Covert agent and elite marksman Karl Fairburne must fight alongside the brave men and women of the Italian Resistance to help free their country from the yoke of Fascism, and defeat a terrifying new threat with the potential to halt the Allied fightback in Europe before it’s even begun.

If his mission fails, there will be no Operation Overlord, no D-Day landings, and no Victory in Europe.

From sun-drenched Mediterranean coastal towns to colossal Nazi megastructures, daunting forests and giddying mountain monasteries inspired by Monte Cassino, Sniper Elite 4 will offer breathless emergent stealth action and unrivalled sniping freedom across maps many times the size of those seen in Sniper Elite 3.

Jason and Chris Kingsley, co-founders of Rebellion, explained the decision to release the studio’s marquee title in February: “When we revealed Sniper Elite 4 back in March our plan was to release it at the end of 2016,” they explained, “However, we now know Battlezone will release in October as a launch title alongside PlayStation VR. That gave us a tough decision to make. Ultimately, we’re a relatively small independent studio, and releasing two major titles in the same quarter didn’t seem like a sensible thing to do.  A few of our shared internal teams will probably sleep a bit easier now!”

While this does mean players will have to wait just a little longer to get their hands on the title, there is another big benefit to a 2017 release:

“Launching Sniper Elite 4 in February gives us the opportunity to take a game that’s already received some of the best preview feedback we’ve ever had, and give it that extra bit of attention,” the Kingsley brothers affirmed, “We know a lot of you will be disappointed you won’t get to play Sniper Elite 4 this year, but we feel this decision will prove in the long run to be a win-win for both us and you, the fans.”

Running in native 1080p on both PS44 and Xbox One, Sniper Elite 4 is the first game in the series built without the constraints of older hardware and aims to deliver the definitive World War Two shooter for a generation. Sniper Elite 4 features dedicated campaign, co-op and adversarial multiplayer modes.