With Sniper Elite 5 being reduced to “only” 17€ on steam right now I decided to purchase it for a comparison to its predecessor and to tell you if it’s worth buying. Today I’ll share my first impressions with you I got from my first 2 hours of game experience.
Sniper Elite 5 is a third person sniper shooter that can be played on any skill level. As the last parts of the Sniper Elite series this one also comes with the slow motion detailed kill cams that can be quite disgusting to watch. Sniper Elite 5 is mainly focused on the campaign (9 missions + 1 DLC mission) but also includes a coop mode, some multiplayer gamemodes and the new “Axis Invasion”, a feature where you can switch into the role of a German sniper hunter and join another player in their campaign missions to take them out.
Every mission requires you to complete a main target but also offers multiple side targets that can be completed. At the end of every mission you have to extract to get back into a safe space. Throughout your mission you are equipped with a sniper rifle, a submachine gun and a pistol. Take out enemy soldiers in a preferably stealthy way to make your way towards the targets on the map. If you get spotted it can get uncomfortable really fast as more German soldiers will make their way to your last know position.
NOTE: As the language of Sniper Elite 5 is set to the system language all screenshots are in German. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Campaign
The story takes place after the events of Sniper Elite 4. You’re playing as Karl Fairburne, a special forces sniper that is tasked to help the Americans land in France. Later he is asked to stop “Operation Kraken”, a German submarine project that poses a risk at the safety of the Allies.
As mentioned above there are 9 missions that can be completed and 1 mission that can be purchased with a DLC. The main goal of each mission is to stay undetected as getting spotted basically means death, especially on higher difficulties (there are 5). To avoid getting spotted you either need a silenced weapon, subsonic ammunition or you shoot during another loud sound from a cannon or a generator that can cover up your shot.
Enemies can be spotted via binocular or just by hearing them walking around you. If you’re sneaking around they don’t instantly notice you until an attention bar fully fills up. If that’s the case, they start shooting, alerting all other enemies in the area around you. Some enemy soldiers can even activate an alarm that calls even more backup.
If you eliminate enemies you can loot them for ammunition, keys and other items or take their weapons. If you want to avoid any suspicion you should place their bodies inside tall grass or boxes around the map. The German soldiers have different equipment and also different ranks that reward different loot.
You can switch between 3 weapons: one primary sniper rifle, one submachine gun and one pistol. The last ones are best used inside or when sneaking around. The sniper rifle is best used for long range shots when no one is around or you have enough environmental sound protection. In addition to those weapons you also get access to multiple explosives like grenades or mines and medical supplies to regenerate health points.
By completing missions, earning medals and generally eliminating enemies you earn experience points that unlock ability points. These can be invested into a skill tree that improves your character in multiple aspects of the game.
Axis Invasion
This feature enables you to join another player’s campaign mission. Your goal is to eliminate the player. The more eliminations you get in this mode, the more equipment options you have.
I enjoyed this mode as it adds an additional layer of pressure for both the sniper hunter and the sniper as you never know where each other is unless you use an “invasion phone”, a gadget which let’s you and the enemy sniper know where each other is on the map.
Multiplayer
Sniper Elite 5 offers a multiplayer with modes similar to Call of Duty. I tried playing Free for All, a mode where you fight alone against other players and the first to reach a certain number of eliminations wins. Although I quickly discovered the enormous skill gap I had against the other players I think this is a cool way to practice fast aiming and situational awareness for the campaign mode.
Conclusion
In comparison to Sniper Elite 4, the game offers fewer starter weapons but shows a much simpler entry to the series in my opinion. Although I really enjoyed the Axis Invasion mode I didn’t noticed many new features in comparison to the older game (not talking about graphics or story). I would recommend picking up Sniper Elite 4 from a third party vendor like MMOGA (~8€) to try out the experience before you spend a bit more money.
If you really want to play Sniper Elite 5 I would high recommend purchasing it during a steam sale as the base game only offers around 50 hours of gameplay if you stretch the missions out and collect every little item. You can of course invest many hours into the multiplayer.
