Sniper Elite: Resistance Review

Sniping is, of course, where Sniper Elite excels. The opening mission provides plenty of opportunities to take out targets from a distance, running you through the ropes of mechanics in the process, but on the standard difficulty settings it won’t take you long to figure it out. Use the ‘empty lung’ mechanic by holding the corresponding button (R1 on PS5) to steady your breath and slow down time, adjusting the crosshair until it goes red to confirm a potential kill shot. Most players should take to it like a duck to water, but there are more realistic settings that can adjust it to suit your playstyle. Realistic, for example, turns just about every helpful visual setting off, including the HUD. Yikes, but hey, if you like to stress yourself out, go for it.

Despite the marketing campaign, you won’t always be pulling off trick shots from hundreds of meters away. Most of my time was spent poking around tight corners, waiting for the right moment to stab a few soldiers in the back and dumping them where they can’t be found. My previous experience with Hitman 3 taught me the ropes of using cover to your advantage and tagging everyone in sight to keep track of their movements— trust me when I say the binoculars are your friend. There’s no reason why you can’t go all guns blazing if you truly want to, but the satisfaction in pulling off heist after glorious heist from under Nazi noses cannot be understated.

Every mission differs just enough to make them entertaining, from a sleepy little town periodically interrupted by the sound of a bell tower, to a rain-drenched fort by the sea. Each area provides plenty of different paths to take to each objective, leaving it open to you to interpret what to do next. From a sniper’s perspective, you can use the environment to mask your shots (the rumble of a nearby storm, for example), otherwise you’ll be crawling through tall grass and around buildings by the cover of darkness to reach your target and creating your own distractions. On average it can take close to an hour to scope it out (pun intended) and complete every available objective, mostly involving the elimination of certain targets (human or otherwise), and the game sets you up in its sandbox in such a way that you can complete said missions in any way and any order.

I’m sure he will walk that off