As part of a covert US Rangers operation to weaken the Atlantikwall fortifications along the coast of Brittany, Karl makes contact with the French Resistance. Soon they uncover a secret Nazi project that threatens to end the war before the Allies can even invade Europe: Operation Kraken. It’s Karl’s mission to take out the high ranking Nazi officers and end Operation Kraken once and for all.

Based upon real-world locations from France in 1944, the new game maps are the largest and most immersive in the franchise’s history. The game's new traversal system offers players an even greater sandbox of options when it comes to taking out their targets. Players can even invite a friend to help them on their mission with enhanced co-operative gameplay options.

Sniper Elite 5 continues the franchise’s unparalleled tactical sniping experience complete with incredible ballistics and an enhanced kill cam, taking the genre-defining feature to the next level. New customization options allow you to adjust your rifle, other weapons and ammo to suit the mission and your play style.

Rebellion has released a new gameplay trailer for Sniper Elite 5 which showcases the enhancements made to its genre-defining slow-motion Kill Cam. For the first time in the series, Kill Cam can now be triggered by particularly clinical shots using SMGs and pistols as well as for eliminations using rifles and takedowns.

Enhancements have been made to both the physics and the visuals behind Sniper Elite 5’s Kill Cam. Bullets can now ricochet off bones causing even further internal devastation which is shown to the player in more detail thanks to enhancements in the visual representation of the characters including more definition of the skeleton, muscles, organs and sinew. 

The inclusion of iron sights for both SMGs and pistols, a first for the series, will allow players to be more accurate with those weapons, which will, in turn, trigger a Kill Cam for the most clinical of shots. Players will also have control over the Kill Cam in real-time with the ability to speed up/slow down the cinematic, as well as being able to adjust the camera angle.

A favorite feature with fans of the franchise, the frequency with which a player sees Kill Cam, can be adjusted in the game’s menu, including the ability to turn it off completely.

The weapons in Sniper Elite 5 have been painstakingly recreated from real-world references to ensure maximum authenticity. Players can now customize their weapons by discovering workbenches hidden within the missions. Each workbench will unlock further customization options. This means that they can adjust their chosen loadout to suit their individual playstyle and the objective that they are undertaking.

Accessibility Features

It’s important to us that as many people as possible can play our games and so we’ve worked hard to reduce barriers and make Sniper Elite 5 more approachable. We’re also aware of the importance of publicizing our features so you know if you can play before you buy. Without much further ado here are the upcoming accessibility features in Sniper Elite 5.

Difficulty Customization

Everyone is an Elite as you can customize the difficulty to whatever suits you.

You’ll have five pre-set difficulty levels to choose from ranging from Civilian (Very Easy) to Authentic. Our new Civilian difficulty is our equivalent of a story mode with highly reduced combat, player damage, and enemy awareness, so we hope this will open the game up to players who found Sniper Elite 4 too challenging. In addition, you can customize the combat, sniping, and tactical aspects of the game independently to better suit you.

But difficulty customization doesn’t end there. In our Advanced Difficulty mode you can fine tune a huge range of specific elements to best suit your playstyle. From how much information is displayed on the radar to health regeneration and enemy AI behavior, you’ll be able to tailor the game to your capabilities.

Difficulty can also be changed at any time from the pause menu, so there’s no need to restart a mission if you find the challenge too high or low.

Tutorials

Sniper Elite 5 introduces enhanced tutorial options. Not only do you have constant access to detailed tutorials (accessed from the pause menu) to help guide you through all the mechanics and enemies you may encounter, but we also have options for the frequency of tutorials and even an option to reset them. So, if you have a break and come back to the game or just need extra reminders, you can reset the tutorials and jump straight back in without having to play through an introductory level to get your bearings.

Subtitles and Text

Sniper Elite 5 is fully voice acted and with that come subtitles. Our subtitle customization gives you the ability to change text size, color (from a range of pre-sets) and background opacity. All subtitles include speaker names too, so you’ll always know who’s talking.

In multiplayer we have a quick chat wheel with common shout outs – each of these are also voice acted and have subtitles displayed on screen.

Sniper Elite 5 also has some scaling options for text in menus and some HUD elements. Scaling for UI text is limited to small, medium, large sizes.

Color Blindness Adjustments

We know our color blind players struggled with the Stealth system in Sniper Elite 4 as it relied heavily on color. So, to help fix that we’ve added color adjustments to SE5 for enemy awareness and location markers. You can now choose from four pre-defined color palettes; original and 3 color blind accessible variants.

Customizable Audio Levels

We’ve separated out some audio channels so you can set them to whatever works best for you. Including individual sliders for hit feedback, dialogue and enemy awareness cues, you’ll be able to balance the sounds most important to you as you play. For multiplayer you can enable or disable voice chat and adjust the chat volume independently.

We also have a setting to adjust the Dynamic Audio Range, so that you can reduce the severity of loud noises like explosions. Finally, SE5 uses Spatial Audio to help you locate enemies around you and immerse you in the fight.

Controls and Input

Anyone can be a Sniper, and with the huge range of Aim Assist options available you won’t have to worry about pinpoint accuracy if that’s not your thing. Aim Assist is also customizable by state, so you can have different aim assistance settings for firing from the hip, scoped and iron sights.

Sniper Elite 5 will also launch with full control remapping on mouse and keyboard. For gamepad users we have 6 pre-sets to choose from – three layouts each with left and right-handed variants. These left and right variants swap the stick functionality.

SE5 will also offer the standard sensitivity and axis inversion options.

Accessibility First

The first time you launch the game you’ll be asked to do the usual set up, but you’ll also get a chance to change the accessibility settings and subtitle display right away before any cut scenes. This ensures that you can experience the game in a way that suits you from the get go.

A few visual settings we offer include support for reducing motion sickness, where you can disable Motion Blur and Binocular Distortion. And finally, everyone loves a kill cam, right? Well, not always. You’re free to turn off Kill Cameras or X-Rays whenever you like. So if gore isn’t something you’re keen on, you can play without fear of those incredibly graphic testicle shots!

Although we’re really proud of what we’ve achieved for Sniper Elite 5, we’re still at the start of our accessibility journey. We hope to release more accessibility features in updates and we want to hear from you – our players – about what barriers you face and what features would help you. Or is there something we have that doesn’t quite meet your needs? Get in touch with us on Twitter @Rebellion, join the conversation on our Discord, or through our Help Centre.

Key Features:

• Expansive Campaign – Real-world locations have been captured using photogrammetry to recreate a living, immersive environment, and multiple infiltration and extraction points along with kill list targets provide a whole new perspective on each mission. Take on the Nazi plot solo or work with a partner, with improved co-op mechanics allowing you to share ammo and items, give orders and heal each other.
• Advanced gunplay physics and traversal – Use ziplines, slide down slopes and shimmy along ledges to reach the perfect vantage point, or to sneak past a sharp-eyed lookout. Factor in rifle stock and barrel options along with gravity, wind and heart rate while you line up your sights on the target.
• High caliber customization – Use workbenches to customize and upgrade virtually every aspect of your weapon. Change scopes, stocks, barrels, magazines and more. Rifles, secondary weapons and pistols all have a huge variety of options. On top of that, you can select the ammo to suit your target, from armor-piercing right down to non-lethal.
• Invasion mode drop-in PVP – You can invade another player’s Campaign as an Axis sniper and engage in a deadly game of cat and mouse, providing a new dimension to the challenge as you stalk your prey. Alternatively, as Karl, you can call for assistance and have a second sniper drop in to help you out of a tricky situation.
• Tense adversarial multiplayer – Customize your character and loadout and earn XP, medals and ribbons as you take on intensely competitive 16-player battles that will really test your sharpshooting skills. If co-op’s more your style, you can team up with up to three other players against waves of enemies in Survival mode.
• Enhanced kill cam – More realistic and grisly than ever, the trademark X-ray kill cam returns, showing you the true destructive power of each shot. Bones deflect bullets unpredictably, ripping a new path through enemy bodies. SMGs and pistols can also trigger kill cams, including multiple shots in dramatic slow motion.

Sniper Elite 5 is coming to on Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5 and PC (Epic / Steam / Windows Store) on May 26, 2022.