Sniper Elite 4 review
There was a time when it was hard to imagine a shooting game coming out that wasn't focused around World War II. Between Call of Duty's heyday, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, Brothers in Arms etc. you'd have to go out of your way to find something that didn't involve storming the beaches of Normandy or finding some other backdrops for murdering the shit out of nazis. Sniper Elite 4 is the first game I've picked up in this vein in probably a decade, and... you know what? It still feels good to run around a virtual murder playground killing some of the worst people that ever existed.
Kill nazis, forget the rest
Admittedly, I do not know much about the Sniper Elite franchise, but I gather from the name that this one is the fourth installment. There does not appear to be a way to play the other three games on mobile, but it hardly matters. This game puts you in the shoes of some guy named Karl and gives you just enough context via a hollow supporting cast to go traipsing around Italy killing every German solider in sight.
Your primary weapon is a scoped rifle, but Sniper Elite 4 is not exactly picky about how you go about your killing spree. Whether you are headshotting them from hundreds of meters away or stabbing them directly in the face, the only thing this game seems especially concerned with is showing you just how brutal and deadly you are being to this scum. This is a game that delights in using slow motion and an x-ray cam to showcase jaws shattering apart, intestines being demolished, and skulls imploding.
War never changes
From a messaging standpoint, I'm 100% on board with Sniper Elite 4. How a lot of this ends up playing out in a game design sense is a bit repetitive, though. While it's true that the game litters you with all manner of weaponry like shotguns and explosives while also providing environmental hazards to take advantage of like ledges, ammo crates, etc., it does not take long to figure out an efficient killing pattern and just do that repeatedly through every level.
Each stage is a unique location, but all of them are more-or-less set up the exact same way. They are huge sandboxes where you can kill any and every German in it on your way to what are basically fetch quests (find this document, sabotage this thing, kill this guy, etc.). I could see a situation in which this game asked for a bit more discretion or focus, but then again, that could put Sniper Elite 4 in danger of straying away from what it clearly wants to do: let you kill a shitload of nazis.
Murder on mobile
Seeing as this is a port of a console game from 2017, I should say it basically feels and plays exactly as you might expect. A controller is highly recommended here, and the game looks impressive enough by mobile standards, but is not in the league of showcase titles. It doesn't even have display options to fiddle with.
The level layouts and mission structures typically make completing a mission take longer than your typical mobile gaming session, though it's very easy and comfortable to manually save just about any time and the game frequently auto-saves. Sniper Elite 4 also has iCloud syncing so its a game you can play between devices or come back to if you want to buy into its DLC or replay it. In case none of this gives you a firm sense of whether this game is for you or not, the game is free to download and gives you a very fair look at it for free. If you play the first mission and do not want any more of it, there is nothing behind the paid unlocks you are missing.
The bottom line
On the one hand, Sniper Elite 4 can be a bit repetitive and rote. But on the other, the thing that you do a lot of and get really good at is killing nazis. There isn't much else to this game's formula worth talking about or engaging with, both because there's not much there and what little there is is clearly an afterthought. Still, though, I admire Sniper Elite 4's focus in this regard.