I think the biggest praise I can give Sniper Elite: Resistance is that once my play session was over, I immediately went out and bought Sniper Elite 5 so I could keep playing. I was taken by my time with Sniper Elite: Resistance at Gamescom, so I was more than happy to recently attend a preview event to return to 1940s France to play what’s shaping up to be the first must-play game of 2025.
The last time around, I infiltrated a French castle town in broad daylight, which had me scaling the high walls of the town before making my way down into the narrow streets to blast away some Nazi testicles in horrific x-ray detail. This time, I was sent into a canal town in the dead of night to investigate some goings-on at a nearby train station and rendezvous with the local Resistance cell.
Last time my mission revolved around scaling the high walls to then descend into the town below, whereas this time, things started off in the grasslands outside the town, and had you descend into it. Unfortunately, the enemy clearly had an idea we were coming, as there were snipers dotted all across the town, which gave me ample time to hone my sniping skill (or lack thereof). Being a night-time mission, and being the master of stealth that I am, I totally didn’t absolutely bottle the mission and struggle to get across the heavily guarded bridge every time I tried.
Le Casse-Noisette
Being in France, you’ll be dealing with a lot of cramped streets and walkways, so unless you truly are an elite, there are times when you won’t be doing much sniping. Instead, my plan revolved around traps, distractions, and stabbing. Like a lot of stealthy immersive sims, half the fun is messing about with the enemies. Whether that be strapping a grenade to a dead Nazi and throwing him into the middle of the road for the next unsuspecting group to have a nosy at, or planting explosives across the town before sniping them to draw the squads away from you. There’s a lot of opportunity to mess around with the AI and create that type of moment that made Hitman: World of Assassination so memorable.
Granted, some may find things to be a bit too familiar to Sniper Elite 5 – especially when this is the same price. The UI and mechanics of both games are virtually identical, and while the maps are new, 1940s France still feels like 1940s France. That being said, it’s still a new full-length Sniper Elite campaign to dig into (Rebellion claims it’s the same size as Sniper Elite 5, which is about nine missions long), so it’s going to be a good time regardless. Plus you’re playing as the series’ British co-op partner Harry Hawker, who has a fair bit more personality (and swear words, lots of swear words) than the stoic Yank protagonist Karl Fairburne.
Action-espionnage tactique
Following the preview session, I had the chance to chat with Sniper Elite: Resistance’s level designer, Beck Shaw. Naturally, the first thing I wanted to know was why this game isn’t Sniper Elite 6 and why Sniper Elite 5 (and by extension, France) was the right choice to introduce the series’ first non-zombie spinoff. “We read a lot of positive feedback from Sniper Elite 5, and the fans really resonated with it. We wanted to give them just more of the same and just explore some more of France really.”
If the name didn’t give it away, the French resistance is a big factor in Sniper Elite: Resistance. In Sniper Elite 5, Karl does run with the resistance in places, but he’s mostly off doing his own thing. But this time around Harry is working hand in hand with the members of the resistance as his means of getting intel.
While I didn’t personally get a chance to play them, we were briefed on Propaganda Missions, which are new sub-missions you can unlock by finding specific collectibles. Shaw let me know that these missions take place in the same locations as the main story but instead have you take the role of a new resistance member at a different time period. These can range from stealth challenges to, of course, sniping challenges, with the intent being to make them replayable to nab the best scores. I can’t tell you how they are first-hand, but from the description, it’s one of the features I’m most looking forward to.
Be more pacific
One of the most common bits of feedback from the Sniper Elite fanbase is where each game would be set. While Sniper Elite 3 explored the often overlooked North African theater of World War 2, Sniper Elite V2, 4, and this Sniper Elite 5 duology have stayed firmly within Western Europe (Germany, Italy, and France, respectively). But shockingly, the series has never gone to Eastern Europe or the Pacific Theater.
I asked why this hasn’t been explored, and if Rebellion has any interest in taking it on, Shaw told me when the studio is planning a new entry, “We do explore all areas of the war… there's definitely interest there, and we definitely hear the community – they shout loudly about where they want to go”. However, despite the likes of France and Germany being popular locations for World War 2 games, Rebellion doesn’t think it’s scorched earth, with Shaw saying: “We feel at the moment there's a lot of stories that haven’t been told in the Western Europe area, but that's not to say we won't ever visit these locations in the future.”
When Sniper Elite V2 rebooted the series in 2012, World War 2 games had fallen out of favor in the years prior thanks to their saturation in the mid-2000s with modern warfare (and later Vietnam) taking the spotlight. Rebellion kept on trucking and stuck with its World War 2 storyline. I asked Shaw if there was a chance of Sniper Elite tackling other conflicts and why it hadn’t been explored when World War 2 games were at their least popular.
“We like the challenge a little bit,” Shaw told me, “With modern-day conflicts, you've got all these tech gadgets… stealth is a little bit easier because you can have little drones flying around and thermal cameras”. Considering the series is known for its punishing stealth gameplay, this explanation made total sense, with Shaw capping off his answer by telling me, “World War 2 was probably like the last time where it was just a man with the world in front of him.” So while it wasn’t outright shot down as a possibility, it’s clear Rebellion has no intention of ditching the 1940s just yet. “There's a lot of interesting locations that don't always get shown in the media regarding World War 2… there are a lot of locations we can share and a lot of stories we can tell.”
Sniper Elite is continuing to carve out a small niche for itself, and while I’ve been late to the party, checking out Sniper Elite: Resistance has converted me and I’ve been catching up with Sniper Elite 3, 4, and 5. It’s been almost three years since the last game, so it’s a bit of a shame there doesn’t seem to be a huge leap from Sniper Elite 5. But at the same time, it’s more of a great game, and if the Propaganda missions pan out, I can see myself getting stuck in for a long time.
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