Sniper Elite 5 puts Karl Fairburne back behind the scope, this time in the villages and coastline of Brittany, and the series has rarely been this confident about what it is.
Trailer, via Rebellion.
Karl Fairburne Returns to Brittany
Rebellion Developments developed and published Sniper Elite 5, a 2022 third-person tactical shooter with stealth at its core. It hit Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on 26 May 2022. It follows Sniper Elite 4 and sits a year before Sniper Elite V2 in the series timeline.
The setup is lean and gets out of the way fast. Fairburne, an SOE sniper attached to an Army Ranger battalion ahead of Operation Overlord, lands in France to help secure a beachhead and the village of Colline-Sur-Mer. He links up with resistance contact Charlie Barton. The Americans’ submarine is destroyed. Charlie tells him most of the group’s contacts were killed by units under Obergruppenführer Abelard Möller, who had learned of their interest in his role coordinating Operation Kraken.
Fellow contact Marie Chevalier points them toward Möller’s chateau. Fairburne breaks in, pulls Kraken intelligence, and learns of a high-ranking meeting at the cathedral Beaumont-Saint-Denis. From there the campaign widens: a factory building war machinery and submarine stealth plating, an island in the English Channel near Guernsey, and a prototype U-boat built with Japanese coordination and prepared for testing.
The Kill Cam Still Does the Work
The X-Ray kill cam remains the signature. Land a long-range sniper shot and the camera follows the bullet to the target, showing body parts, bones or internal organs breaking or rupturing. It is gruesome, it is the point, and it has not lost its punch.
Weapons can be customised extensively, which matters more here than in past entries because the maps are bigger and the approaches are more varied. The game features several large levels, each offering different ways to infiltrate and extract. The traversal system is improved, and the real-world locations are captured in detail.
The single-player campaign supports two-player co-op. Invasion mode lets a third player join a session as an enemy sniper, hunting you while you work. A survival mode takes up to four players. That is a full package, and it is the reason the game holds up past the campaign’s credits.
A Bigger, More Open France
The open-ended level design is the real upgrade. Sniper Elite 4 already moved this way, but Sniper Elite 5 leans harder into it, and the game is better for the room it gives you. You can scout, reposition, and pick your moment instead of being funnelled down a corridor.
The story is thinner. Operation Kraken is a serviceable hook, and Möller is a workable antagonist, but the plot exists to move Fairburne between set-pieces rather than to surprise anyone. The chateau infiltration and the cathedral meeting are the strongest beats. The island sequence, with its prototype U-boat, is the most memorable stretch in the campaign.
Fairburne remains a near-silent professional. That is fine for a game about patience and distance, though it does mean the emotional weight rests entirely on the missions. Charlie Barton and Marie Chevalier give the resistance some texture, but they are supporting players by design.
Invasion Mode Is the Sharpest Addition
Invasion mode is the best idea here. Dropping a human sniper into your campaign turns a methodical stealth game into something tense and unpredictable. It is opt-in, so it never ruins a careful run, but when it works it is the most interesting thing Rebellion has added to this series in years.
Survival mode is the weaker extra. It accommodates four players and it is fine, but it is standard wave defence, and it does not play to the strengths that make the campaign sing. Co-op is the better use of a second player, and it works cleanly.
The technical side is solid across platforms, though the game is at its best on the newer hardware. The Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions carry the load. The PC release is the one to pick if you want the customisation and the frame rates. The iOS version exists, and it is a genuine curiosity more than a serious way to play.
What Sniper Elite 5 Gets Right
Sniper Elite 5 knows exactly what it is and does not apologise. The sniping is the best in the series, the maps are the most open, and Invasion mode gives the whole thing a jolt of unpredictability that the campaign alone would not provide. The story is forgettable and Survival mode is filler, but neither drags the package down.
This is a sequel that improves on Sniper Elite 4 in the ways that count. It is not a reinvention, and it does not need to be. Rebellion has spent years refining a very specific fantasy — one bullet, one long sightline, one perfect moment — and this is the cleanest version of it yet.
If you have never played one of these, this is the one to start with. If you have, you already know whether you want more of this, and the answer is yes.
Numbers and Release Details
- Release date: 26 May 2022
- Developer and publisher: Rebellion Developments
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, iOS, Mac
- Genre: Third-person tactical shooter, stealth
- Modes: Single player, two-player co-op, Invasion mode with a third player as an enemy sniper, Survival mode for up to four players
- Setting: France, 1944
- Published critical score: 8.1 out of 10, an aggregate from 7 outlets
- Series timeline: Follows Sniper Elite 4; set a year before Sniper Elite V2
- Sequel: Sniper Elite: Resistance, released 30 January 2025
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