The Sniper Elite games are in a special echelon of stealth gaming. Where its uniqueness is what’s allowed it to survive for 20 years,from its deep sniping mechanics to its bullet and x-ray camera. Sniper Elite: Resistance is the sixth game in the modern run of the series, and it doesn’t miss a beat. The new Propaganda mode is a great challenge mode that will ensure most players strive for perfection. However, the returning invasion mode is what will keep players coming back for more as they insert themselves into someone’s campaign to stop them. Rebellion doesn’t shake anything up with this title, but they’ve hit an incredible stride for this series. Sniper Elite: Resistance is the most polished, dense, and feature-rich entry to-date, and no matter how you play, will have you holding your breath.
Running in parallel with the story of Sniper Elite 5, you’ll find yourself behind the scope as Harry Hawker. He sounds a bit like Jason Statham, which is a slight distraction when he speaks up in the game or cutscenes. Harry’s an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), like the prior games protagonist Karl Fairburne. While he’s missed here, there’s nothing Harry can’t do that Karl can, and vice versa. They’re practically equal, and that’s absolutely the right way to handle a new playable character. D-Day is weeks away, and the Germans have a new super-weapon they’re about to deploy, and that must be stopped at all costs. We’re once again in France, but the locations are all-new and always gorgeous. The course of the game occurs across eight missions, expect to take at least ten hours here if you’re a stealth-minded player.
While stealth not required, it is encouraged for the least amount of resistance. I find this to be the most fun way to play, as there’s a desire to be perfect. At the start, most of your weapons will be unsuppressed, making it hard to shoot without having half the map come for you. You can mask your shots by breaking nearby equipment, or firing when planes are flying overhead to give you an edge. While you can’t close or open doors, be seen through glass, you can stash bodies in designated containers to help conceal your presence. Shooting out lights can draw attention, but it visually hides bodies or your own movement. Tools were introduced in the last game, and using crowbars or bolt-cutters can save time and be quieter so that that nearby enemies don’t hear something for them to investigate. At the end of missions you’ll be given a rating out of three. The rating is related to the number of objectives completed, do the main, side and optional objectives, and you’ll get them all. There’s also a score assigned to you, along with a chart showing if you favored stealth, assault, lethal, or non-lethal. Considering you’re spending the game shooting Nazi’s, non-lethal is not a fun avenue to explore.
Combat whether in stealth or not is rather varied. When Harry’s up close, he can kill enemies with his hands or knife in one move so long as he’s not detected. In every mission Harry brings a pistol, an SMG, and the sniper rifle. It’s for sure a heavy loadout, but an essential one if things go off-the-rails at any point for him to adapt to . Most big targets you kill will need the perfect shot. The game guides you in sniping by default, but you’ll empty your lungs to reduce sway and on-screen indicators guide you to execute with precision. Now if this is too easy, you can crank up the difficulty which alters things like removing the guidance, wind playing a bigger role, and so on. When you’ve lined up everything correctly, you’ll get a camera view that follows the bullet to its target. As it approaches, time slows down and an x-ray view peels away the skin layer to reveal the internal damage that the bullet does to the body. You can speed it up, or slow it down to see it in all its glory. It’s never not fun to watch, and you can even turn up or down its frequency to your liking.
Outside of combat, doing some proper reconnaissance is essential. You can use the scope of your rifle to tag enemies, but these are temporary and will go away over time. If you use your binoculars instead, these will be permanent tags. The mini-map has a fog of war for all of the enemies, and when they are tagged, then it clears removing vagueness of enemy placement. It’s always fun to discover an enemy sniper and do some counter-sniping to take them off the battlefield. Harry can also lay traps like mines, decoys, and even throw bottles to distract. Harry can also interact with the environment to make kills seem like accidents, taking away any suspicion they would otherwise cause.
I felt like some of the missions in Sniper Elite 5 felt like a slog; here in Resistance they feel less complex and more fun. One mission sees you returning to the aftermath of what you caused in a prior mission. Now, reusing levels is often a faux pas, but in this case they do more with the level than what you saw the first time, making it feel like a new experience. And being able to cause new level of chaos in the same area is doubly funny. Another mission occurs at nightfall, which many of the missions are, but this one is during a thunderstorm where you can cover your shots as the thunder rolls. If you take the time to explore in levels, you’ll stumble across new objectives to help achieve those three stars. In addition, exploring will help you to permanently unlock new starting locations for when you inevitably replay a level, taking influences from Hitman in the right places.
Weapon unlocks are another big part of the game, as discovering workbenches has many benefits. As you rank up throughout the campaign, you’ll unlock new weapons. But discovering workbenches means you’ll unlock attachments like suppressors, triggers, hand-guards, and more that can make your weapons easier to handle, cause more damage, or most importantly, be quieter. Also, customizing your weapons adds a layer of personality to the game, as it can help you cater to how you want to play.
Your campaign rank throughout the story gives way to skill points. You can invest them into the ring-style progression anyone who’s played Sniper Elite 5 will be familiar with. These points can be spent to make it so you auto-loot targets when you achieve a ghost kill (undetected melee) saving time so you aren’t spending unnecessary time searching bodies after a kill, give you more starting health, or make it so you can use secondary weapons if you get downed. Don’t want to think about what to spend skill points on? There’s even an auto-spend button to do it all for you.
There are six modes to Sniper Elite: Resistance: Campaign (solo or co-op), the new Propaganda Challenge, Axis Invasion, Multiplayer, and Survival. Campaign is as it was described, and Survival mode is what you’d expect. The multiplayer has always been a great way to spend time. Players don’t just rush each other, there’s a uncomfortable silence as players move with purpose and find bushes or perfect places to snipe other players when they cross into their line of sight. You do have Free-For-All which is no teams deathmatch, Team Match that’s like team deathmatch, Squad Match for smaller groups of four teams in team death match. Lastly there’s No Cross, the ultimate sniping war as an impassable line separates two teams and the only way to win is to counter-snipe your way to victory. I think its this series’ defining mode, and they’re all fun to experience.
Propaganda mode is new to the series, and this has some legs., though it’s not as inventive as Invasion, but it’s a challenge mode focusing on either sniping, stealth, or combat. In order to even play these missions, you have to have found their associated poster in one of the campaign levels. So it does require not only familiarity with the campaign, it requires it so that you explore the levels to unlock the corresponding challenge. These levels are purposefully small, meant to be replayed to perfection.
Axis Invasion mode returns, and just like before, you can invade any player’s game that has it enabled. Extra experience is awarded for leaving your game open. When you get invaded, the game lets you know, and each side of the invasion has ways of detecting one another. If you are invaded and killed, you simply go back to your last save. Additionally, if you fend off the attacker, you gain experience and continue the mission without further interruption by anyone on the internet. You can choose to rematch, but both parties have to consent. This mode is largely unchanged (for a reason), but there are more unlocks and less linear progression, giving more reason to try it out from both sides.
Rebellion has done amazing work in these games. The game doesn’t have any specialized NVIDIA or AMD technology, so you won’t find any AI-assisted super sampling such as DLSS or Frame Generation. With almost no effort, I was able to get 153fps on average. Sniper Elite: Resistance just looks and runs great, and it’s hard to complain with what’s on offer here.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
Even without the storied protagonist we’ve been used to, this game soars to new heights thanks to the returning Invasion and new Propaganda modes. Sniper Elite: Resistance is uncomplicated but far from uninteresting, providing a complimentary side story and experience. Sniper Elite: Resistance is a Sniper Elite game through and through. Sniper Elite: Resistance hits its target with new and returning modes that make it another great stealth-action game with tons of replayability.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes