Senior Assassin has taken TikTok, and by extension – the world, by storm. To the uninitiated it may be just a run of the mill water fight, but it has become spectacularly popular. Now Leaving Certificate students in desperate need of diversion have wholeheartedly embraced it.
What is Senior Assassin?
A water sport elimination game which has an accompanying app that collects video evidence and tracks the leader scoreboard for a tournament-style competition.
The game takes place over a period of days, sometimes weeks or a month, and players are eliminated when their appointed “assassin” squirts them with water.
How do you play it?
Players are assigned partners, and as a duo you will be given another set of people to track down and eliminate. The app allows players to see their target’s location at all times.
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Equally, another duo have been assigned to take you and your partner out. No one knows which targets other players have been assigned.
Is there any way to avoid being caught, say if you have something important to do – like study?
Competitors have a safety object. While wearing that safety object, other players cannot shoot you.
A common safety object is a pair of swimming goggles or arm bands, which participants must wear to be immune from elimination by splashing.
The host might make additional rules surrounding safety objects, or create no-go zones such as school grounds or classrooms.
The main thing is that the safety object is embarrassing to wear, so that players are not inclined to wear it all of the time.
How do you win?
The last player standing is the winner of the overall game.
What is the prize?
Often, there is a buy-in from all the players at the start of the game, creating a pot which acts as the cash prize.
This isn’t the case for every game of Senior Assassin and some people just play it for the craic and, of course, the glory of winning.
Why is it called Senior Assassin?
The senior component in the title is derived from its popularity in the US as a farewell game played in the spring of the final year of high school known as senior year.
It is called Senior Assassin because it is a variation of assassin-type games such as laser tag or paintball, where contestants win by shooting others to eliminate them.
Where does it come from?
Probably somewhere in and around the US midwest with variations such as Senior Tag, Senior Water Wars and Senior Splashin’ found in Ohio, South Dakota and Illinois.
The game was many years in the making before it became the viral trend that made its way to these shores.
But the idea of an assassination game, where players eliminate each other until the last man standing is crowned the winner, is not exactly reinventing the wheel. Intense assassin-type games featured in episodes of 2010s television shows like Nikelodeon’s iCarly, teen drama Gossip Girl and sitcom Community.
Why is it catching on now?
An app to host the game called Splashin landed on the App Store in early 2025, and made it easier for groups of friends to organise their own games, with the host also able to compete rather than be in charge of assigning targets.
On the app, there are features such as location sharing, automated target assignment and another where players can share video or photographic evidence of successful assassinations.
Videos are also circulating on TikTok under the hashtag #SeniorAssassion, acting as free marketing for the game.
Is it dangerous?
There have been headlines circulating in the US and Canada, where police have warned that the game could potentially create a “risk” in some situations of water guns being mistaken for fire arms.
Another risk is of young people playing the game while driving a car or potentially pulling off risky manoeuvres to surprise their opponents.
Most students in Ireland playing Senior Assassin are finding a fun outlet during their last few weeks of secondary school before sitting the Leaving Cert exams. And can you blame them?
