I often think about the era when Grand Theft Auto games were coming out almost every year rather than once a decade or so. In those off years, there were a lot of games that tried to fill the void for players wanting an open-world crime-drama game: True Crime, Saints Row, Mafia, Scarface, Crackdown–the list goes on. Presumably, no one making these games thought they would dethrone Rockstar. Still, they understood they could capitalize on the genre’s popularity by giving players a new lookalike while Rockstar was busy cooking up the next GTA. Since 2017’s Sniper Elite 4, I’ve viewed the Sniper Elite series as something similar, only in this case, the series it’s filling in for is Hitman. Rebellion’s Sniper Elite: Resistance won’t outdo IO Interactive’s incredible Hitman series, and it doesn’t even seem to do much differently compared to the last few games in its own series, but if you’ve enjoyed this sort of game before and are eager for another one, Sniper Elite: Resistance looks to be a reliable proxy.
I recently played about 90 minutes of the game’s third mission before its debut in January on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox Series X|S, when it will also be a day-one Game Pass launch. Even as I strained to find much in the way of new experiences, I had a fun time. That suggests that this sixth game in the series, and the first since 2022, is roughly as enjoyable as the last couple of entries–at least from what I’ve seen so far.
Like Hitman, levels are huge and open-ended regarding where you can go and how you can complete your objectives when you get there. In recent sequels, Rebellion has built in more creative kills reminiscent of Agent 47’s handiwork, such as hiding a grenade in wrapping paper for a target to unwrap, or killing Hitler with a bowling pin. Each mission includes a main objective and several optional objectives of a few different kinds. There are intel collectibles you can gather, ally hideouts to locate, things like enemy weapons depots to blow up, and usually a high-value target to snuff out, too.
The sandbox-style fun of it all is deciding how you do that, whether it’s by sneaking past everyone and exfiltrating before anyone knew you were there, or going loud and aiming for the groins of every Nazi who comes into view of your scope. Some players will prefer to mainline the campaign, but I’ve long found Sniper Elite to be one of the better series at enticing me to clear each map of all its different mission markers, and as a stealth experience especially, I’ve always enjoyed the challenges they put in front of me.
Even with just 90 minutes to play the preview build of the game, I couldn’t help but investigate every optional objective I came across. Once, when I was nearing the end of a main objective, I’d suddenly realized what I’d overlooked when seeking a secret ally hideout about an hour earlier in the level, so I ditched the elaborate Nazi mansion I was sneaking through, trekked all the way back to an earlier section past the dead fascists I’d left in my wake, to climb the side of a building using the drain pipe and some ledges so I could finally check that side quest off my list. Sniper Elite gives you a vast playground to explore, offers many viable routes through it, and doesn’t punish you for handling it all in the order and manner of your choosing. In a world without Agent 47 for the foreseeable future, I’ll gladly accept this Historical Hitman in his absence.
I’ve played all of these games, and though the next one to really blow me away would also be the first one, none have been bad. The studio seems to think better of its signature X-ray bullet cam than I do–in Sniper Elite 5, I eventually turned it off so it wouldn’t keep slowing down my missions–but I’m still otherwise very much into the format of these games. Both level to level and game to game, they become a kind of even-keeled comfort-food experience.
Like cooking your favorite meal for the fourth time in a week, you know what you’re getting with Sniper Elite. It may not dazzle you with new flavors that have never graced your tongue, but it’s a reliable go-to when you don’t know what to make for dinner that night. I don’t mean to damn the game with faint praise; I sincerely enjoy these games and gladly try a new one every few years at their current pace.
That’s not to say this sequel is totally void of new experiences. The broad strokes are certainly very familiar, but one aspect Rebellion is adding–which I didn’t get to see in my time with the game so far–are Propaganda missions, which cast players as “resistance fighters,” giving the game’s massive levels more replayability in the form of new objectives on subsequent playthroughs.
This will also be the first game in the series to cast a hero other than Karl Fairburne, the square-jawed alpha American, as the playable protagonist. Instead, it turns to Harry Hawker, a British soldier who has been in past games, but usually as the backup character for those playing the campaign in co-op. That will give this chapter in the story a different voice, but the lack of a number in this game’s title and the fact that Hawker’s story takes place at the same time as Fairburne’s in Sniper Elite 5 also suggest this is overtly a continuation of what worked well before. Rebellion is keeping things in France for now rather than moving the series to a new country like sequels in this series have tended to. If Sniper Elite is the comfort food series, Resistance is like enjoying a second plate of what you scarfed down earlier. If you’re still hungry, eat up.
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