Sniper Elite 5 is not a radical reboot: the long-running World War 2 shooter will challenge you again to snip, shoot and steal your way to victory over the Nazis in a series of open-world missions set on large maps. Hidden items and secondary targets. As with Sniper Elite 4, it supports 16-player Advertising Multiplayer as well as three-person Co-op Multiplayer mode called Two-Player Drop-in / Drop-Out Co-op Play and Survival. However, Developer Rebellion is adding important new features to its tried and tested blueprint.
The most popular new feature in Sniper Elite 5 is familiar to any Dark Souls fan: if you are playing the new Invasion mode, you can take part in another player’s campaign as an enemy sniper and indulge in some PvP action. Rebellion is using the same system for co-op play, so if you get caught up in the campaign you can now request help from another player – you can still play the entire campaign with the co-op mate if you want.
Another change that has shown the movement of the series in recent years is that you can now become the first person to aim a gun. Previously, the only weapon that had that perspective was your loyal sniper rifle, the rest of your arsenal sticking to a third person.
There are many more ways to customize your weapons in Sniper Elite 5. Whenever you find workbenches on missions, you can devote resources to changing many of the elements in your guns, such as magazines, scenery, barrels, stocks, silencers, and ammunition types. New travel methods allow you to travel around missions in new ways. Because of the zip wires and climbable wines around the levels you can surround and surprise enemies in new ways. In addition, the coup somehow worked on how to make Sniper Elite’s trademark Kilcam more explicitly forensic.
Returning to France
You’re returning as US Ranger Uber-sniper Carl Fairburn from previous games. The action of the Sniper Elite 5 takes place in France in 1944 – two events before and after D-Day, the uprising tells us. The story begins with Fairburn aimed at weakening the Atlanticwall castles along the British coast in preparation for D-Day.
Fairburn teamed up with French Resistance, but the plot quickly turned into a mushroom when he confronted Sniper Elite 5’s main rival, Obergruppenfuhrer Abelard Mల్లller, and dug up Intel about the secret project Operation Kraken.
At this stage we do not know much – how many missions there are in a single player campaign, for example, or how long it may take you to play them all. But Rebellion has redoubled its efforts to achieve realism, using techniques such as photogrammetry to reconstruct real-world locations and working with partners such as the Imperial War Museum to obtain weapons, vehicles and uniforms.
Growing in the undergrowth
Our mission opens in a wooded area outside a sunny French village in a country clearing, hooked up with a couple of resistance fighters, along with another agent from the Fairburns, Special Operations Executive. The Head Resistance Operative reported that SS officer Abelard Mల్లెller was responsible for the recent local violence and that Chateau de Berenger had taken over his headquarters. Mల్లెller and his entourage are elsewhere, but there are rumors that he is responsible for an undercover operation, so Fairburn agrees to break into Mర్ller’s office and gather relevant information.
After examining the map – also identified with the optional aim of assassinating a high-ranking Nazi officer – we work towards Chatto through the countryside. The environment is wonderfully designed with authentic-looking vegetation that proves to be an easy cover when hiding from German patrols. We can slip through long grass and slip unnoticed by the enemy. Simply put, Fireburn is crooked and if we click on the left stick on our controller to make him run, he will bend back. It’s small details, but welcome.
If you enjoyed Sniper Elite 4, you’ll definitely find Sniper Elite 5 familiar. It has the right open-world, play-how-you-want feel, reinforced by significantly larger levels than previous games, at least if we are representative. In general, AI (even in moderately difficult settings) is strict – German vehicles on a nearby road stop and fire at us as we enter their sights, for example, which reinforces the need for a covert approach.
Using Fairburn’s binoculars to scout ahead, we encounter a pocket of enemy guards and our first chance to see Sniper Elite 5’s kilcom action. If you remove a single-shot kill with a sniper rifle, you will be rewarded with a graphic visualization of your bullet damage, which penetrates into any body part of your body and flies over any bone. In the fire, we snip another enemy, and then run to loot the corpses – another familiar sniper elite mechanic and ammunition, grenades and medical kits that are crucial to replenish.
Reinforcements come in, alerted by shots, allowing us to test the stealth takedowns and close-quarters combat of the Sniper Elite 5 using a submachine gun. Looking down at the iron scenes of the guns proves to be particularly useful with the Silent Handgun, adding accuracy when seeking single-bullet headshot killings with a low-caliber weapon.
Puzzles and mysteries
We penetrate the cave by lifting a rope and climbing through an open window. Inside, our gaming headset earns its keep because we can detect the sound of incoming footsteps allowing for many secret deletions. The door to M మొller’s office is locked, but the rebellion tells us there are many ways inside: if we had killed one of M మొller’s lieutenants, then we would have found a key on the body; Or we can select the lock (despite the risk discovery); Or, as we do, go upstairs to the dirty attic and then gain access by sliding down through a hole in the floor. Moller’s office offers valuable Intel, but not what we asked for, and Fairburn discovers that there is a secret room. You need to work out how to open the secret door by fiddling with various objects in the office and behind the fake wall, we will find the file in Operation Kraken.
Somewhere an alarm was triggered, and we had to escape the snare as waves of enemies attacked the rural manor. Even when we reach our point of extermination we must make sure that we are not followed (read: Kill everyone nearby). This is a satisfying end to the mission.
Improving your skills
Everything you do in Sniper Elite 5 – dramatic sniper killings, deletions, discovering secrets and Intel – earns you skill points. We raised the level during our demo mission, allowing us to explore the RPG-style Skills Tree. It is divided into three parts: combat, equipment and body. We will spend our first point on a fighting skill called Back in the Fight, which will allow you to heal yourself using Medkit when you fall, and grant a second lease of life. Other combat skills on offer include the ability to throw grenades, various levels of enemy tagging and quick trapping.
Our first play-through of the Occupied Residence Mission took over an hour, we reached it at breakneck speed, exploring as many opportunities as we could. In our second run, we took a different approach, literally entering Chateau through secret escape tunnels and limiting ourselves to stealth killers as much as possible.
Our new path into the manor will lead us to new secrets and collections, suggesting that there will be many rewards for replaying all the missions of the Sniper Elite 5. Can’t imagine how long it will take to play through the campaign without knowing how many levels there are in the final game. Still, hopefully, it’s a delicious experience for those who want to find everything hidden in its missions.
Zooming in on the details
Rebellion improved Sniper Elite in a number of subtle ways. Graphically, it is more than its predecessor, making the fictional story believable with a lot of time and attention to detail. Throughout the missions we play, we listen to conversations between enemies, for example, which provide useful information and a wealth of knowledge that will keep you grounded in the history of the time.
WW2 Europe has always attracted many gamers, and Sniper Elite 5’s description of important events in France in 1944 is remarkably plausible. The classic Sniper Elite is a factor in third and first-person action gameplay, and you have a recipe for a game that looks like it will delight fans of the series. It is set to release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S on May 26th and we will provide you with more details as they advance.