Playing Sniper Elite: Resistance brings a familiar feel to long-time players of the franchise. A game that runs parallel to the events of Sniper Elite 5, Resistance once again puts you in France with the goal of disrupting Nazi plans that could change the course of World War II.
I recently spent over an hour playing Sniper Elite: Resistance where I got to go through the game’s third mission, and experience just a taste of what developer Rebellion has in store for players.
Now, I’m not going to lie to you. If you’ve played Sniper Elite 4 or 5, you’ve played Sniper Elite: Resistance. The game uses the same engine with gameplay that’s nearly identical to its 2022 predecessor. Rather than play as Karl Fairburne, however, you’re controlling Harry Hawker, who sounds an awful lot like Jason Statham.
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With it being a connected title, the general environment and feeling is similar to what you get with Sniper Elite 5. And although I only played one region of the game, one thing that’s clear with Resistance is that the designers have done enough to make the environment stand on its own. Finding all of the unique ways to take cover and distract the enemies is what lets the Sniper Elite series pull you in as a player, and the level designers did a good job with what I saw.
You can still play at your own pace, something that goes a long way towards getting more players to enjoy the game. Whether I wanted to go in guns blazing or take it as slow as humanly possible, I’m able to do that. It just all depends on what’s happening around me and what I’m trying to accomplish. There are multiple ways to get to, and complete, an objective that you can replay the mission multiple times and it’ll feel fresh for a few playthroughs.
The kill cam that the Sniper Elite series is known for remains as satisfying as ever. Hitting that perfect shot that has you watch a bullet rip through the face of a Nazi is as gruesome as you’d expect. It’s also enjoyable watching the other soldiers scramble and panic after they see a comrade’s head get blown to pieces right next to them.
In the preview build, we couldn’t change the difficulty, meaning we were limited in how we could experience the game from that sense. Luckily, the AI wasn’t too unforgiving, though it did make you work.
It was nice that when the AI was searching for something (me) after hearing a noise, they wouldn’t play too dumb, so to speak. Plenty of games I’ve played would have the AI stand right on top of you and not notice a thing if you were in cover. In this, there were a couple of times where they would happen to walk right up on me only to spot my cover while I wasn’t moving, leading to me having to fight my way out or die trying.
That said, the AI weren’t savants all of the time. There were times where they would just stand a bit too still or in the same place so long to the point you couldn’t continue without adjusting in a way that didn’t feel natural to what you should or were trying to do.
They can even be too locked in their planned movement. One specific instance involves a Gestapo infantryman always having to sit on a bench, stand up, and then turn and look at the bench before walking around the building to just repeat the sequence. It feels a bit strange in those moments that are more than enough to break immersion.
There was also an instance where it was pretty clear my shot should have hit an enemy in the face only for him to get hit, get up, and just slowly walk away while another bullet just ricochets off his helmet while he continues to walk. Maybe the shot wasn’t as good as I thought it was at the time, but something just felt off with what I believe should’ve happened.
Nevertheless, what I played had me excited about the full story and just how else I’ll be able to take down the Nazi’s in France this time around. However, one thing I kept thinking about after my time with the game was whether there will be enough here with a full game to warrant a purchase by fans.
There’s a full campaign, the returning invasion mode, and new Propaganda Missions that Rebellion hopes keeps players engaged overall. But as I said at the beginning, if you’ve played either of the last two Sniper Elite titles, this will feel quite familiar, especially when the overall setting remains the same from the last game just with new locations. With Resistance coming less than three full years after Sniper Elite 5 – the gap between 4 and 5 was over five years – Rebellion runs the risk of franchise fatigue if the rest of the game’s story doesn’t hold up.
Sniper Elite: Resistance launches January 30 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
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