Senior Assassin, a battle royale game where students hunt each other down with water and Nerf guns, has been brought back, despite being shut down for the last two years.

Every week, players are given a target who they have to find and take out. To locate their target, students often talk with their target’s friends and look at their social media to find out their extracurricular activities and where they live. Additionally, players can look at their target’s location via an updating map on the Senior Assassin app. All of this for a chance to win the almost $800 cash prize.

In the last two years, the game was shut down after intervention from the West Linn Police Department, cited for being disruptive to the community after students made their water guns look like real weapons. Jack Fryer, senior, is running the game this year and believes these shutdowns came from students not thinking about how the game looks from the outside.

“People don’t realize that people don’t know what is actually [going on],” Fryer said. “If you wait outside in a parking lot with something that looks like a gun, you’re gonna get the police called, and that’s gonna get it shut down. Or [when] people chase after people in cars, or they just do risky stuff when they’re not thinking, and things go too far.”

Though the game has sparked controversy in the community, it remains a West Linn High School tradition beloved by students for its ability to connect students who wouldn’t connect otherwise.

“I think the core of the game really is that you’re trying to meet people,” Fryer said. “You have to use your social network to sort of track [your target] down and ask other people about them. It’s a great way to meet people and meet the entire class.”

Senior Assassin started with over 140 students. One of those students, Sage Henry, senior, survived for three rounds before being taken out of the competition. Henry enjoyed the community that was built from the game.

“[The most fun part] was just talking to people that I hadn’t before,” Henry said. “I found myself texting random people that I would typically never speak to and [had] to form an alliance with them to get my target out. So it’s cool just talking to all these people as a result.”

Though Henry didn’t intend to take the game too seriously, that changed once it started.

“Everyone’s taking it so seriously this year, I was really surprised,” Henry said. “I didn’t even think I would try too hard, until [I was] actually in the game, and then you just kind of get dedicated all of a sudden.”

Students will go to great lengths to get their target out of the competition. Jack Wroblewski, senior, is one of few students who has yet to be taken out of the competition, and has put his endurance to the test and staked out his target’s house.

“I kind of have all the free time in the world, so the longest I’ve waited is two hours, and the shortest I’ve waited is an hour,” Wroblewski said. “I’ve even had a friend wait three hours, and he had zero luck. She didn’t even come home.”

As the game has gone on longer, students are taking it more and more seriously.

“I’ve been hearing the people that are still in telling me about how they’re not gonna leave their house all week long, and they’re gonna camp out at the person’s house at 1 a.m.,” Henry said. “I’m just like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I don’t think I was that dedicated. There’s some commitment this year.”

Students have had to come up with lots of strategies in order to stay in the game for as long as possible, often using the game’s rules and other policies in their favor. Notably, water guns and other fake firearms are prohibited on school campuses per a state law.

“I just stay inside, use the school hours to my advantage,” Wroblewski said. “Since we’re not able to get out between 8:00 and 3:30, I’ve been going to the gym and doing all the stuff I need to within those hours, and then lying low during the other hours.” 

While hunting your target is a very important part of the game, having to avoid being taken out is equally important, and something people will go to equally drastic measures to avoid.

“When [one person] tried to get me out, I was practicing at Lewis and Clark College. I ran out of the gym because I was playing basketball, and I hid in the woods for 30 minutes until she left. And since we were playing basketball, I left my phone, keys, wallet, [and] all in my swim bag on the side. I was playing shirtless, so I was running around a college campus for 30 minutes shirtless,” Wroblewski said.

Though the game has been running smoothly compared to the last few years, there is still a chance of it being shut down despite there only being a small amount of players left. Fryer has had multiple conversations with the administration in order to figure out how to let the game continue.

“If I ever got a police call, I think I’d have to shut it down at that point,” Fryer said. “I think the police would intervene, and I think the school would make it [end]. If it happened on campus or somebody got hurt, I think I’d just have to respect that and shut it down. If it got too crazy or people were going insane, I’d have to.”

Despite the still present threat of being shut down, the game has now been whittled down from its initial large group to only 18 competitors, and Fryer still believes the game will be able to be completed for the first time in two years.