Sniper Elite 3 was easily one of the most entertaining games that I was shown this month, at the 2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo, and the final build of the game should prove just as popular as it ever was with franchise fans while also bringing a few new Sniper Elite players into the fold.
DISCLAIMER: This Sniper Elite 3 review is based on time spent with a Steam copy of the game that was provided (free-of-charge) by a representative of Rebellion; however, the developer did not retain any say in the contents of this article.
Developed by Rebellion, Sniper Elite 3 once again casts players as Karl Fairburne; an elite OSS sniper who also served as protagonist for both the original Sniper Elite and 2012's Sniper Elite V2. This time, Karl is stationed on the North African front; trading the crumbling remains of Berlin for the blistering deserts, lush oases and ramshackle military outposts that could be found in the Libyan desert 70 years ago.
Thankfully, while the scenery has changed, just about everything that made me fall in love with the Sniper Elite franchise has returned in Sniper Elite 3. The game's vaunted Kill Cam is back, offering a brutality that looks to be on-par with the recently-announced Mortal Kombat X, and the levels in Sniper Elite 3 offer a freedom not found in most stealth-oriented projects.
That's not to say Sniper Elite 3 is entirely devoid of rough edges. Pretty far from it, in fact. Though highly enjoyable, I still find myself disappointed by some aspects of the Sniper Elite experience that Rebellion apparently felt content to leave unaltered. However, I'd say the studio has done far more right than they have wrong, and Sniper Elite 3 is easily among my favorite games of 2014.
Set four years before the events of V2, Sniper Elite 3 drops players into the war-torn city of Tobruk; a Libyan port city that somehow remained standing after 241 days of what was eventually confirmed to be some of the heaviest fighting of World War II. As Karl Fairburne, an elite OSS sniper, it's your job to help Allied forces push back the Axis artillery teams that have been relentlessly shelling the city and nearby Allied encampments.
Before long, Karl gets wind of a top-secret German project; an invention that a number of Axis brass seem convinced will turn the tide of World War II. Naturally, the Sniper Elite 3 protagonist takes it upon himself to track down the unknown weapon, and make sure the Nazis aren't given a chance to regain ground on the North African front. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Like V2, Sniper Elite 3 allows you to tackle the game's single-player campaign alone, or with assistance from a friend. If co-op is your preference, one player will carry a rifle, while the other will be given a set of binoculars and a few more active enemy tags than normal. Together, you'll need to complete each mission from the single-player campaign; working together both to decimate Axis forces and ensure that neither you or your partner are discovered by the enemy.
Of course, given the fact that Sniper Elite 3 appears exclusively on PS4, Xbox One and PC, one of the first questions that many players are going to be asking is, "Does Sniper Elite 3 look that much better than its predecessors?"
Those who've been keeping an eye on Sniper Elite 3 will be happy to hear that Rebellion's latest third-person tactical shooter looks considerably better than any of the five Sniper Elite games that preceded it. We're not talking about a slight jump in graphical fidelity, either.
Every aspect of the eight maps included in the Sniper Elite 3 campaign look markedly better than anything we've previously seen from the franchise; including the various Nazi Zombie spin-offs that followed the release of Sniper Elite V2. What makes the improved graphics all the more impressive is that the high level of detail remains consistent across massive new environments, each of which offers dozens of potential paths to victory.
I don't have any exact measurements for the eight single-player/cooperative maps that are included in Sniper Elite 3; however, I can tell you that many of them required well over an hour for me to complete. It took me just shy of eleven hours to finish the Sniper Elite 3 campaign (on Marksman difficulty), and I didn't get around to much more than half of the optional objectives and collectible items that can be found on each map.
Those gunning for 100 percent completion will likely need 15-plus hours. Maybe more, if you're hoping to tackle the Sniper Elite 3 campaign on one of the game's harder difficulty levels.
Each of the new maps also come with their own set of Sniper Nests; a new addition to the Sniper Elite franchise that (if we're being honest) feels much more like Rebellion trying to squeeze out an extra set of collectibles than it does a meaningful or necessary contribution to the series.
Scattered throughout each stage, players can find a handful of pre-designed Sniper Nests where Karl will find extra ammo and (occasionally) a prime view of enemy forces. An interesting idea, but one which hasn't been integrated into the Sniper Elite 3 campaign especially well. In most cases, the perches in area are all-but-unreachable until after you've cleared out most of the surrounding Axis forces, leaving you with little more than an excellent view of all the guards you've just slaughtered.
On the rare occasions you do find yourself sitting inside a designated perch, with live enemies still close enough to be viable targets, you then have to deal with the fact that the game's relocation system will only let you make use of said Sniper's Nest for a grand total of two shots. Maybe a couple more, if you're lucky enough to find a spot with some sort of sound-masking agent nearby, and/or your current Sniper Nest is situated in such a manner than you can retreat 30-plus meters to wait for the All Clear.
Thankfully, there are plenty of other changes that make Sniper Elite 3 worth playing.
For one, there's the game's vastly-improved Loadout screen, which has been made accessible via the main menu and also integrated into the Sniper Elite 3 single-player campaign's mission briefing screens in a manner that makes them substantially more-difficult to overlook.
Players have four different loadout slots which can be customized to your heart's desire -- whether that mean specific configurations for single-player, co-op and competitive multiplayer or just four different sets of tools for the Sniper Elite 3 campaign -- and players can unlock new gear by playing any of the myriad game modes available in Sniper Elite 3. And there are plenty of new toys for Karl to bring into battle, too.
Some additions, like the new S-Mine (an anti-infantry explosive) offer players new means of taking down concentrated groups of soldiers, instead of forcing you to systematically eliminate each member of the larger patrols roaming each map. The flint-and-steel combo is a surprisingly deadly addition to the OSS sniper's arsenal, as well; giving Karl the ability to both lure enemy guards out of position and leave an explosive surprise waiting for whichever soldier(s) are sent to investigate the tiny fire you've left behind.
Gameplay in Sniper Elite 3 feels as great as it ever did, rewarding patient players with brutal Kill Cam images and increasingly better gear for quietly disposing of all the Nazis who stand between you and your various mission objectives. The game's stealth mechanics have been vastly improved, both in terms of presentation and realism; giving players the freedom to go much deeper behind enemy lines, but also requiring them to be much more perceptive if they hope to survive.
I'm also not certain it would be possible for me to overstate just how much of a difference the game's improved artificial intelligence makes. Like ninety percent of the games that have ever included vision cones, in one form or another, you'll occasionally find yourself being spotted through a wall/door/etc but it's not half as common an occurrence as it was in previous Sniper Elite titles.
More importantly, enemies will react to your actions in a bit more-realistic fashion; rather than charging blindly towards the location they'd miraculously determined to be your hiding spot, as they did in other Sniper Elite games. Alternately, should you make effective use of cover and/or environmental sounds that are loud enough to mask your shots, any surviving soldiers will typically be too panicked to respond to your actions in an effective manner.
The game's highlight reel-worthy moments are back, too, and arguably better than they've ever been before. Though far from frequent, Sniper Elite 3 will still give you the occasional opportunity to dispatch more than one of your opponents with a single bullet, and the best (see: luckiest) Sniper Elite players will even find themselves in situations where you can take down both a patrolling soldier and a German vehicle with one pull of the trigger.
Without a doubt, these are the moments that make you feel best about your abilities in Sniper Elite 3; when a cavalcade of experience bonuses fill the right side of your screen and the twisted wreckage of a German tank or troop transport lays smoldering next to the patrolman who also fell victim to your rifle. It would have been nice to see such moments made possible just a little more frequently, though.
For all the excitement that accompanies such occurrences, I can only think of a handful of occasions when there were clear opportunities to take out multiple enemies with a single bullet, and even fewer instances where doing so would offer more than a few extra experience points. On some level, the joy that comes from pulling off such skill shots is a reward in and of itself, but that doesn't mean Rebellion couldn't have provided a little more incentive for Sniper Elite 3 players.
In many ways, Sniper Elite 3 builds upon the successes of previous titles from the Sniper Elite franchise, but the latest project from Rebellion is certainly not above making a few mistakes of its very own. As I mentioned before, Sniper Nests are just one of five new sets of items/locations that Rebellion was clearly hoping would give players some incentive to explore the massive environments they've created for the Sniper Elite 3 campaign.
The only problem is, once you've already dedicated the hour (or more) that you'll need to finish each stage of the Sniper Elite 3 campaign, I suspect that most players aren't going to be looking to further increase the amount of time needed to complete a mission. Especially not when it means coming up with 20-30 minutes for optional objectives, another 20-plus for the War Diaries found on each mission and then a handful of minutes (per stage) to track down a set of cigarette cards. It's enough to make you wonder if Ubisoft was secretly involved in the game's production.
While I have little doubt that someone out there will collect it all -- especially when people are still 100-percenting games like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag -- I can't say that any of the collectibles did much to improve my perception of Sniper Elite 3. Personally, I'd have preferred to see Rebellion add another map or two to the game's single-player campaign, instead of rolling the dev credits for Sniper Elite 3 after just eight missions.
It was also disappointing to see Rebellion create such sprawling new environments for the Sniper Elite 3 campaign, but not include any sort of dynamic weather system that might actually give some diversity to each play through. Sure, the Sniper Elite 3 campaign features missions in both broad daylight and the cover of night, but it would have been so much more-rewarding if players had been able to wait for gaps in patrol coverage, use thunder/lightning to mask the sound of your rifle, etc.
Sniper Elite 3 PC Review - Final Verdict
All things considered, Sniper Elite 3 is absolutely a worthy successor to the Sniper Elite name, which has found something of a cult following since jumping to Steam, and a fairly easy recommendation for any gamer bored with the generic corridor shooters being churned out by big-budget studios these days.
The game isn't perfect, and some of more frequently encountered bugs in Sniper Elite 3 are the sort that will have some impact on gamers' overall enjoyment of the game, At least on a session by session basis. But they aren't the sort of issues that should keep players from enjoying the bulk of the content present in Sniper Elite 3.
It's honestly hard to find the words that properly convey the level of frustration I felt on the many occasions when it looked as if I'd lined up a perfect kill shot, only to watch the bullet ricochet off some random (and invisible) part of the environment that apparently didn't register with the bullet ballistics tool. Granted, there are plenty of players who will choose to complete the Sniper Elite campaign without the Focus system enabled anyways; however, that won't leave them any better off when it comes time to take a headshot and an invisible sand bag, wall or other barrier
But, just as is seemingly the case with the real-life profession, those who can master the various mechanics present in Sniper Elite 3 will soon find themselves enjoying one of the most rewarding tactical shooters in the history of the video game industry. That goes double for anybody who has the patience to stick with the game's competitive multiplayer mode, which tosses out all of the aiming assistance from the Sniper Elite 3 campaign and forces you to try and eliminate up to 14 rival snipers.
Your enjoyment of Sniper Elite 3's competitive offerings will likely depend on your enjoyment of sniping in multiplayer games -- because you're not going to find much success with the run-and-gun action found in Call of Duty or Battlefield -- but those who do enjoy sniping in such scenarios will likely find Sniper Elite 3 hard to walk away from. It may not be for everybody, but I'd be shocked if Sniper Elite 3 didn't end up with a dedicated multiplayer following of its very own.
The game isn't perfect, and there is plenty I'd like to see improved whenever Rebellion returns with the next entry in the Sniper Elite series, but that doesn't change the fact that Sniper Elite 3 is one of the most enjoyable games I've played this year.
Score - 4/5
Have you had a chance to play Sniper Elite 3 since the game made its Steam debut on June 27? Waiting until the game is released on PS4 and Xbox One, so you can actually get some usage out of your preferred next-gen console? Did the game's recent Steam key controversy leave you uncertain about spending any on non-console versions of Sniper Elite 3?
Let us know in the comments section!
