Back when I’ve played Sniper Elite V2 about 10 years ago it was just a second entry in the budding middle budget franchise from Rebellion. A third person stealth shooter with emphasis on sniping and slow motion kills that could switch to the X-ray vision, it was somewhat novel and curious at the time, even if not particularly good. But the series evolved since then and Sniper Elite 4, while not among the best stealth action titles I’ve ever played, was an easy recommendation and an extremely satisfying game. And a year after its release, Rebellion decided to remaster V2 that originally released in 2013. In preparation for playing the latest entry in the series, I’ve decided to revisit this title and figure out for myself if there’s a point in playing this game, when you have the improved sequels.
To quickly get it out of the way, Sniper Elite V2 is set during the last days of World War II and it’s also the chronologically last (at the moment of writing) game in the series, with all sequels taking place before the events of this game. Does it matter? No. Story can be safely ignored, as this game uses it only as means to set up cool situations it can put you in to snipe people. Not that it’s a bad thing either, even today the basic mechanics of the title are very satisfying and if you want to cover your rear with traps and be slow and smart about how you dispose of obstacles on your way to the goal, it can be fun. The sniping feels great, slo-mo kill frequency can be tweaked, there are several difficulty levels that can increase the level of simulation… Things that the franchise still does today, were pretty good in V2 as well.
The issue was the level and scenario design. The tools and systems you are given work perfectly for a simplified Hitman-like game. However, the game instead works as a highly scripted linear shooter. It’s not just easier but sometimes preferable to rush through the level instead of slowly creeping through the ruins and setting traps. Enemies visibly spawn at certain points, often leading to hilarity as you can have the loudest gunfight in that part of town, leave lots of dead bodies, move a little and have a couple of enemies casually talking about something just around the corner. Or start walking into this scene and go into “is that a dead body?” alertness state as they spawn in. Your health regenerates, game is checkpoint based and there are visible and invisible walls everywhere, so you don’t really get to play in a sandbox like what you’d expect.
Which was frustrating in 2013 when no other Sniper Elite games existed. But now, when even the direct sequel of this game tried to switch things up (as poorly as it did), Sniper Elite V2 feels completely outdated and uninteresting. Remastered version does nothing to change or fix that and, in fact, without a direct comparison you might be hard pressed to even remember what’s different about the game. This game was an important stepping stone for the franchise, it still has solid dynamic soundtrack, but revisiting it is a rather joyless experience and you would be better served by more exciting linear action titles of which there are plenty. If you want a fun sniper game, start with Sniper Elite 4.