What Sniper Elite 5 is
Sniper Elite 5 is a third-person shooter set in France in 1944. You play as Karl Fairburne, an elite marksman dropped in as part of a covert US Rangers operation to weaken the Atlantikwall fortifications along the coast of Brittany. He makes contact with the French Resistance, and together they uncover a secret Nazi project called Operation Kraken that threatens to end the war before the Allies can invade Europe. Missions take place across large maps built from photogrammetry of real-world locations, with multiple infiltration and extraction points and kill list targets that give each mission several ways through. Movement has been expanded with ziplines, slope sliding and ledge shimmying, so you can reach a vantage point or slip past a lookout instead of fighting head-on.
Playing it with friends
The campaign can be run solo or with a partner. Co-op mechanics let you share ammo and items, give orders and heal each other, so a pair can split roles rather than both doing the same thing. Invasion Mode lets a second player drop into your campaign as an Axis sniper and stalk you, turning the mission into a hunt in both directions; as Karl you can also call for assistance and have a second sniper drop in to help out of a tight spot. Outside the campaign, adversarial multiplayer runs 16-player battles with custom characters and loadouts, and Survival mode has you team up with up to three other players against waves of enemies.
What to know before you start
Shooting is built around real factors: rifle stock and barrel options, gravity, wind and heart rate all affect where the bullet lands. Workbenches let you change scopes, stocks, barrels and magazines on rifles, secondaries and pistols, and you pick ammo to suit the target, from armour-piercing down to non-lethal. The X-ray kill cam returns and is more graphic than before, showing bones deflecting bullets through enemy bodies; SMGs and pistols can trigger it too, including multiple shots in slow motion. Expect gore and violent content throughout, and plan your approach around stealth when the odds are against you.