Sniper Elite series has always been a weird beast. On one hand, it’s a very unique approach to stealth action, where you are trying to stealth kill enemies using long range and traps, rather than go in close range – which is very unusual for the genre. Moreover, it also employs highly customizable difficulty scale to incorporate it’s attempt at simulating real ballistics, ranging from super simple shooting, to thinking about distance, bullet drop, and even wind. On the other, the games have always being clearly middle budget, looking and feeling “good enough”, but never even close to what you would expect from a modern full price AAA release. That is, until Sniper Elite 4.
First, a couple of words on Sniper Elite 3. It’s an attempt to evolve the ideas from the previous 2 games (with the second being somewhat of a remake of the first) by making the maps more open-ended and reworking the way stealth works to work with this less corridor-like design. And it kind of works. Maps are indeed bigger, going through them feels less linear, stealth system seems to motivate you be an actual sniper more, but also move around more… But then, the maps themselves are a bit too boring, the AI feels considerably dumber than what you’d want to see, yet still prone to just knowing where you are at times, and the objectives sometimes barely make any sense. You can clean up an entire base… as a preparation for the army to roll in and clean up the same base. Which, of course, spawns new enemies, which didn’t exist before, just so you can do the pew pew. Or some optional objective might ask you to “make death look like an accident”, forgetting that the game is not Hitman. There’s some plot too, but it’s so basic that it might’ve not even happened at all and the game could’ve been better. Also there are incredibly annoying bugs, clunky controls and be careful about saving around exploding items as you might just instantly die upon loading the game. Overall, it just feels like a flawed attempt to move the series forward, with good intentions but rather average results. Not bad, but easy to ignore.
Sniper Elite 4 feels like what the series have been building up to all these years. There’s still some lower budget-y feel to it, there are some rough edges and occasional bugs, but it’s all easy to forgive as you’re playing. The game evolves the stealth mechanics introduced in the third game, so it’s still focusing more on relocating and being smart about making sure enemies cannot pinpoint your location as you’re showering them with sniper shots. In fact, I’m not even sure how much different the stealth is in the underlying system regard – a lot about Sniper Elite 4 is about smart updates to the player experience. It’s very easy to understand where you are, where enemies are or can be, how visible and how loud can you be, whereas in the previous title this always felt like some messy system that just “does things” (though, maybe it actually was).
Another huge improvement is the level design. The maps for each of the missions (there are 8) are big, fully of optional objectives and places to hide and fight enemies. If you get tired in the previous games and play on normal you could just bumrush the mission and be over with it very quickly even if you do the optional things. Here, if you want to complete every objective, prepare to spend several hours per each mission, not unlike something you’d expect from a first try in a Hitman mission. The stealth updates really work well here as well, as you can engage different groups of enemies from different parts of the map and depending on their enemy class they will react differently. Even if you are compromised and enemies go into full assault, it can be very fun, especially if you’ve made some preparations and put traps everywhere. Of course, the systems in the game are pretty simple compared to something you’d find in, say, Metal Gear or Far Cry, so despite different enemy classes and ways to engage them, the gameplay isn’t as varied as you’d sometimes hope it would be. But it’s still fun enough as is so one can only hope that in the future the series will evolve this further.
There are other minor improvements, like a slightly more consistent sticky cover system and more traversal options, but even with the improvements they still tend to feel like one of the weakest parts of the game as you can get stuck on something unexpectedly while trying to avoid the enemy detection or just suddenly climb on a ladder while adjusting the position. There are no huge bugs or issues I’ve encountered at least, although I did notice that AI is still quite a bit silly at times and can do some really strange things, despite the improvements.
DLCs are also a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the story missions are quite fun with new exciting maps and new enemy classes. On the other, the weapon packs and such are questionable. Personally, I was sticking to the initial weapon loadout, changing the machine gun and the items but leaving the rifle and pistol as is, but I can see how someone can be disappointed to see, say, M1 Garand as a DLC exclusive (even if it’s not the first time in the series). Luckily, the game and the DLCs will most likely be on discounts as often as the series tend to be, so getting everything shouldn’t be too expensive.
Sniper Elite 4 might not be the best stealth action title in recent years, nor an absolute must buy, but it’s a really fun game that shows that the developers understand what they want to see with the series. It’s the best Sniper Elite title so far and the only title in the series that I can honestly recommend checking out for the unique gaming experience it provides.