Sniper Elite V2 - On This Day

In 2005, the British team Rebellion Developments Limited introduced the Sniper Elite tactical shooter to the gaming community, which over time grew into a major franchise. Although the title earned them the TIGA award for the best video game for PC and consoles, it took them seven long years to get us back into the military uniform of a sniper.

The sequel, which can also be used as a remake, landed us in Berlin, exactly ten years ago today, where we took on the role of an American soldier who used a sniper to rescue the Nazis. The Elite V2 Sniper and its seven-year-old predecessor took place in the same time frame and location but followed different stories.

In both titles, we followed the protagonist Karl Fairburne, an American officer from the Office of Strategic Services who was sent to Germany during the Battle of Berlin. As the USSR and the Third Reich wage the last major and decisive battle of World War II on the European battlefield, Fairburne seeks to prevent the Soviets from taking control of German nuclear secrets by capturing and killing scientists involved in the development of the so-called Revenge Weapon 2 (V2). fuel - before they are caught by the Red Army.

Since the Sniper Elite V2 was a tactical shooter that required a less direct approach to combat, the protagonist used a sniper as his primary weapon to secretly solve his targets while maintaining a decent distance from enemy troops. However, this does not mean that the soldier is not prepared for close surprises that can be mastered by short machine guns or pistols. Of course, in case the situation requires diversion, Fairburne always hides grenades, landmines, or dynamite in his pocket.

But the war story of a lone American soldier as such did not surpass its 2005 predecessor. Instead, they did it with a novelty called X-Ray Kill Cam. Due to the positive reaction of the players, this feature still runs through the series today, celebrating the celebration of precisely aimed shots with the technique of slow motion. Due to a skillful shot from a sniper, the camera follows the bullet in slow motion to its target, where an X-ray image of the damage caused by the bullet to organs and bones was shown when it hit a foreign body.

In addition to the single-player campaign, V2 also supported online multiplayer where different players meet to participate in a cooperative game based on campaign missions or presenting three separate modes: Kill Tally, Bombing Run, and Overwatch. Kill Tally was a classic survival mode in which two players fight together against waves of enemy soldiers; Bombin Run was based on a mission to collect parts of a wrecked vehicle that needed to be repaired to avoid a grenade rain, and Overwatch was made up of a team of two soldiers where one is an operative in charge of solving important tasks spread across the map, and the other is a sniper who protects his partner from enemy threats.

The Elite V2 sniper may not have overshadowed the rest of the franchise with its average ratings, but it captivated critics and audiences alike with the introduction of the X-Ray Kill Cam, which many described as a brutal but pleasantly bloody feature worthy of applause. Also worth mentioning is that a year after V2, the Nazi Zombie Army was introduced, a separate spin-off expansion that introduced Nazi zombies to the series for the first time, and two years later turned into its alternate version of the last days of World War II into a Zombie trilogy. Army Trilogy.

The Elite V2 Sniper received its Remastered release for PC and consoles in 2019, and even today it looks good for a game that has turned one decade old.