Sniper Elite: Resistance Preview
You’d think that, 80 years later, World War 2 would have been, no pun intended, played out as a setting for videogames. Then again, there aren’t many living survivors of the Great War. Most people experience the conflict through handed down family stories, movies and games, including the Sniper Elite franchise. I recently had the chance to spend a bit of quality hands-on time with Sniper Elite: Resistance, Rebellion’s upcoming entry in the series.
Stealthy Operations
Sniper Elite: Resistancee is a stand-alone game that runs parallel to 2022’s Sniper Elite 5. You play as Harry Hawker, a member of the Special Operations Executive. Operating deep in occupied France, the mission of the SOE included espionage and recruiting members for the Nazi resistance. The game’s larger narrative is about the discovery of a new Wunderwaffe, which was Germany’s generic name for a series of super weapons under development. (Note to self: Wunderwaffe is a great name for a pet)
Sniper Elite: Resistancee is a third person extraction shooter/stealth game. Grounded more or less in the real world of WW2, the player has a large toolkit of upgradeable ranged weapons, throwables, melee weapons and gadgets. One of the hallmarks of the series is creativity. There is a series of objectives, but no straight line to completing them. The situations are extremely dynamic and players have to adapt. The enemies are persistent and smart.
Mission Fail
In the mission I played, Harry was tasked with gathering intel at a hotel and then making his way to the train station. Simple enough, right? Yes, except for the guards on their patrol routes, the enemy checkpoints, the constantly moving spotlights and vehicles filled with soldiers.
Harry starts the mission in a city park with an elevated view of the surroundings. Taking the ill-advised aggressive approach, I sniped the nearest guard from distance. While my headshot activated the X-ray kill cam, it also alerted a swarm of officers and soldiers. It was the first of my many deaths and failed missions.
Eventually, I used a combination of tall grass as cover and silent guard takedowns to reach the city streets within spitting distance of the hotel. Each time, I eventually was spotted and perused, rather relentlessly. Mostly due to my limited time and ineptitude, I didn’t complete the objectives. But I was also distracted by simply trying different approaches, using whatever equipment I could find and making the environment work to my advantage.
Creativity in Action
Being played remotely over Parsec, I was unable to mess with things like difficulty or graphical settings. Visually, character models and textures were attractive if not especially detailed. There was a bit of audio lag which I attribute to the remote play situation. In Sniper Elite: Resistance, sound is extremely important. Enemies often hear you before they see you. In most situations, shooting an enemy is almost always the last resort because the sound reveals your presence and position.
While the gory thrill of the X-ray fatality kill cam has sort of come and gone for me, Sniper Elite’s combination of stealth and dynamic strategy remains very engaging. Sniper Elite: Resistance includes a few new mechanics, like posters for the Resistance that trigger the game’s side missions which I didn’t have the chance to explore. I’ve played and enjoyed the other games, and I look forward to seeing what the rest of Sniper Elite: Resistance has to offer.
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