Sniper Elite 3 is set on the African front, often overlooked when compared to the action in Europe, Russia and the Pacific, and this time around you’ll be blasting Rommel’s Afrika Corps into pieces so the regular infantry has a better chance of surviving the day. By far the biggest change to the game as a whole is the level design. While Sniper Elite V2 was criticised for being overly linear, Sniper Elite 3 takes a much larger, sandbox style approach, albeit not entirely open world.
You’ve got a few options in how to tackle objectives, from sneaking in unseen and picking everyone off from afar, or going in guns blazing. The latter approach isn’t recommended, as it only takes a couple of hits to down you – this is a game based around sniping rather than machine guns, after all. Getting a good vantage point and scoping out your plan of attack will be the best way forward. You’ll be able to complete objectives at your own discretion, rarely being forced to finish one before another. The example we were shown was a level with six objectives, one of which was to destroy a large 88mm anti-aircraft cannon. The player can destroy it from afar by shooting a carelessly placed ammo dump nearby, kill the guards surrounding it to approach and destroy it directly, or sneak underneath its raised platform and take it out from below.
We get to see the sneaky option, which involves taking out a couple of guards first with headshots from long range, masking the shots with the metallic clangs from the nearby vehicle depot. Bodies are dragged away and hidden from view before our sniper sneaks under the cannon, places an explosive charge on its underside and retreats to a safe distance. The explosion throws the nearby guards into a state of high alert, triggering them to search the area.
If you are seen, a new ‘relocation’ mechanic lets you know how much distance you need to put between yourself and your last known location in order for the guards to lose track of you. While strategically placing landmines in potential choke points can deal with the problem before you are discovered, if you clear the required distance and stay hidden for long enough then the guards will eventually lose the trail and return to their positions. There’s clearly a huge emphasis on forward planning, scoping out the areas and figuring out areas of shadow and foliage to hide in, learning enemy patrol patterns and which of them have sniper rifles themselves. Health regeneration is gone, replaced with good old-fashioned health kits, so you can’t simply wait a while and try again.
As with most cross-platform games coming in the near future, the PS4 version seems to be the primary focus of the development team. We’ve been told the PS3 version doesn’t look quite as pretty (duh) but the gameplay and level design will be identical across all versions. It says a lot about the approach of Rebellion that the team is also aiming to fix the complaints of linearity and simplicity of the last game while keeping the focus on sniping and, of course, those wonderfully gory killcams. Sniper Elite 3 may well turn out to be like a real sniper bullet: you won’t see it coming, but you’ll know damn well when it arrives.
Sam Smith
