A third person sniper themed combat shooter that has had a decently successful series so far. Why else would they have the 5th installment? We had a run through the game to find out.
The Story
Sniper Elite 5 is set in 1944, World War II, taking place in France. You play as Karl Fairburne, who is an elite sniper from the US. The plot is to uncover a secret Nazi project called Projekt Kraken. The game starts just before D-Day on the beaches of France, where you meet up with local troops and eliminate officials, bunkers and special weapons.
Gameplay
For a sniper game, this game doesn’t actually need you to snipe all the time. In-fact most of the weapons are non sniper weapons.
The game plays and even looks like the Hitman series. At times it also plays like COD, though it is much harder. It is also semi-open world, where you have optional objectives. And those optional objectives have optional ways to complete them. Options within options.
There are vehicles that traverse the map, but sadly you can’t drive them. The fastest way around
You can sneak around and play stealth, or go guns blazing… and die very quickly. The game is not meant to be played gung-ho. You are meant to strategise and plan ahead.
I wish there was a better way to figure out where the enemy characters are, not having that awareness makes either strategy extremely difficult. The best thing is to just take the game slow.
You get to only carry 2 guns from your load-out. You can pick-up a third gun dropped by the enemy, which you will keep temporarily and will be dropped if you swap to one of your other weapons. There are also a bunch of tools and throwables that you can carry.
There is an online multiplayer option, however this review focuses on the campaign.
Mechanics
There is a lot going on in this game. You have the upgrade mechanics, the gun customisations and loadout choices.
For the character upgrade, there are 3 areas of upgrades. Each area with it’s own benefits. This kind of upgradability is great for those players who want to lean into their play style.
For the guns, you get cosmetic modifications, but also real functional mods. From the grip, to the barrel, the sight etc.
One cool thing I found in this game was that some of the enemies have a small backstory, if you read through them you can choose to kill or incapacitate them. I eventually got invested in keeping those I felt were “good” alive, while not being as generous with others.
Verdict
Over time I have become a fan of simpler games that allow you to enjoy the story without much effort. Keeping that in mind, I generally loved the visuals of this game. The campaign didn’t have too many bugs and was smooth overall.
The game can be a bit complicated, and I find myself not caring much for the collectables and upgrades. If they come, they come. I did enjoy sneaking around and taking down enemies through various ways. Bombs, traps, sniping, or all out war. It’s all fun.
