Sniper Elite: Resistance (PS5) - Review
by Evan Norris , posted on 29 January 2025 / 1,677 Views
If you boot up Sniper Elite: Resistance and experience a case of déjà vu, you're not alone. Built upon the foundation of 2022's third-person shooter Sniper Elite 5, and featuring the same UI, graphics, modes, mechanics, and design philosophy, it often feels like an expansion pack rather than a full-fledged spin-off. There are new things, to be sure — a different protagonist and storyline, brand new maps, and unique missions called Propaganda Challenges — but in general it's more of the same. If you love Sniper Elite 5, though, that's hardly a bad thing.
The story in Resistance runs parallel with Sniper Elite 5, and focuses on the local resistance deep within occupied France in the weeks leading up to D-Day. Working with the Resistance, against their will at first, is Harry Hawker, agent of the British Special Operations Executive. Due to Harry’s sniping and stealth skills, he soon proves invaluable in uncovering and dismantling a Nazi effort to develop a new, mysterious super weapon.
If Resistance has a weak point, it's story. There’s nothing terribly wrong with it; it's just that Sniper Elite 5 did it better, with higher stakes and a more compelling protagonist. Indeed, most of the characters in this new game are forgettable, including the main villain, who does not get nearly enough screen time. The story also suffers from exploring old, well-worn territory. A race against time to stop a Nazi Wunderwaffe? We’ve all seen this movie before.
Luckily, in most other areas, Resistance nails its targets. Things are especially good in campaign mode, which is playable solo or with the help of an online partner. Despite a second-rate hero and a been-there-done-that storyline, the campaign excels due to its deep focus on player agency. How you approach and experience each of the game’s sprawling levels is entirely up to you. Do you arm yourself to the teeth and go in guns blazing, bringing the wrath of German troops and Gestapo agents down upon you? Or do you invest in silenced weapons & subsonic rounds and attempt to skirt around enemy patrols without leaving a trace? Thanks to many different loadout configurations and massive maps with viable pathways for snipers of all inclinations, pretty much anything is possible.
It's difficult to overestimate how important map design is to the success of Resistance. Apart from the first map, which acts as a tutorial, and the final map, which is designed to put a bow on the story and can be completed in a matter of minutes, each of the game's locations is absolutely massive, with multiple infiltration and exfiltration points, several mandatory and optional goals, and lots of secrets, collectibles, and pick-ups. As a result, there's an intoxicating sense of freedom and potential throughout the campaign. Surrounded by houses, city streets, castles, manufacturing plants, gardens, and vineyards — and, of course, ceaselessly patrolling enemies — it's easy to become totally immersed in a given location. In fact, depending on the difficulty setting and how methodically you play, you could spend two to three hours in a single map.
I approached the game like Solid Snake, and as a result it took approximately 16 hours to see the credits roll. If you're more trigger-happy and care less about optional objectives, you could probably wrap things up in 10. In any event, there's plenty to do afterward. For one, you can revisit each level on several difficulty settings, including Authentic, which strips away the HUD and all the quality-of-life tracking elements you're used to. For another, you can jump into online multiplayer with up to 16 players. There's a palpable sense of tension and urgency to the multiplayer modes in Resistance, as you never know where a rival sniper might be lurking.
If you're seeking something more cooperative, you can head over to Survival, a wave-based horde mode where you and other online players fend off the Nazi invasion. Regrettably, this mode features only two maps, which is simply insufficient. Each map has several different starting points and enemy routes, but it's not enough to make up for the lack of diversity.
The very best multiplayer offering is Invasion, a completely optional asymmetrical mode that returns from Sniper Elite 5. Essentially, it allows solo players to "invade" another player’s in-progress campaign mission as a German sniper. The unexpected appearance of a human player out for blood completely changes the tenor of each mission. Suddenly, as the host player, you’re in the middle of a cat and mouse game, where a single wrong move could mean an untimely death. For the invading player, it's a nice opportunity to play the bad guy for a change.
If you’ve had your fill of Multiplayer, Survival, and Invasion, you can try out Propaganda Challenges, one of the rare new things about Resistance. These are small, replayable stages that are unlocked by finding resistance posters in the main campaign. In each stage, you must defeat as many enemies as possible within the time limit, earning high scores by chaining together kills and triggering combo bonuses. These challenges are diverting for a time, but inessential to the experience. The game wouldn't lose much without them.
No matter the mode or the multiplayer offering, Resistance offers smooth controls and satisfying gunplay, whether you're sneaking through tall grass to line up the perfect shot or running-and-gunning your way to victory. One thing about the controls that deserves special mention, at least on PS5, is the DualSense adaptive triggers. They do a lot of heavy lifting in, providing the tactile tension you'd want in a shooting/sniping game. Furthermore, each weapon — whether pistol, submachine gun, or rifle — provides slightly different levels of force and resistance.
Clearly, Rebellion and co-developer Wushu Studios paid attention to the smallest details when it comes to firearms. They also paid attention to the little things when it comes to geometry, textures, lighting, and sound design. Perhaps the biggest technical achievement, though, is draw distance, which seems to go on forever — unsurprising for a video game where pulling off 600-yard head-shots is par for the course. The only area for improvement? Character models. They can be a bit stiff and soulless, leaning closer to the power of the PS4 than the PS5. In general, Resistance operates in the technological middle ground between those two systems, which makes sense considering its cross-gen development.
Sniper Elite: Resistance is essentially Sniper Elite 5 with a new hero, new maps, and the novelty of Propaganda Missions. It retains the same intoxicating level of player agency, the same open-ended level design, the same flexible combat mechanics, and the same focus on replayability. There are a handful of minor flaws — the story is disposable, there aren't nearly enough Survival maps, and the graphics engine shows its age in places — but in general the game delivers the goods, both for devotees of the series and for fans of stealth shooting games. Rebellion and Wushu Studios didn't quite score a bullseye, but they hit the target with ease.
VGChartz Verdict
7
Good
This review is based on a digital copy of Sniper Elite: Resistance for the PS5, provided by the publisher.
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