Sniper Elite 5 Review: Hitman But With Nazis

thegamer.com:

Sniper Elite 5 is the game I need right now. That’s become a cliche ever since the pandemic began, but I don’t need this game to help repair my mental health or temporarily fill bonds left empty by a continuous stream of lockdowns - I just want to kill Nazis.

There’s a simple, almost animal pleasure to murdering a fascist from hundreds of yards away, watching as the bumbling soldier is utterly unaware of the bullet about to tear through his throat. He’s down, and his patrolling cabal of friends will soon follow as I pick them off one by one before skulking in to pick off the remaining fools unlucky enough to still be alive.

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If you’ve played previous games in the series, Sniper Elite 5 is very familiar. You play as returning protagonist Karl Fairburne, a gravelly voiced sharpshooter who hates Nazis and loves justice. He isn’t much of a character, but more of a blank slate for us to inhabit as we explore levels and conjure up inventive new ways to complete objectives and bring down the fascist regime. The same goes for the narrative, which involves piecing together clues surrounding a Nazi superweapon and doing everything we can to stop it. None of it is very interesting, and instead acts as a framing device for sprawling virtual playgrounds with immense amounts of replay value for us to lose ourselves in.

Rebellion has taken clear inspiration from Hitman with this fifth entry. The campaign itself remains a linear shooter experience, but each level is massive. Your first playthrough has you starting from a standard position dictated by the narrative, but you will soon unlock alternate points of entry and intel that will lead to customisable loadouts,