Sniper Elite: Resistance (PlayStation 5) Review

Sniper Elite: Resistance's story, as is usual for the series, revolves around the Nazis finding or developing a new weapon set to win the war. The main character is a British sniper this time, who goes by Harker, and he aids a variety of realistic (but not real real) war missions, starting by assisting a dam bombing mission by taking out anti-air weaponry. This was a very real tactic used by the British to damage the German war machine (though this probably had high collateral). It's cool to see this reference to real war technologies and tactics, with them offering quite an interesting backdrop to each sniper challenge.

Harker joins up with the French resistance (hence the title), proceeding to help them with their plans and retaliations. The resistance members are the supporting cast that joins Harker in the multiplayer elements of the campaign. The story doesn't do much to break from the expected, but it is a good fun framing mechanism that feels a little more interesting than the previous game's writing.

The gameplay hasn't seen a lot of change in terms of the base Sniper Elite experience. This is yet another solid stealth action game. The famous x-ray camera feature is here as expected, and with just as gruesome results. Each mission in the campaign is initially played in order in either single or multiplayer. Most have a main and some optional objectives to complete and do their best to make players pass through enemy patrols or traverse a decent chunk of the map. These maps are also huge and reasonably complex, so passing through can sometimes be quite an invigorating stealth challenge.

On harder difficulties, the challenge curves over from fair to slightly crazy, but on easy it can feel like the enemies are blind, so there is a breadth of different options for players who wish to tailor their experience. Sniping has gone pretty much unchanged since Sniper Elite 2, but it's tighter than ever in this title. Aiming through the scope, holding Harker's breath, adjusting for the bullet drop and then nailing the enemy though the testicles has never felt slicker and more polished.

Levels have never been so sprawling as in Resistance. Each map is multi-layered, covered in enemy paths that overlap, and they all feature a multitude of options; explodable objects, mechanical items that generate sniper fire covering sound, and environmental objects such as cranes for dropping things on the enemy. It's impressively dense. Some maps even require tools to open routes for infiltration or exfiltration in a neat almost Hitman-esque system.

Issues start to arise, however, when considering the visual makeup of the title. Outdoor scenes tend to look great, if a little last generation, and characters sport a stylised semi-realistic look that is reasonably attractive. Where it slips is in the interiors. These spaces are nicely decorated and littered with detailed items, but it all has a thick darkness about it as a result of some overzealous ambient occlusion. This is applied so thickly that some smaller rooms appear very dark to the point of obscuring game information, something that's a little frustrating in some of the more claustrophobic encounters.

The user interface design is as clear as ever, pretty much just wholesale continuing the last game's schtick. This familiarity does help Sniper Elite: Resistance feel a bit more approachable for returning fans, and any new elements slip in almost undetected. Rebellion is constantly proving that it's a fantastic developer that can iterate without losing the original intention of the series.

Audio is a huge factor in Sniper Elite, and aside from what feels like extremely hammed-up accents of the characters, the cast does a great job selling the story in that typical "so serious it's kind of funny" way. Musically, Resistance isn't too interesting, but it has some great references here and there, with Ride of the Valkyries harking back to the Dambusters part of the story. Most of the game happens in relative silence, however, which in turn emphasises the environmental sound work. Each area has ambient sounds, and the player will hear soldiers, vehicles, rivers, animals and rustling trees, all of which sound great. This is then punctuated with music when spotted by the enemy, giving the combat a bit of adrenaline.