Sniper Elite 4 is Rebellion Developments’ fourth entry into the third-person tactical stealth shooter. Karl Fairburne makes his return to kill more Nazis — this time in the countryside of World War II Italy.
For those who are unfamiliar, the Sniper Elite series has carved out a niche as a methodical shooter revolving around sniping and stealth. Where other war games have large set pieces and fast bullet storm gameplay, Sniper Elite slows everything down, encouraging players to take their time and consideration into every shot.
The game revolves around its bringing a realistic mechanic to shooting. When taking those long-range sniping shots, you must account for how wind and gravity will affect your shot, becoming more extreme with each bump in difficulty level.
Calling Sniper Elite a stealth game is a bit of a misnomer though. In games like Hitman or Metal Gear Solid, you have a plethora of gadgets and non-lethal options to plan your stealth runs. However, with Sniper Elite, players get a rifle, a pistol, explosives, an SMG and binoculars. That’s it.
Developers Rebellion know what fans like about the series, keeping new mechanics introductions to a minimum across each new entry. The few differences between 4 and 3 help to improve to stealth gameplay with introduction of suppressed bullets, and nighttime missions where lighting plays a large role into visibility.
Going through each level completely stealthy is possible, albeit maddening on higher difficulties,though that’s part of the allure for hardcore fans of the series.
The difference between the low and higher difficulties almost make it feel like a separate game. On a lower difficulty, you feel invincible, running around machine-gunning every enemy and making shots from 500 meters away look easy.
As you step up to hard difficulty, sniping and planning your methods of attack become crucial. While your shots have all the forces weighing against them, shooting can still be easy with practice thanks to the assist in the “empty lung” mechanic.
The hardest difficulty, “authentic,” is somewhere between fun and masochism. There is no aiming assist, no HUD and enemies cannot be tagged. You’ll even need to brush up on your navigation skills as all objectives, including yourself, are taken off the map.
There’s a twisted sense of enjoyment on this difficulty, evident in planning a tactical approach, timing each shot and patiently waiting for the enemies to show weakness– even if it takes close to two hours to complete, or fail, a single mission.
If you find yourself having trouble with a certain level, you can always jump online to play through the campaign missions on co-op. This game mode simply drops another player into your game, making authentic difficulty much more palatable.
Other online co-op game modes include Overwatch and Survival.
Overwatch separates players into two roles: sniper and operative. The operative, equipped with an SMG and pistol, is tasked with stealthing their way to several objectives. The sniper, who is on a separate part of the map, is equipped with a sniper rifle and must protect the operative.
Overwatch places more emphasis on teamwork than a co-op campaign mode, splitting the capabilities between the two players.
Survival is a four-player game mode with 12 waves of attacks. This game mode is a stark difference from the rest of Sniper Elite’s gameplay, since there is no way to play this mode quietly. Every wave is a fast-paced slaughter of enemies. Personally, I enjoy the change of pace in survival and it is my favorite online game mode.
There are also competitive game modes, however, they aren’t worth your time. The style of Sniper Elite does not play well for competitive gaming, especially since there are plenty of better competitive shooter titles out right now.
As far as performance goes, I’ve had no problems. No glitches, no bugs, no crashes, nothing. On the PS4, framerates are stable and online connectivity is great.
Of course, solid performance is to be expected as Sniper Elite has never been a crowning jewel of graphical achievement, though this year’s Italian countryside setting offers some beautiful mountain vistas.
From the seaside towns to the belfryies tucked away on the mountainsides, I love the feeling and appearance of the setting.
Rebellion Developments have been making the Sniper Elite games for 12 years now. They know what the players want and have not strayed far from that vision. Sniper Elite continues the series’ successful run as a better game than Sniper Elite 3, though I am not ready to say it overtakes Sniper Elite V2 as the best game of the series.
If you’re a veteran of the series, then this game will feel right at home for you. If you’ve never played as Nazi killing machine, and multiple-time Hitler assassin Karl Fairburne, then Sniper Elite 4 is a great place to jump in.
Sniper Elite 4, released Feb. 14, is a third-person tactical stealth shooter.
