Sniper Elite 5 Review

The idea behind Sniper Elite 5 is simple: a guy with a gun has to kill a bunch of Nazis. Players are given several tools, the most important of which is the sniper rifle, to bring about this inevitable end. Sniper Elite 5 stays true to what fans know and love about the series. This contrasts with other shooters getting more complicated and adding new shooting methods.

The mission segments are all about high quality. The developer used photogrammetry to make the graphics look beautiful and detailed, and the level design balances look and gameplay. Some places looked so beautiful that we stopped for a few minutes to admire them. The game works well on next-gen hardware, and there were no bugs that made it impossible to play. The only thing that hurts the game is you can’t move around much. The different vehicles on the map can’t be driven, so players have to walk everywhere. Since most maps are significant, this feels like a lot of work

But there are a lot of minor problems that take away from the otherwise great gameplay. The layout of the levels can be a little strange, so it’s easy for players to get lost and walk in circles. That’s too bad because it means even more ways to get lost. Any skill other than Empty Lung, a fancy name for slow-motion aiming in the game, is mostly useless. Focus, a skill that lets you see through walls, is incredibly useless because it has a short range, even when upgraded

On lower difficulties, Sniper Elite 5 enemy AI is a bit stupid, which is easy to take advantage of. If an enemy hears a gunshot, they usually see what happened. But because they are often far from where the gun was fired and have to figure out the complicated layout, players can run away until the enemies lose interest and then run back. If an enemy finds a dead body, they should do more research, but that rarely happens. They also stick their heads out while fighting, making it easy to hit them in the head even when they are close. But even on lower difficulties, they are still strong enough to be a challenge.

These details give enemies a sense of humanity and moral ambiguity, making players wonder if their actions were correct. This feature was likely added to please players who like games with morally ambiguous situations. But this doesn’t work in a game set in Nazi Germany. In their propaganda, the Nazis were known for horribly dehumanizing innocent people in horrible ways.

Since this feature has been in previous versions of Sniper Elite, it’s strange that no one at Rebellion has ever asked if it needs to be there. It doesn’t change how to play, but it does change how players see their enemies, even if only slightly. “Kill Nazis because they’re bad” is a simple idea, so, strangely, Rebellion adds this slight twist to it.

Even though it has minor problems and an odd design choice, Sniper Elite 5 is still a fun game for newcomers and longtime fans of the series. It’s suitable for a wide range of gamers because it has specific and complex challenges that anyone can set up and beat in their own way. Overall, it’s a good game that adds to the excellent reputation of the whole series.