Well where to start with this game lol, there is tons and tons to talk about and this review of mine might be really long and tedious as this is one of my favorite third/ first person shooters. I might as well start with the brief bit in the story, I do not want to spoil this game for anyone but I will talk about spoilers if no one has played the game before.
GAME
The game centers on the lone wolf of a sniper called Karl Fairburne who is discovering what Operation Kraken is, there are variety of levels to explore and you use your tactics or go out with a bang, the game is your choice meaning you choose how you approach each mission, depending on what you choose will determined how the rest of the level is played, their is a special mode where you can invade a random encounter campaign which is called “Invasions” you can turn this off when you first play the game or in the settings, I recommend turning this off or on invite only as it can ruin your gaming experience if you want to follow the story yourself in a calming matter.
STORY
Karl Fairburne is a lone wolf American/ British sniper who has allied with the resistance against germany nazis reign against Hilter forces in 1944, the story will focus around Karl’s adventures as a lone sniper on the battlefield, if you want to find out more then I highly recommend playing this game as it’s an hidden gem with many, many different routes to take.
Gameplay
The gameplay is like most third person shooters except that you now have the option to change your gun only when you aim to first person and guess what the game remembers what guns you have in first person and what guns is not in first person, the game has a variety of different weapons such as marksmanship rifles to SMG’s to Pistols that World War 2 would of came out with at the time, nothing in this game has modern weapons as why would it, the game suppose to be set and themed around what would of taken place in world war 2. You have a variety of attachments and side equipment but the one thing I have noticed is that trip mines have been removed, I just can’t seem to find it in the configuration loadout, either this was intentional or it has been cut content. Nonetheless this game is the typical sniper elite game I was hoping for, I don’t even know why everyone on steam is complaining about it.
Visuals
The visuals for this game is top notch, would love to see what this game is capable of on the Xbox One X but sadly I do not own an Xbox One X and have to play on the Xbox One S instead, nonetheless the graphics are amazing compared to the last gen game Sniper Elite 4 I say the graphics are pretty much the same with a tad more compression in this version, their are blur effects, nice shadows and ray tracing in certain aspects, the x-ray looks brutal and amazing but every enemy uses the same model, they could of mixed it up a bit but that would cost money and time to do and every big game has a deadline to make.
Look at Battlefield 2042, that game came out after being delayed for a long time and it still has ground breaking bugs and glitches, not saying Sniper Elite 5 is the same but I have seen some hefty reviews on the visuals via steam as I always check the reviews section before buying a game to review or just to play casually.
Anyways we’re getting off topic here back to Sniper Elite 5, the visuals are amazing that all I have to say on that.
Sound and Audio
The Sound and audio is like Sniper Elite 4, I can barely notice any game audio as I’m either raging from dieing alot or I’m concerating on completing the game, their are times that I do hear the musical aspect of the game and some of it is amazing to listen to but I tend it to be annoying if you are listening for footsteps or incoming nazis soilders, so I normally turn it off or put it on low.
Now the bullet time audio is nice on the ears but it can be annoying from time to time as you can either speed it up or slow it down for the psychopaths out there who love watching death to happen.
Overall
Overall this game is amazing, I have been taking my time on Sniper Elite (Hard) mode as I know how these games operate as I been playing Sniper Elite 4 for more than 1000 hours, I also have Sniper Elite 3 and would love to play the 2nd and original but sadly I do not own these games, maybe one day I can review and compare it with all of them.
The first level of this game was brutal, enough to get me to uninstall the game due to how hard it is but then I remembered I made it hard on purpose so I had to man up and complete it on this difficulty, now I can change this anytime but why thou, I like the challenge, the sense of accomplishment is fulfilling to me when I know I spent hours and hours on a level or game to either improve my knowledge of the game or skill in other third person shooters.
There are times that I want to uninstall the game due to visual bugs or game breaking bugs but thank god for auto saves as you can either redo the segment you’re stuck on to further progress into the story or find new routes to surprise yourself on what you can or can not do in the game.
I do think there should be an option to invade a friend only campaign and scare the living shit out of them but invading everyone’s campaign might not be a good idea as it can lead to toxic feedback from the community as their has been a lot of mixed reviews on steam about this feature, like tomographic has said “Invasions should be an multiplayer gamemode only as this will only make the community turn off invasions in the future of all sniper elite games”
If you don’t know who tomographic is, then he is a content creator who specializes in shooter games or anything that piques his interest.
Anyways the story is mixed for me right now as it can be confusing at times if you have not played any previous sniper elite games, there are times I did not know Karl was originally from germany or was allied with them for a short time, I do not know the full story as I am on mission 6 and enjoying every bit of the game, I want to explore new routes and continue my mastery of the game.
I do recommend anyone who is new or old to the game, the game is still new and it costs a fortune on xbox one, steam and any other platform but it’s worth it, if you don’t have the cash, you can either wait for a sale or something it is all up to your choice. (pun intended)