Sniper Elite: Resistance review – brilliantly bloody and bloody brilliant

I love killing stuff. Always have. It’s good for the soul, I reckon. It’s tough to fester rage and resentment when you’ve just slo-mo-shot a Nazi in the gonads (hey, there’s an achievement for it!), which is why I’ll shortly be petitioning the NHS to have Sniper Elite: Resistance available on prescription. It can’t pay off your credit card or make your nine-to-five any more palatable, no, but an hour of this a night has to be good for you. Like an apple a day. Or flossing. But, you know, violent.

Before I tell you why my time with Sniper Elite: Resistance was so thrilling – and it was – I’ll let you in on a little secret. For all the shooters I play – and I play a lot – I’m not much of a lone wolf. Sure, I’ll jump in for a couple of matches on my tod, maybe. Spend a little time in a PvE playlist for an hour or two, perhaps. Ultimately, though, for me, hunting is a group sport. I’m happiest in the throes of friendly fire and frantic comms and kill-steal accusations, celebrating or commiserating as part of a wider fire team (I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact my KDR sucks, and I spend more time waiting to be respawned than actively assisting my teammates. Honest).

The exception to this is Ubisoft’s well-worn open-world PvE blueprint. You know the one. Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed: the execution (pun not intended, but certainly applicable) is almost identical. Sneak up on an unsuspecting stronghold or camp and creep around in the undergrowth, assassinating any and all enemies should they wander too close. Although – unabashed coward that I am – I’ve always preferred scaling a nearby mountain, getting comfy, pulling out my trusty sniper rifle and pop-pop-popping until there’s not a soul left. All without setting foot in the place! Honestly, few things in this world make me happier.

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Unsurprisingly, then, I am having a ball with Sniper Elite Resistance. Much like one of my favourite series of all-time, Dishonored, there’s no single “correct” way to get through its World War 2-flavoured campaign, which means I can’t technically do anything wrong. Can things go off-script? Oh lordy, yes – just ask my BFF, Mission 3: Sonderzüge Sabotage, which I got to know in detail after three hours and a hell of a lot of save-scumming. But once you find your rhythm and start tweaking your loadout and tools to best suit how you play, Resistance’s thoughtful map design, dramatic score, and bombastic gunplay come together in an exquisite symphony that makes it a challenging, rewarding, and deeply satisfying romp despite the fact your leading man, Harry bleedin’-ell-up-the-apples-and-pairs-right-‘ere-guv’ner Hawker, has zero chill. If you remember him from prior Sniper Elite games, all I can say is I’m sorry. I can only hope he wasn’t as stupefyingly chatty then as he is now.

Sniper Elite: Resistance takes us to Vichy, France, and the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe in the midst of World War 2. The summer of 1944, to be exact. Hawker’s been drafted into… actually, I don’t know. For all his blathering, the story is bookended on each mission via a voice-over and a few cinematics in a way that makes it feel superfluous to the action. Suffice to say, Hawker’s working for the Allies, infiltrating Nazi strongholds to grab intel, assassinate targets, or destroy key infrastructure, depending upon what the Allies or the French Resistance need. Oh, and he murders Nazis, of course; there’s lots and lots of lovely Nazi murdering.

How you do it is up to you, too. I’ve seen people say that you can run and gun Sniper Elite games, but that is absolutely not my experience. It’s frighteningly easy to be overwhelmed if you’re rumbled, even on medium difficulty, and especially in later levels when every other tower has an eagle-eyed sniper that can seemingly spot you behind a solid wall from two towns over. You can, however, choose how you go about it; there are ways to deal with your enemy both lethally and non-lethally, and optional objectives are just that: optional. Personally, I had the best time seeking down those secondary missions; not only does it force you to explore the entirety of the map, but it helps bolster your confidence, too… not to mention your XP.

And the missions are great. From huge, hulking Nazi superstructures to quaint French chateaus, you explore them all. Missions two and three felt enormous to me, I’ll admit, but by the fourth – Collision Course – I was having a riot. For almost half an hour, I crouched right where I spawned in, so delicious was the vantage spot. Pushing the long-range capabilities of my rifle to its limit, I picked the bad guys off one by one without them ever knowing where I was… oh, what a treat! By the time I’d circled around on foot, almost everyone else was already dead.

Admittedly, it took a little while for me to find that rhythm, though. For starters, the game is confidently hands-off; yes, there’s a tutorial level, and yes, from time to time, the game will pop up with a helpful tip. But while I agree we’re all long past the need to be told how to fire a gun or what the white paint on that ledge means (le sigh), you’re never formally introduced to your decoys, for instance, or how your different mines work. It’s not a sackable offence, granted, but something to bear in mind, especially if you’re new to the series.

Eventually, though, it all falls into place, especially when you unlock workbenches and can really get down to the nuts and bolts…quite literally. From there, you’ll unlock scopes, muzzles, stocks, and so on to fine-tune your weapons, and the UI is forever telling you what a wonderful Nazi killer you are; all manner of ribbons and medals and accolades pop as you work through the campaign.

There are several places in which a little spit ‘n’ polish could elevate Resistance from an enjoyable experience to a sublime one. Maybe having binoculars and the focus ability both bound to R3 is fine for most people, but I’m forever opening my binocs when I’m trying to turn off focus, and vice-versa – which isn’t great when you’re in a tight spot. And why does Hawker spontaneously drop his special weapon when he does a melee kill? At least tell me you’ve dropped it, man – there’s nothing worse than emerging from a scramble to discover Hazzer abandoned the silenced pistol you were enjoying five corpses and two buildings ago.

And don’t get me started on the mantling. (Harry. You’re a soldier. I really think you could conquer that two-inch curb or sandbag if you put your mind to it, champ).

Of course, Sniper Elite: Resistance has the typical multiplayer offering, too. Sadly, I had connection issues during the review period and therefore have focused on the campaign in this review, so I’ll circle back when I can. Nevertheless, Sniper Elite 5‘s Axis Invasion mode returns. If you’re brave, you can open up your game and permit other players to invade and hunt you down. Personally, I have enough problems without someone twenty years younger with the hand/eye coordination to go with it joining the hunt, but hey, I’m glad it exists for the non-cowards among us.

Entirely new, though, is Resistance’s “propaganda missions”, quick ‘n’ dirty time-based missions that can be unlocked by locating the ferociously loud posters flapping about the place in the main campaign. The offerings vary – there are sniping challenges, stealth, and combat – but in each one, you need to defeat as many enemies as possible within the time limit with a limited set of weapons. Scores can be boosted by being quick, efficient, and avoiding damage yourself – so I sucked – but at least you can play as someone other than Harry, and that is not an insubstantial advantage in this game, believe me.

In mission 4’s propaganda mission, Le Maquis Voit Tout, for instance, you’re forced to snipe at speed to take down as many enemies as possible in a minute. Challenge 1, La Resistance, on the other hand, gives you 90 seconds to creep around town and silently takedown hostiles. Every ghost kill puts a little extra time on the clock, so each battle has the delicious tension of needing to be done quickly but stealthily, too. They’re delightfully speedy quests and the perfect antidote to marathon campaign sessions if, like me, you get a little too obsessed with needing to explore every single inch of the main maps.

All in all, then – even without the magic of Sniper Elite’s legendary X-ray kill cam – I’m having a blast. And I’m using the present tense there because even after completing it, I’m desperate to get back in to replay with different tactics, difficulty levels, weapons: you name it. Your mileage, admittedly, may vary if you’re a Sniper Elite veteran itching for something new – for better or worse, this isn’t that much of a departure from Sniper Elite 5. But as I said, I just got a medal for blasting a Nazi’s testicle off from 326 metres away. Not all heroes wear capes, you know.

A copy of Sniper Elite: Resistance was provided for review by developer Rebellion.