Sniper Elite 5 Review (PS5)
Meaningful stealth combat in France, 1944
As an on-again, off-again history guy, I like occasionally dipping my toes into the waters of historical-fiction-based video games. The Sniper Elite series has always been about sniping Nazis, stealthily invading territories to gain valuable intelligence for the Allied Forces, and seeing slow-mo X-Ray shots of your rifle rounds penetrating Nazi skulls (or even taking out their testicles) bullet by bullet.
In the latest iteration, you play as Special Operations Executive Karl Fairburne, sneaking your way through Nazi-occupied France to both kill notable Nazi leaders/generals and figure out their next moves.
Gameplay
A few cutscenes are explaining the story here and there, but that wasn’t what I was focused on at all. I was much more interested in the process of sneaking my way around encampments, timing my shots with noise blankets (either through planes passing overhead or sabotaged generators or car engines masking the sound of my bullets), and seeing that sweet, sweet X-Ray shot of the bullet piercing through vital organs.
You don’t necessarily come to Sniper Elite 5 for the story; you come for the satisfaction of dispatching enemies one by one across missions that take a couple of hours. Stealth is rewarded and almost necessary, because, just like in a real warzone, if you’re detected in enemy territory, you will get riddled with bullets quickly and die just as fast.
In the nine or ten hours of gameplay I got under my belt before writing this review, most missions would take me between two and three hours to complete. This isn’t a game you can speedrun in the traditional sense.
Everything must be methodical.
To complete a mission, you have to rely on stealth, hide bodies, make sure Nazi soldiers are looking the other way, time your shots carefully, and keep an eye on your player’s heart rate. If your heart rate isn’t low enough, it will affect how accurately you can place your shots while sniping.
With all of that in mind, it doesn’t mean the game can’t be forgiving. I played on Medium difficulty, the default difficulty setting.
By the time I finished the third mission, I had eliminated 135 Nazis in the mission itself over almost three hours. I had narrowly escaped death three or four times by getting detected and initiating unintentional firefights with soldiers, and with the magic of slapping medical bandages on top of my gunshot wounds, I was back in the fray in no time flat.
Final thoughts
If you’re a fan of WW2-themed video games, sniping Nazis, and extended stealth missions, I recommend Sniper Elite 5. When I picked it up from GameStop, I got it on clearance for half off and ended up paying $25 for it before tax.
Was it worth it? I’d say so. It’s a great way to kill time if you’re into these types of games.
While Sniper Elite 5 isn’t the greatest game I’ve ever played, it’s really good at what it does.
