Sniper Elite 5 Review

After being announced late last year, Rebellion’s Sniper Elite 5 is ready to launch. Is the game worth checking out, or should you find your sniping fix elsewhere? Check out our review and find out.

Sniper Elite 5 Review

Sniper Elite 5 begins near the end of World War 2, with you playing a man named Fairburne. A highly skilled sniper and covert operator, your task is to meet up with your contact Blue Viper. When you find her, she tells you the Nazis are building some sort of superweapon. You two split up, and your mission is to find out as much as you can about this weapon.

After a couple of missions, you find some blueprints for a secret Uboat named The Kraken. It can use stealth and avoid detection, meaning the Nazis would be able to control the ocean. Unfortunately, destroying the blueprints won’t be enough to stop production; you have to dismantle every part of the operation. There are ten missions total, and while playtime will vary, 10-12 hours seems to be a good average campaign length estimate.

I’m sure you can guess how the combat plays out with a name like Sniper Elite. You try to take out enemies one by one, moving from point to point and picking off Nazis. Since this is World War 2, the suppressors on your guns are not great, and sound is a major issue. Players need to pick shots correctly, or camps of enemies will come after you. Subsonic rounds reduce your shot sound dramatically, but those can be hard to find.

When things get hairy, you can use a submachine gun, pistol, explosives, or rush the guy and stab him. Of course, at that point, you might as well reload your last checkpoint and do it cleanly. Getting seen isn’t a game over, but your mission becomes very difficult if the Nazis alert the main compound. I tried to go through the main gate on the second level, and the whole mansion was on alert. Patience is required to excel at this game.

I skipped the last Sniper Elite, but I did play 3. This game is a lot more like the new Hitman trilogy than it was before. You pick where you go in, have different targets and missions in the level, and even have different ways of killing the key targets. A headshot is a headshot, but using an explosive rat is much more satisfying. This is a change for the better as it encourages players to return to levels.

Now let’s talk about what Sniper Elite is famous for: its x-ray system. When you make a really good shot, the game will follow the bullet to the target and show the massive damage you did. In Sniper Elite 5, you get to choose how often it goes off, the camera’s speed, if you want melee and bullet kills, and if you want it on in multiplayer. It is one of my favorite parts of the game, but I also don’t want it triggering constantly, so these are welcomed additions for me. Be careful, though, as setting a trap might trigger the camera from miles away and give you a spook.

I played about half the campaign in co-op, and we had very few issues. It was laggy at first, but we sorted that out, and shots connected as they should. You get fewer x-ray kill cams in co-op, but the assistance of another player makes the game infinitely more manageable. One spotter and one sniper, two snipers – even rushing in guns blazing is better with a friend. Just be sure you’re both on the same page. One guy being silent and the other being loud just won’t work out.

Each of the levels has a kill target, a Nazi officer of ill repute that should be killed. If you can kill them in a particular way, you are rewarded with a new weapon for your loadouts. At the time of writing this I have tried to unlock the rifle from the second level multiple times. The mission says I did the optional objective; the stat screen confirms I did it, but the rifle is not unlocked. Same for one of my handguns from another kill. I think there is a bug currently with that system, and it hurts.

You have survival, standard multiplayer, and something called Axis Invasion for other modes. Survival is just that: surviving as long as you can against waves of enemies. Multiplayer is where you go to test your sniping skills against other players. Axis Invasion is how you invade other player’s campaign games. Of course, you can turn it off, but the option is there if you want to spice up the campaign.

There are a few annoying parts in the game. It is very picky about what you can and cannot jump over. You can’t cut barbed wire, so you can only go around. Subsonic rounds are harder to find than I’d like for my rifle. You can bring in 15 to start, but I usually eat through that quickly. We did have a couple of bugs with corpses falling into boxes, but nothing game-breaking.

Sniper Elite 5 knows what it is excellent at and sticks with it. If you like gory headshots and taking out Nazis, this game is a good time.

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