It’s been fifteen or sixteen years since I first encountered Karl Fairburne, the protagonist of the Sniper Elite franchise. The fictional American sharpshooter saw his first action in Sniper Elite way back in 2006 on the original Xbox. I have fond memories of couch co-oping through that game on the Elite difficulty with a friend, and have kept up with the series ever since then, over the many years and console generations since its release. Last week, Rebellion, the developers behind the Sniper Elite franchise, just released the fifth (or sixth, if you count the VR spin-off), full game in the series. Players will once again load out as Karl as he attempts to thwart Nazi plans during WWII. The action this time takes place in France, towards the end of 1943 in the Bay of Biscay area, and treks on through events surrounding D-Day which of course happened on June 6th, 1944. A total of ten missions are available to players (who have the DLC mission that includes Hitler) as well as a standard multiplayer modes (including campaign co-op!) and a new multiplayer mode called Axis Invasion that is Demon/Dark Souls-esque in how players can invade each other’s games in a real sniper-vs-sniper kind of way. Let’s have a closer look.
Sniper Elite is a series that has evolved in a sort of deliberate, and, seemingly at times, lethargic way. The core gameplay remains precisely the same as it did fifteen or so years ago, and that’s perfectly fine. The adage of ‘don’t fix what isn’t broken’ largely applies here. Still, each Sniper Elite game has left something on the table to look forward to being improved next time. I’m not super familiar with each game in the franchise even though I have played them all, but I think it’s accurate to say that every game has been an improvement over the former. With each release (setting aside the VR game for the moment), the presentation quality has gotten better, of course, but environments have also gotten larger, the arsenal expanded, multiplayer options expanded, and so on. That trend continues with Sniper Elite 5 (SE5), whose missions are as vast as the series has ever seen, with multiple, optional, and often very specific and challenging, side missions tossed in. These encourage the player to explore and take the less direct paths to the primary objective. Heck, even Karl has more of a personality this time around and I wonder if we’ll see Rebellion expand on Karl as a character someday. On the one hand I get the idea of wanting to keep him fairly generic so that we can all sort of relate to Karl and his character not risk getting in the way, but on the other hand, it might make the series more interesting to have a protagonist that is more developed.
Anyway, one thing this series has always had is a design that strongly encourages stealth pacing — after all, you are a lone sniper behind enemy lines and grossly out-numbered and out-gunned, so your only real advantage is stealth, often at considerable range. However, players have always had the option to take a more ‘full-auto,’ shall we say, approach to completing the objectives. However doing so is extra hard, not only because of the opposition forces, but also because of the gameplay mechanics were often cumbersome. To that end, I will say that SE5 has evolved such that getting your hands dirty with close quarters battle with assault rifles and explosives has never been better in the franchise, but it’s still not the ideal way to go about your business, nor is it as good and smooth as a game more specifically designed for that type of encounter.
One of the more persistent gripes with the series has been the enemy AI, and while it’s not an overt, ever-present problem, there are still times when the AI just doesn’t behave realistically. At times they’re either hyper-aware or hypo-aware, if that makes sense, allowing Karl to get away with too little or too much. AI jankiness and other miscellaneous bugs like getting stuck in terrain or bumping into invisible walls still hinder the series and keep it from getting to that next echelon of greatness, and this many entries in it’s kind of disappointing. Still, frequent auto-saves help recover from these woes and there’s always the hope (or expectation) of patches to help iron out these issues. Plus, the missions are so big that if you can survive these relatively-rare hiccups , you can typically recover fine and carry on. Co-op mode is also included, and that, like in most co-op games, can help overcome issues with enemy AI. Furthermore, new gameplay mechanics allowing the use of climbing (like vines on the outside of a window, or using a zip-line) gives players more flexibility on how to approach (or escape) a Nazi stronghold. The extra freedom that these abilities provide are, frankly, long overdue, but certainly welcomed here and it gives players more options to be creative which makes the experience more fun and personable.
Personalization in how one approaches objectives has always been something the series has had, and it’s gotten better with time. New to SE5 are the workbenches players find scattered throughout the missions that let you adjust your loadout and install customization items to change the appearance and function of your weapon. Things like different grips and silences and scopes are available to you, but it’s a little bit overdone as far as the workbench is needed even for simple tasks like adding and removing a silencer from your pistol. Furthermore, items are locked away behind gameplay objectives, be it mission completion or getting a certain amount of kills, etc. Of note, the unlocks that you earn in the campaign do not transition to multiplayer, which is kind of grating because if you really want to be proficient and fully equipped in multiplayer you will have to burn a lot of time there, too. I haven’t spent much time in multiplayer, but I’m glad to see the return of the co-op mode as that is my preferred way to play.
Rebellion also introduces Axis Invasion mode, allowing players to infiltrate each others campaign mission, (if you have this option enabled), for a sniper vs sniper battle. There is more to this mode than you might expect. The invader is on the Axis and is therefore out to stop Karl (and his co-op buddy, if one is playing). Though the invader does not have the full set of tools that Karl does, they do have the means of leaning on the enemy AI for information to help pin point where Karl is at. Certain areas feature a phone that can be used to reveal the location of the other player (though it also reveals the caller’s location), to help narrow down and speed up the hunt. I would expect some pretty exciting moments out of this mode, but I’ll be playing traditional co-op more than Invasion, personally.
Something SE5 does that I feel like has not been done as well before in the series is the variety of areas that you explore. I liked sneaking inside buildings, many with really nice decorative detail, and I liked the vertical nature of the terrain, too. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but the French countryside offers a lot of nice colors and variety versus the more desert-laden palette from SE3, for example. As far as raw presentation quality, you can tell that the PS5 version was held back a little bit by having to also cater to the PS4/X1 era, but at least the game loaded quickly and ran smoothly, even if it doesn’t look like a full-on current-gen title.
In sum, Sniper Elite 5 is another evolution in the right direction of this long-running series. If you enjoyed any of the previous entries, this one should be right up your ally and I would lean towards calling it the best yet. The additions of more traversal mechanics, the workbenches, and Invasion mode, along with even bigger maps (that are also the best looking/designed yet) make this an all-around compelling game. However, some age-old issues still rear their head at times, including some jankiness with AI, bugs, and invisible walls. Some of these are likely to be patched out, and frequent auto-saves also help work-around these issues. For GamePass users, SE5 is available now at no extra cost, but I’d still comfortably recommend this to anyone at its MSRP.
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