember though, while you are stalking your target you will also be hunted by others. You have a compass at the top of the screen that will show you the general direction of your target and once you get close it will say they are nearby, but your target will be alerted there is a hunter in the area and will become more vigilant. Each round lasts 5 minutes, plenty of time for you to get as much favour as you can.

During the rounds there are areas you hide in, where the NPCs will interact with you as though you are one of them. As you hide in these areas a meter will fill, the more full it is the more points you get for taking out a quarry. As soon as you leave one of these hiding zones your meter will start to drop, if it is ever empty you will be exposed and your quarry will see where you are no matter where they stand, and anyone hunting you will also get a marker for where you are. There are different skills you can equip to help you during a match, give a look through them and find the ones that fit best with your play style. If you think you’ve identified someone hunting you, you can target them and attack with a swift slap in the face! But be careful, if you miss your target and aim for a civilian you will freeze in place and the NPCs will point to you and your meter will quickly fall. Your quarry can slap you in these moments or give your hunter an easy kill.

There are also some guards on duty in various areas keeping watch and doing patrols, keep an eye out for them. If any attack is made and they see it, they will charge in and give you away. In these moments the guard is occupied so others can get the drop on you, but you can also make this work to your advantage. If you think a hunter is after you or if you are close to your target, get in range of a guard; you can make it obvious and have them attack you, in both cases giving you the chance to strike!

I really like Murderous Pursuits and have a great time whenever I play it. Sometimes it gets a little more frustrating in a session when I get a bit lazy so others can notice my movement patterns. But when I am paying closer attention and taking care of how I am moving around it can be really satisfying when you land that perfect stealth kill. Overall I have fun and think it is worth playing if you like that sort of competitive stealth gameplay.