Review: Sniper Elite V2 Remastered – Berlin Never Looked This Good

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is the remastered release of the 2012 classic sniper video game released by Rebellion and this is our review of the game. For our review, we played the game on PS4 Pro so we will be discussing below how the remastered version of this excellent 2012 classic title fares on modern consoles with shiny new graphics and mechanics.

Sniper Elite v2 Remastered is the ultimate Sniper Elite V2 experience as it brings with it the complete base game as well as all DLC that was released for the game. All this packed with brilliant new visuals and crisp frames give the ultimate sniping shooting experience that few games have delivered in the past.

As soon as you boot up the game and you land your first sniper kill, you know that Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is different than the original title. Everything is more smooth, better looking and better playing. The AI is better, the visuals are better, movement is crispier and the audio is better as well.

The main story of the game is pretty decent and it will keep you interested enough to play it all the way to the end. Depending on how skilled you are, you will be able to complete the main story of the game in around 8-10 hours. I played the game on medium difficulty and I spent a decent amount of time in the game gathering collectibles as well in the game and it took me around 8.5 hours to be done with the main story of the game.

The game is not over after you beat the main story, however. There is still plenty of things for you to try out once you get the main campaign of the game out of the way. You still have a lot of challenges to complete with includes the infamous ‘Eliminate the Fuhrer’ mission. Apart from this, you also have the Kill Tally survival missions and you also have the option to play the entire campaign with a friend in cooperative mode.

The game also brings the entire online experience of Sniper Elite V2 with it. You can jump online and battle with players from around the globe to determine who is the best sniper in the entire world. Apart from online, you can also compete with your friends for the best scores in the single player missions as well. A detailed leaderboard will help you determine who is currently securing the top spot for each mission globally and in your friends’ list.

Coming to the gameplay, Sniper Elite V2 Remastered does not disappoint. It offers solid gameplay mechanics and it really makes you feel like a powerful WW2 era sniper with a vast arsenal of weapons and equipment at his disposal. You can set up traps such as Trip Wires, Landmines and more, use grenades, loot enemy bodies for supplies and ammo and all sorts of stuff that a traditional shooter offers.

What sets Sniper Elite V2 Remastered apart from traditional shooters is that it more focused on long-range enemy engagement. However, it does not mean that the game does not offer any close-range combat. You will get plenty of close-range combat opportunities in the game where you will swap out your main sniper rifle for a machine gun or a pistol.

Throughout my gameplay, I kept switching to both long-range and close-combat tactics and nothing felt left out by the developers. Even when you are using close-combat weapons, the gameplay is solid. With a diverse gun selection, you can head into each mission according to your preferences by setting up custom loadouts giving you more control over the gameplay.

Depending on your camera settings, every time you land a special sniper kill such as a headshot, a vital organ kill or a long-range sniper kill, the game would enter bullet mode and it will follow the bullet along its trajectory and will show an X-Ray vision of the bullet piercing the enemy which is simply amazing and really gives you the satisfaction of landing a kill on your enemies.

One of the first things that you notice while playing Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is that visually the game has been reworked completely and it not just a simple new-gen port. The visuals have been worked upon from the ground-up and they are excellent. The game is very pretty to look at now. All visual details such as explosions, bullet fire, environments, and objects are now detailed very well.

Before engaging enemies, you can scope out the area with your binocular and tag all enemies in the area. Once you are sure of all enemy presence in the area, you can set out picking enemies off one by one. You can take advantage of different in-game events for your advantage as well such as explosions, announcements and thunder will cover your shots and no one will hear them.

The most satisfying bit of playing Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is how you can easily destroy big and heavy tanks with just a well-placed shot on their fuel tanks. In normal games, you would get heavy weapons like a rocket launcher or a similar weapon whenever you encounter an enemy vehicle but not here. All you need here is a clear sight to the fuel tank and a single bullet.

In Sniper Elite V2 Remastered, you will take on all sorts of vehicles including tanks using your sniper rifle and other equipment. Every time I came across a tank in the game, I was extremely glad because it just gives you a real sense of accomplishment which other games just fail to deliver.

Taking down a fully functional tank by using a sniper rifle is just something that a Sniper Elite game can pull off properly. Of course, you are scared to death when you see a tank barrel aimed directly at your face when you look down the sights of your sniper rifle but it is one of the best bits for me in Sniper Elite V2 Remastered.

The in-game audio does a stellar job as it will help you identify the current situation you are in. In case of enemies on your tail, the music will turn loud and will inform you about threats in the area. Once the threats are neutralized, the music slows down and will indicate that you are now clear. You will need to use the in-game audio to your advantage as well as it will certainly help you in various situations throughout the game.

That all being said, Sniper Elite V2 Remastered comes with its own issues. During my gameplay, I was getting stuck in various objects throughout the missions as it made moving around very difficult for lining up that perfect sniper shot. Sometimes the character would go into crouching position from the prone position on its own eventually getting you killed by enemy snipers.

Some areas in the game were simply no-go areas as the character simply refused to go there due to some invisible blockade and if I went to the same area from another direction, there would be no blockade and I would be able to reach the area just fine. The game also suffers a little bit in the audio especially when it comes to enemies speaking with each other or just mumbling to themselves.

Enemy chat is always loud giving you the impression that the enemy is right around the corner which is, in fact, some rooms away from you but you hear them talking with each other or even themselves so loud that it makes you think that they are speaking right on top of you. Apart from that, AI is just plain dumb in certain situations. During a certain mission in the game, I had to eliminate a couple of Russian Spied.

Despite them being snipers, they kept rushing to me and while I was carefully lining up my shot on a hidden sniper, two snipers would rush to my head and start shooting with their sniper rifles instantly killing me. In other situations, you would kill an enemy and they would instantly know that is the sniper that killed them even if you use a pistol to kill them.

However, when I say AI is dumb, they are not completely dumb in the game. They will flank you and try their best to eliminate you using different battle strategies. Since it is a Sniper Elite game, it wants you to maintain your distance from the enemies because the AI will absolutely chop you down in seconds at close range.

If you manage to injure an enemy, the AI will try to pick them up and take them to a safe place which just shows AI is pretty smart but a little bit tweaking to their annoying bits will make them a solid AI to deal with in the game. In addition, another thing I noticed while playing the game is that whenever you would try to kill an enemy using stealth from the back, the command would not always show up.

This means that in numerous situations, I was unable to take down enemies using the stealth takedown option even when I was crouched behind them in the perfect position. This is by far the most annoying bug for me in the game and it is something that needs a quick fix since this is a stealth game at its core.

Coming to Sniper Elite V2 Remastered being a stealth game, it is not always a stealth game and the missions are sometimes scripted which means that no matter how hard you try, the game will alert the enemies and you will need to deal with an entire enemy just because the mission is scripted like that. I don’t say it like it is a bad thing but the scripted bits of the missions are sometimes the most frustrating ones as well.

For most parts, the game will allow you to complete missions on your own pace and choose whichever option you want, stealth or head-on approach. However certain missions are scripted and you have no other option but to go full Rambo style shooting and killing enemies like there is no tomorrow. In such scenarios, you have no option but to lay down some traps around yourself, dig in and get busy with the sniper rifle.

Depending on your playstyle, Sniper Elite V2 Remastered offers a flexible combat experience. Even if you are not the stealthy type, you can still easily clear the missions using weapons other than your Sniper Rifle. The game does not force you to stick to your sniper rifle however the real fun comes from using the sniper rifle and cracking some skulls in slow-mo.

The game offers very little challenge to series veterans and they will be sniping through the areas in no time however the Sniper Elite difficulty will test out the mettle of all players as it offers the most difficult experience that few can survive. The game also comes with a custom difficulty modifier where you can manually adjust different difficulty settings in the game giving you greater control over your game experience.

On higher difficulties, you will need to worry about advanced bullet ballistics just like in real life and you will need to align your shots accordingly before pulling the trigger. In lower difficulties, these real-life aspects are much lowered and you can easily land some headshots without worrying about air pressure or direction.

You will also find a handy Photo Mode that can be activated in the game by a simple press of the button and it will allow you to take pictures of the action as you open one skull after another with your shots. The Photo Mode has different settings which will allow you to change how the final render looks like with different effects, option sliders, and many other useful tools.

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is now out on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Final Verdict

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is an excellent remaster and it certainly improves the 2012 classic in every way and brings with it the ultimate experience as it includes all DLC with it as well. This is a must-have for the fans of the original game because it offers a brand new and much prettier way to experience the game again. The gameplay is solid and the content available in the game is bound to keep you busy for hours. However, the game still has a few annoying bugs and glitches that otherwise ruin this excellent sniper experience. Get rid of these bugs and you have yourself a solid sniper shooter that delivers in every aspect.

Final Score: 8.5/10