Sniper Elite 5 review: Your senator’s going to freak out

digitaltrends.com:

Sniper Elite 5 is going to be prominently featured in every pearl-clutching “games are too violent” video reel for the next decade. Its nauseating violence is sure to catch your senator’s terrified eye, but it’s not actually what makes the shooter stand out (no matter how hysteria-inducing it is).

The latest entry in Rebellion Developments’ long-running stealth-action series is more notable for a less headline-worthy reason: Good, old-fashioned design. Building off of the increased scope of its predecessor, the fifth installment is a full-blown immersive sim set during World War II. Every Nazi target is an opportunity for players to flex their creative muscles (and their trigger fingers) in a series of free-range murder sandboxes.

Sniper Elite 5’s limited toolset and generic set-dressing don’t quite elevate it to Hitman levels of creativity, but its open-ended approach to stealth action makes for a devilishly satisfying war game. Just make sure your stomach is prepared for violence so grisly that it could put the fear of God in a white supremacist.

Sniper Elite 5 follows Karl Fairburne, a highly skilled sniper with zero tolerance for Nazis. Set around D-Day, Fairburne joins a U.S. military operation to dismantle a Nazi plot code-named “Operation Kraken,” which threatens to turn the tide of WWII. Throughout nine missions, Fairburne must assassinate key targets and sneak into secret facilities to sabotage crucial weaponry.

The story itself is boilerplate, dropping in vague political intrigue to set up missions. Fairburne, with his gruff voice and cardboard personality, is about as dull a video game hero as they come. WWII has been done to death in video games, and Sniper Elite 5 doesn’t have much else to say about it