Sniper Elite 5 review: a third-person shooter rooted in the past

When my cover blows, I’m only halfway up the wall at an extravagant chateau in rural France.

Suspended from vines which have outgrown their trellis, bullets bombard the surrounding areas, punching holes in concentrated musty stone. Bizarrely, not a single slug connects with me until I have scaled the wall and entered the building, at which point I take a huge amount of damage from … somewhere? Then I cover up, take my injuries to the hospital, then wait for everything to settle down. I hear an alarm from someone far away. It is not clear what I am seeing.

This vignette makes a great diorama. Sniper Elite 5It is a tactical third-person shooter, which can be both helped or hindered in chaos. This game is tactile, coarse, tight, janky and clever, and it is, in simple words, tactile, tactile, and bizarre. Without my constant reminders of how important this game was, I would have probably made this review a laundry list of minor complaints. Have fun I had.

For what it’s worth, I don’t rate that word: “fun.” It’s a near-useless descriptor that is usually lazy and imprecise, but in this specific instance, it’s the most accurate term I can possibly use.

Image: Rebellion Developments

Sniper Elite 5 that was taken in Nazi-occupied France at the tail end World War II. This setting should be regarded with all the respect it deserves. Sniper Instead, she insists on forcing you to eat bombast. The contrast between being a ghillie in the mist and seeing an X-ray of your mark’s skull at the time of impact (think of Sam Raimi’s worst early-aughts impulses) is both immediate and unapologetic. A firefight could be less like the organized chaos of real history and more similar to contemporary media war tactics.

Basically, it’s all very It’s silly. And, as is the case with most games that lean into their silliness — rather than being ashamed of it — Sniper Elite 5 Finds the enjoyment that lies dormant in its heart.

Most of the time, Sniper Elite 5 It is an average third-person shooter. You’re kitted out with a sniper rifle (duh), a handgun, and a submachine gun, as well as a variety of equipment including grenades, mines, medkits, and decoys. The “ideal” way to play is to slowly but surely skulk through each level, discreetly picking off opponents with well-placed crackshots from across the map. There are multiple routes to each objective, which incentivizes experimentation and encourages replayability for run optimization — so far, so good.

It is. Sniper Elite 5On paper. Sniper Elite 5 in action, however — at least on your first run through each of its maps — is something wholly different. As you glide through the darkness like the Nazi ghost sniper, it is very rare to find lone guards that you can pick out. However, it is far less likely that you will accidentally alarm a roaming enemy when you’re klutzing and kerplunking your way through France. Sure, you might catch him off guard enough to knock him unconscious or incapacitate him with a silenced pistol — but, once in a while, this rogue Nazi will round up all his Nazi pals to ruin your day. Here is where the real action begins Sniper Elite 5 Well and truly kicks into action, for good and for ill.

Image: Rebellion Developments

Enemy alertness, like most stealth game modes, can be reversed. You can, if you’re clever, lose your pursuers by twisting and turning through towns and thickets, eventually resuming your status as The Shadow who is universally feared by the Nazis. In the same way that pro-Hitler propaganda has convinced foot soldiers that they’re winning a losing war — a detail that is subtly baked into enemy barks — news of your deeds travels like wildfire across France. As you go through the campaign, enemies will begin to view you as an evil Grim Reaper. The missions that you take (Guernsey or the Loire Valley) create a feeling of being at home. This is further enhanced by your small band of Resistance fighters, who assist you.

But it’s hard to be impressed by even the best bits of Sniper Elite 5 While almost all of its attempts are better in other games, Comparative critiques can lead to near-immediate redundancy. However, a 2022 game built on stealth and sniping is naturally burdened by the Sisyphean challenge of competing next to its peers. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain. They’re totally different games in many respects, but I’d be a liar to claim I didn’t think of my days in the desert as Snake while I lined up shots in French forests as … Karl?

The days of pure stealth are gone. So it is not surprising that we often see comparisons between the greats in moments when there isn’t much else to do. Sniper Elite 5 It is impossible to handle the chaos and potential for it all as effectively as this. Hitman, while even more streamlined experiences like Assassin’s Creed feel much more competent when it comes to managing stealth and enemy alertness.

Image: Rebellion Developments

It’s important to note that even some of the parts of Sniper Elite 5 that aren’t derivative of stronger stealth efforts don’t quite meet the mark. While the level design is excellent, offering you the kind of freedom that makes replaying these games worthwhile, the animations are pretty damn uncanny — literally the first character you meet in the entire game looks like he belongs several years in the past. Voice acting can be a little unconvincing and makes an already stressful script seem even more authoritative. The game could be skipped without affecting the gameplay. The script could be removed. Sniper Elite 5 would not be radically different for it — it would still be the fifth main entry in a self-proclaimed prestige sniper series where you snipe Nazis as an elite marksman, but for the fifth time.

It is fascinating to see the game’s most popular facets. The series has a strong tradition of physically correct Xray animations, which clearly show the bullet’s trajectory and the damage. They’re also inherently gratuitous, and an odd darling to keep alive in a game where so many other areas are on life support. In an industry where the stakes become exponentially higher with every passing year, it has become more important than ever before to know what your game does and doesn’t need. These are some of the things you should be aware of. Sniper Elite 5’s scope is pretty fogged up.

There are strong points as well, which series could learn from. It is easy to identify yourself as a one-man army, with the level design facilitating some amazing set pieces like sniper duel across church aisles and sleuthing along railroad tracks. You can also hold towers against many enemies. This is all accentuated by the fact that the sniping itself is excellent — slowing your heart rate to pick off an unsuspecting sentry from the shadows never becomes any less satisfyingly tactile, while high-octane duels are arguably the most exhilarating part of the game.

Image: Rebellion Developments

There’s also the all-new invasion mechanic to consider, and it’s fantastic. Essentially, you can infiltrate other players’ campaigns as a Jager, instigating a game of cat-and-mouse that enables you to halt their progress in a similar way to games like Dark Souls Or Deathloop. It’s not as elegant a system as its counterparts in those games, but it’s a solid effort — particularly when you get a message from someone you know saying, “Was that you who just shot my face off?” Sniper Elite 5’s The best moments of a day are more important than the worst.

In the end, though, the game’s name alone is probably more than enough to inform you of what it’s all about. It’s a third-person shooter with first-person sniping that puts you in the boots of Brittany’s deftest deadshot. This may sound absurd, but it is actually quite effective. Sniper Elite 5 is a game that cares about its titular vocation, and as the fifth entry in the series, proves that — for the most part — Rebellion has become pretty good at designing virtual sharpshooter experiences.

It’s worth returning to that earlier word — “fun.” While much of the design seems rooted in the past, if there’s one feeling that endures after a session of Sniper Elite 5, it’s that Rebellion hopefully has a solid blueprint to do something truly innovative and worthwhile with Sniper Elite 6. For now, the raucously absurd will suffice.

Sniper Elite 5 On May 26, the game will be available on Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. It also comes on Xbox One and Xbox Series X. Rebellion Developments provided a prerelease code for the Xbox game. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions for products bought via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.