Sniper Elite: Resistance Review

Sniper Elite: Resistance

Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Rebellion
Platforms: Xbox OnePlayStation 4PlayStation 5PC (Reviewed)
Release Date: 30 Jan 2025
Price: – $49.99 USD – Available Here $99.95 AUD – Available Here

Overview

If you had noticed my previous reviews, you would have seen that I’m a big sniping fan. I’m not talking just about the Sniper Elite series, but pretty much every game where the sniper weapon/class is available. My favorite character in Borderlands 2 was ZEr0 because his stealth-focused skills went great with sniping weapons and just recently I did another fresh playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 where I almost exclusively focused on sniper rifles.

And this goes without saying, but I played through every Sniper Elite game so far, squeezing out the maximum out of its replay value by replaying missions, and hunting for collectibles and weapons. The latest entry in the series is Sniper Elite: Resistance, a story that runs parallel with the events in Sniper Elite 5, where you play here as Harry Hawker, an agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) group. I assume we will now have new weapons, new challenges, and new ways to snipe enemies in the store for us, so let’s see how right (or wrong) I am.

Sniper Elite: Resistance Gameplay

Story

Another game, another new super weapon. The Germans have something that’s called Wunderwaffe, which translates to……super weapon. We don’t know what is it yet and what it does, but that’s the job of our Harry anyway. You’ll be working closely with the French Resistance and travel across 9 diverse missions throughout France trying to rack up as many kill cams and headshots as possible. The game difficulty can be entirely customized to your liking, but if it ever gets rough you also have the option to play the entire campaign in co-op with your sniping buddy.

Gameplay

If you played any previous Sniper Elite games so far, you know what to expect. Innovative ways to take down your enemies, coupled with a bunch of optional objectives, and a plethora of collectibles in the form of secret documents, intel, and upgrade workbenches. The first thing you’ll notice is that Sniper Elite: Resistance isn’t much of a departure from previous games. New missions, different weapons……and that’s pretty much it. In fact, it would be better to call this an expansion pack to Sniper Elite 5 than to consider it its own game. One novelty in the game is the propaganda missions. You see, every level has a hidden resistance poster. Finding one will unlock a stealth/sniping/combat propaganda mission that’s separate from the main campaign. Finding and completing them all will award you with an iconic sniper rifle (that the veterans of the Sniper Elite series are pretty familiar with).

Every mission will have a few main objectives, and usually one optional. That optional objective is often shown on the map from the start and sometimes you’ll have to get close to a specific location or eavesdrop on enemy conversations to trigger its appearance. On top of that, every mission has a kill list – another optional mission where you need to assassinate a certain someone but doing it in a really specific way (kill them with a certain weapon, poison them, blow them up, etc) will reward you with a new weapon. It’s worth it! The x-ray kill cam is back, as well as special ammo, weapon tuning, and pretty much everything from the previous entry. The levels are pretty straightforward. Do the main objectives and exfiltrate. If you wanna do the optional ones or complete the kill list, that’s entirely up to you. You can also turn on the Axis invasion option to allow other players to invade your game and try to mess with your plans. Taking them down will bet you some bonus experience and you can also invade other people’s games to keep them on the edge.

But let’s talk about the things that bug me, and I’m not talking just about the game bugs. I did often get stuck near walls and buildings and only reverting to a previous manual save could help me. Enemy AI is beyond broken and their awareness of you is inconsistent, to put it mildly. They will get suspicious when you snipe someone nearby even when using subsonic ammo but often I was able to mow down entire platoons while the soldiers in the building nearby would just patrol casually while playing deaf. If you kill someone on the road where the trucks are patrolling, they will see the body, exit the vehicle, snoop around, and continue with their patrols like nothing happened.

Visuals

Not much to talk about here. I found it disappointing that one level in the campaign has to be played twice. If we consider that out of nine missions in the campaign, there are only eight (the last mission is simply “kill the main bad guy” and that’s it, it can be completed in less than 30 seconds), then repeating one level feels pretty cheap. The visuals are nothing extraordinary although I must admit that might missions look way better than daytime ones and there is a certain allure to seeing the same X-ray kill shots over and over again, it simply never gets old.

Notable mention goes to rich explosion effects. Even though I risk everyone on the level figuring out my location, it is always fine to blow up trucks with anti-tank mines or dismember enemies by sniping the conveniently placed red barrels nearby. Some levels such as Devil’s Cauldron or Assault on Fort Rouge are surprisingly complex in terms of level design while the rest of them just feel like the lowest effort of copy-paste when it comes to buildings and enemy placements.

Audio

The audio design is still as good as ever and still one of the game mechanics, in a way. You can still time your sniper shots by syncing them with level noise (planes flying overhead, sabotaging a generator to sound mask your shots) so you don’t get discovered easily. Every weapon has a distinct sound but I have to admit that the voice acting of Harry Hawker didn’t sit right with me. He often sounds disinterested and like he is reading his lines from a teleprompter. I also have these weird audio bugs where intense music will suddenly kick in while I’m sneaking around and sometimes I could play half a level without hearing any background music at all.

Overall

In short: it’s not bad, although could be better. Sniper Elite: Resistance leaves a lot to be desired and the game would have a far better reception if it was released as an expansion pack for Sniper Elite 5. For veterans of the game, it is a welcome addition to the series, but for everyone else, you would be better off playing any of the previous games. At least you’ll get more content and level variety. Let’s hope Rebellion does much better with the next entry in the franchise and this game serves them as a good learning experience.

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REVIEW OVERVIEW

Average
6.5
While Sniper Elite: Resistance offer the same gameplay hook that we're all accustomed to, it also comes with a bonus of derivative level design and barebones campaign.
Admir Brkic
Admir Brkic
I play video games from time to time and sometimes they manage to elicit a reaction from me that I can't help but to write about them.
While Sniper Elite: Resistance offer the same gameplay hook that we're all accustomed to, it also comes with a bonus of derivative level design and barebones campaign.Sniper Elite: Resistance Review