Sniper Elite 5 Review: Hit And Miss

Reviewed on PC 

When I started Sniper Elite 5, I didn't know what to expect. It was my first ever Sniper Elite game and honestly, I've had my fill of WW2 shooters for years. But the game was quite surprising in a lot of aspects - some good, others bad. 

In the game, you play as Karl Fairburne - a super-generic "stone cold badass" with the personality depth of a single piece of paper. He really has nothing too memorable about him as far as I'm concerned. Heck, even his looks are overly generic. As the player, you basically know as much about him as the Nazis whose heads he puts some lead in.

But you don't really play a game like Sniper Elite 5 looking for a memorable character, do you? You're here for the gore. The x-ray killcams which track the bullet's trajectory through the squishy parts of your enemies. You're here to see them crumble into lifeless husks from a shot you took over 300 meters away. And that's where this game shines - albeit like the scope glare of an enemy sniper in broad daylight. That is, not too bright at all.

Know Your Enemy 

I always found that too many stories telling of "secret programs" by the Nazis involve the overly fantastical - sometimes even supernatural. I'm glad that Sniper Elite 5's plot, despite being extremely generic and overdone, went the more realistic route when describing the secret project known as Operation Kraken. Without going too much into spoiler territory, Operation Kraken could happen in real life. That's the clue. 

Other than that tidbit about the story, there's really not much here in the way of the plot. Fairburne himself, as previously mentioned, is generic and boring. So are the cast of Resistance fighters which served filler roles. None of them were ever memorable even if they tried. And to cap things off, the Nazi villain was quite cartoonish and stereotypical. Yawn. 

Aiming Down The Sights 

Sniper Elite 5 can look like an amazing game if it wants to. Developer Rebellion's use of photogrammetry technology (using real-life photographs to build assets like textures) shines on natural surfaces like rocks. Couple that with great-looking water effects from the rain and oceans, and the game can look downright astounding. 

I played on mostly custom graphics settings with only Draw Distance and Textures on Ultra. Everything else was left on high. I was expecting the game to offer a considerable graphical jump going from Medium to Ultra, but I didn't get any. That's where the game just starts looking last-gen to me. Aside from the textures created with photogrammetry, Sniper Elite 5's overall look seemed like it could've run on a PS3 and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. 

The last-gen look continues with characters' facial animations - which look especially rough in cutscenes. Maybe this would be changed in a new patch, but I found it very immersion-breaking as a Day One player. I was just expecting far more from a cross-gen game such as this. 

Hardware Tinkering 

Despite the engine looking a little rough around the edges, its performance was anything but. 

Throughout my 10 to 14-hour or so playthrough of the game, I never experienced a major frame rate hit. Not once, not ever. The game ran as smooth as possible at native 1080p, which is something I could never, ever get with any other big-budget game. I wish all games ran as buttery smooth as this one. 

Furthermore. You could also get a nice frame rate boost by turning on AMD FSR (it's 1.0 here, but it's better than nothing). The only problem I had with Sniper Elite 5's FSR implementation is the insane shimmering and blurring of the image that I got, even if FSR was set to Quality mode. That should never be the case with any upscaling algorithm. 

Speaking of upscalers, there's no option for NVIDIA DLSS anywhere. Rebellion, please make it a point to add Team Green's upscaler soon. There were no hints that this game was an AMD-sponsored title, so that felt weird to me. I might've never had to deal with the terrible anti-aliasing implementation (so much shimmering, goodness gracious) if I had DLSS on my side. But maybe that's just due to me playing on a 1080p screen, and not 1440p or 4K. To fix the shimmering, I had to turn down the AA setting to low.

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On The Hunt 

Sniper Elite 5 handles like a very flammable sludge. If you tread carefully, you'll get the full measure of what the game wants to achieve. If not, everything goes to hell. 

As I played, I keep on thinking how enjoyable a game of cat and mouse can be. You spend most of your time trying to sneak around, killing or pacifying guards, getting rid of alarms, and of course, sniping people from an insane distance. At times, the stealth mechanics do work. Most of the time, they're clunky at best. 

You'll spend most of the time crouch walking as Fairburne, because jogging creates noise that enemies can hear - as expected. This could mean that you'll also spend so much time on one mission. But that's the thing. A covert operative like Fairburne is supposed to be patient, cold, and calculated. And once you've managed to accomplish the mission without ever being detected, it makes things all the more satisfying. 

But say that you get spotted (and I did, many times), and that's when things just completely unravel. It's like Sniper Elite 5 was made for one gameplay style only: stealth. Once the proverbial s*** hits the fan, though, going all guns blazing isn't recommended. Enemy spawns seem to be quite random and they take a while before running out, meaning you could be in a loud firefight for several minutes before things finally start to slow down. 

Aside from that, the complete lack of a snap to cover mechanic just made sneaking around or taking cover from enemy fire far, far more difficult than it has any right to be. Now, keep doing the same stuff for a total of nine story missions (plus a bonus 10th via DLC) and things can get very repetitive. I often found myself just finishing one mission at a time and going at it again after a couple of hours before it just felt stale. 

To cap things off, the game's skill trees (or circles, rather) didn't offer much beyond some critical upgrades. I often found myself barely spending skill points I earn, because I don't think they'll ever be useful. The only good one I found is the self-revive ability, which can be a lifesaver when Fairburne is cornered in the heat of a one-versus-everyone gunfight. 

Taking The Killshot 

Sniper Elite 5 is good, but not that great. The gameplay loop can feel repetitive since you just do the same in every mission: sneak around, kill this dude, disable an alarm, snipe - that's it. It's an unbalanced experience at best, and not something too groundbreaking even if you look at it on a deeper level. 

SCORE: 6 OUT OF 10

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Story posted on GameNGuide 

Written by RJ Pierce