Back in the fracture
I generally deal with issues of shooting digital Nazis in the face with eager pleasure. Fate, however, conspired to delay my trip through Sniper Elite 5. A storm tore through my neighborhood, destroying the power grid thoroughly. The electricity is still down and I am writing from a hidden bunker somewhere remote. Be grateful, Fritz. You have been spared a few more days to tighten your helmet strap.
In the meantime, I can give you an overview of what I have played in the dim light from my underground cave. I doubt any of that will be very surprising.
Sniper Elite 5 (PC, PS4, PS5 [reviewed]Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S)
Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Rebellion
Published: May 26, 2022
Guide price: $ 59.99
You’re again fallen into the boots of Karl Fairburne, US guy and sniper extraordinaire. This time, Karl is on holiday in France prior to the invasion of Normandy. When his trip home is lowered, Karl joins the French resistance movement and decides to give their eyes to their cause.
I’m only a little way inside the campaign, and I can tell you that it’s once again about a Nazi secret project that disappeared in the history books. I’m hoping for UFOs.
Along the way, you must, among other things. soften Nazi targets and repatriate taxes. If this sounds like a reloading of the past Sniper Elite games, yes, that feeling I get a lot too. The landscape and architecture are different, but the song remains the same.
As before, you pick your loadout, fall into an environment and continue to shoot Nazis in the face. The biggest new feature that comes to mind is Axis invasion mode. It’s a bit of Dark souls where some jerk is allowed to get into your game and put on a pair of jack boots. Their goal is just to try to kill you, giving them some rewards.
Returning are improved co-op and survival modes. Unfortunately, there is no split screen. Bummer.
When it comes to new things for single-player, I draw a completely empty field. That is not to say that the game has not been upgraded in a way, it just is not in a way that changes the gameplay significantly. It’s almost as reminiscent of past experiences in the series that go all the way back to Sniper Elite V2 that I’m sorry. I’ve been shooting Nazis in the face since around the time we finally moved from hitscan. It’s still fun, but is there nothing we can do to make it fresh?
It probably wouldn’t feel so bad if the story didn’t feel as routine as anything else. Again, the Nazi superweapon plot is outdated. Karl Fairburne was not an interesting character to start with and that has not changed. The characters that flank him are also not archetypes we haven’t really seen before. You can get a lot more creative with historical fiction from World War II without even thinking so far past formula creations. You can do more with the characters without going too far into the imagination. Fairburne is boring. He’s not linked to the name of the game, so why are we still playing like him? He’s not Sam Fischer, he’s not even BJ Blazkowicz. We can do better.
I do not know where to go from here. The environments look neat, stealth is just as satisfying as ever. Once your stealth is blown, it’s still a bit of a pill to throw down. Prior to the release, it was rumored that Rebellion would go further to accommodate people who prefer the offensive approach. However, unless I had a lot of reach to work with, I never found myself able to fight.
This is probably where we point out that it is Sniper Elite 5 and that expecting something more balls out than removing Fritz’s childhood memories from 300 yards is not really within the scope of the game, but I feel it’s important to point out.
To be fair to Sniper Elite 5, I still have a way to go before I bump into its credit screen. It is also possible that its multiplayer is a riot. It would not be the first time that a game changed my mind about it midway. But as it stands, I’m not completely sold. I’m not saying you should avoid it altogether, just that you should keep your expectations in check. We’ll see what I have to say when I crawl out of my pile for the final review.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]