A popular mobile video game featured a mission where players were tasked with killing a journalist, saying it would “make him famous in a different way.”



The game, which is available in the App Store for Apple devices and on gaming platform Steam, is called “Sniper 3D Assassin” and has players do a variety of hired-gun missions with several different targets, according to the HuffPost.

The mission in which a journalist is set for assassination is called “Breaking News” and it calls on the player to kill someone who bribed a police officer for information.

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TFG Co., the developer of “Sniper Assassin 3D,” reportedly pulled the level from the game after being contacted about it by the news outlet.

“Our game Sniper 3D Assassin is fictional and is intended for mature audiences,” Michael Mac-Vicar, TFG’s chief financial officer, told HuffPost in a statement. “At TFG, we work to create games that bring fun and entertainment to users all around the world. As such, we take feedback from our players very seriously. After listening to our community today, we have decided to remove the mission ‘Breaking News’ from the game.”

The mission in the game depicted a journalist meeting a police officer, which the player can see from a raised balcony in the distance. The player then zooms in on the journalist and shoots them with a slow-motion bullet.

When the journalist dies, spilling blood everywhere, the words “that’s a cover story” appear on the screen.

The game was first released in 2014 and has accumulated tens of millions of downloads, according to the company’s website. HuffPost reports that at one point it was the most downloaded game on Apple’s App Store.