For once, Karl Fairburne has given up the spotlight for the Sniper Elite series, passing the baton over to his long-time shadow and understudy, Harry Hawker. You might be wondering who on Earth this Harry fellow is, especially if I told you that he’d actually featured in Sniper Elite 3, 4 and 5. Didn’t spot him there? Well, you might have been playing solo, as Harry has been the co-op player’s silent avatar for all those games. Now he’s found his voice though – which happens to be a talking bucket of gravel – and has gone behind enemy lines to fight alongside the French Resistance in Nazi Occupied France.
There’s yet another German Wunderwaffe in development, and Harry has to team up with the French Resistance to sniff out the clues that lead to the weapon and destroy it. Our hands on with the game took us to the walled city of St. Raymond, the HQ of German military intelligence, and where the Resistance informant known as ‘Vertigo’ has seemingly gone into hiding after Gestapo flood the city. Throw in a few bonus objectives, like taking down targets on a kill list, and there’s a good bit to do while you’re in town.
What’s immediately clear is that Sniper Elite: Resistance is sticking to and subtly evolving the formula that’s been so successful through Sniper Elite 4 and 5. This is a large open sandbox that’s crawling with enemies on patrol cars and bike travelling back and forth, and snipers watching from the rooftops.
You have to sneak your way through this vipers’ nest, avoiding the attention of patrolling guards, timing your takedowns, and gradually working your way through to objective points on the map. In this case, it was investigating the dead drop site in the city’s cathedral, trying to get into Vertigo’s flat to search for clues the Gestapo might have missed, and hopefully manage to find their hiding spot to help them get out. It’s a pleasingly dense level with plenty of buildings to duck into, a secret tunnel network that cuts between the cellars of several locations, and plenty of vantage points to camp out on.
Most players will certainly try to be as quiet as possible, relying on takedowns of isolated soldiers, and falling back on the trusty Welrod, before using the noise cover of tampered-with engines or the church bells to get off some choice sniper shots without being located.
But it’s oh so tempting sometimes to just go loud and try to blast your way through. That can be firing down from a vantage point, having placed traps behind to cover your back, or frantic squirts of SMG fire and timing the active reloads as enemies congregate on your location, and you then try to evade and get somewhere to hide until things calm the heck down. Enemy awareness is clearly marked on the minimap in the standard difficulty, and you’ve got a lot of flexibility to mark and track soldiers and Gestapo that you spot ambling around.
The sniping mechanics are still on point, with varying effects to factor in, depending on the difficulty level you’ve set. You can set a scope to different ranges, to help with targeting at long distance, and there’s always the crutch of the held breath focus mode to slow time and display the bullet drop for you. It’s as satisfying as ever to hit a target from halfway across the map, triggering the series’ iconic X-ray kill cam in the process. This is as broad as it’s ever been, now with the ability for bullets to deflect off bones, and the kill cam able to be triggered with SMG and pistol shots.
There’s plenty of other features that we didn’t really manage to explore during our time with the game, such as the returning rifle customisation – you can find workbenches around the map if you want a mid-mission switch up – and there will be the returning Axis Invasion mode, which lets another player step into the role of an Axis sniper to try and hunt you down through the mission. You’ll also be able to play the full campaign in co-op, and I really hope Rebellion is using Karl’s character model to be the buddy backup.
There’s also further adventures to find with propaganda posters that will trigger new scenarios, putting you in the shoes of French Resistance fighters in a time-sensitive objective.
Sniper Elite has become a bit like stealth action comfort food over the past decade, having really settled into the sandbox levels and mission structure in the last few games. Sniper Elite: Resistance isn’t looking to revolutionise the series, but give a new campaign, a few new twists and tweaks to the formula, and just let you settle in with a nice glass of red – to go with all the red you spill in-game.