Karl Fairburne returns for the first time in five years, and since the previous instalments skirmishes faced in Africa and Italy, he now faces the evil forces in mainland Europe itself namely France. Following the story loosely; Karl "the Shadow" is draughted in to help Blue Viper uncover the Nazi evils that are culminating in Operation Kraken, a series of nuclear submarines that not only threaten Europe but the rest of the world too. Chasing the Obergruppenfuhrer Abelord Moller, Karl hunts intel and clues across 9 main levels that begins at The Atlantic Wall and ends in Paris for a final round of unfinished business, and if you buy the DLC you get to hunt Hitler again too!

Packing the series staple load-outs, you carry a rifle, a machine gun, and a sidearm as per usual, though this time you can modify and upgrade those weapons on workbenches you locate on your travels. As you progress you will suitably unlock new upgrade packs that evolve the various traits of your arsenal. From stealthy subsonic bullets to heavily parkerized barrels for mitigating bullet drop, ammo pouch rifle stocks to nightvision scopes, Sniper Elite 5 ups the ante with its vicious array of ballistically brain-busting modifications to leave you feeling in control of your weapon, after all, there are many like it but this one is yours!

Trouncing across Europe Karl inevitably encounters a variety of environments including war-torn beaches, decimated villages and fortified bunkers. It's pretty standard fare for the series, however, the scenery has never looked this saturated in detail nor has it been on this scale before. Overall, the landscapes are massive and impressively detailed down to the most infinitesimally minute etchings of character across every surface. Photogrammetry has been deployed again by the team at Rebellion to coat every object and every plane of geometry in gorgeous high definition detail. Every object in the game has been lovingly scanned into Rebellion's library and each asset is then lovingly placed into the locales to produce an almost photorealistic quality of having been used while the level of detail captured and the character of each item displays their battle-worn and weathered textures. Environmentally this means craggy rocky surfaces, shale and chippings, concrete, brickwork and sandy flooring are incredibly lifelike and share the same visual nuances you would expect to observe in real-life such as stains, chipped paint, rust, and even more impressively: non-tessellated patterning. The only replicable oddity I observed in the environments were floating assets, such as leaf layers not sitting flush on the ground level, and instead, floating an inch or two above it when you are on the floor prone in some scenarios, and flickery shadows here and there. Pop in is minor with the odd tree vanishing or appearing spontaneously, though sometimes at the most scoped out sections there is a definite vanishing point to just how far the game can render everything and it gets a tiny bit stretched, in general, this is one of the most well rounded, incredible-to-look-at-games out there.

The greenery is excellently portrayed in this game, however, it's more for show than anything useful, as the only vegetation that is of use is the odd patch of tall grass to hide in and walls coated with vines to scale. While the overall feel of the game is greatly enhanced by the flora and fauna, it would have been great to see more interaction with more types of plants, and while wading through fields and pushing on through most grasses and plant life there is little to no collision between the player and the lushness. At least you can pick off birds and seagulls realistically, while you're exploring around the maps looking for the evil-iconic concrete ones, but there are very few NPCs and no signs of any other wildlife anywhere at all, barring a few butterflies in fields and moths around light sources here and there.

Objects in the environments are scattered everywhere with the environments offering us the most packed out set piece inducing moments ever seen in a Sniper Elite/Zombie Army game. Each corridor, each room and each juncture facilitates multiple methods to approach and overcome. If you choose stealth, you can observe the enemy patrol patterns, and melee kill them at close range, but if you choose to use more forceful methods such as explosive barrels or grenades; be sure to have an exit strategy before you go gung-ho because there are platoons of Nazis on hand ready to outnumber and intelligently flank you regardless of how dug in you are.

The lighting and explosions in Sniper Elite 5 are effortlessly stunning. The lighting sets the scene and gives gritty, grimy, dirty environments the perfect look for skulking around under flickering flame and street lamps, whereas the hazy summer-esq sunrise/sunset vibes really play out well for the more rural day-time levels with shafts of light beaming across the expanse, glinting down your scope in the most realistic of fashions to really bolster that immersion. Street and vehicle lamps are fully destructible, as is anything that glows red such as critical target points on vehicles, barrels, valves and oil lamps, but unfortunately, that's about where the destructibility ends, as the majority of objects are simply for detail, or providing cover that you can now dart around or over, and not impacted by any destructive interaction at all, though bullet holes mount up and scar the walls adding to the sense that you were causing havoc! Other items that are non-interactive have an odd shadowing to them, kind of encircling them, that are baked in rather than generated in real-time and sometimes they look really odd, whereas the real-time shadows look far better when in motion.

I'm not 100% convinced about ray tracing in Sniper Elite 5, party because they chose to not use it on many of the surfaces and the mirrors in the bathrooms (tsk tsk), but also because of the water and puddle reflections. While the water effects definitely do the job and look great, I'm not sure they're entirely accurate in all circumstances because of an odd blue glow to them and certain things not reflecting properly in them, however, the HDR and bump mapping are fantastic with wet slimy surfaces popping in the moonlight, and an overall photorealistic feel to the image.

Upgraded kill-cam is equally as astounding to observe as the newly upgraded environments. Without sounding like an absolute fiend: It is anatomically vivid, with fully modelled organs being eviscerated and smooshed at every blast. Glands explode in yellow plumes, vertebrae and bones shatter and splinter off, and there are globules and sprays of blood to accentuate each successful kill. I feel that perhaps skull fragments have been lessened to make it appear more realistic when you get a headshot, and the X-ray feature that looks through the layers of flesh, sinew, muscle, bone and offal, has definitely increased its resolution for the "next-gen" consoles and produces a truly stunning density of detail. It's almost like using one of the Human Anatomy augmented reality apps on your phone, it's fascinating to get up close and inspect the inner workings of the human body, regardless of the Nazi murdering intent behind each shot.

The ragdoll physics really shine here with explosives forcing your foes into the air to tumble and flip in slow-motion, but when you start digging deeper into the effect you start to unravel some very strange behaviours such as Karl being superhuman and able to throw bodies you're trying to conceal unfathomable distances, and the very contorted poses the enemy makes when you obliterate them. Most of the poses I witnessed were reasonable given the trauma, but some really made me scoff at the ridiculousness of their mangled form. The number of times I saw what looks like a general with his head almost tucked into his own anatomically correctly modelled rectum was more frequent than I think is at all naturalistic.

Targetting 4K and 60FPS using the Asura engine, Sniper Elite 5 delivers in spades, though it uses variable resolutions to achieve this. Throughout my time playing the game to completion there were very few moments of stuttering, and virtually no load times on PS5 however there is a slight aliasing shimmer on some objects in the distance. Frame rates are solid for the most part, but the in-game video seems to be rendered in the game engine and often feels a little less smooth, and very rarely the textures lag in loading in fast enough, this is most notable in the menus when you are loading up or customising your characters.

On PS5 the DualSense really feels fantastic thanks to the haptic triggers. If you pull the left trigger halfway, you get third-person aiming, pull it all the way and you get the scoped or iron sights view, but if you're really wild you can shoot from the hip thanks to an always on-screen arrow marker that helps when you're in a bind. The right trigger has a weight and a tension behind it to simulate the various firearms triggers, and overall they feel fantastic. Rumbles of explosions also feel superb depending on your distance to them, and your heart rate ramping up as you run around is fed back more urgently through your hands rather than just audibly.

Sound in this title is fantastic too. I played this game on PS5 using the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Max Gen 2's I recently reviewed and the ambience and soundscaping are incredible. Fully immersive pinpoint-accurate surround sound with intricate effects such as rain sounding different on tents rather than on metal, and the sound of the various crunchy or squelchy earthy textures beneath your feet build for incredible realism outdoors, while metal and concrete echo around the bunkers and bases in the indoor stages. I was incredibly impressed by the sound design that has gone into this game and I massively recommend that competitive players need to invest in a surround sound headset like this to really get the most out of their game when trying to locate enemies without having to rely solely on the mini-map for clues. Using sound alone has accounted for the majority of my kills in Axis invasion as its very tough to visually locate the enemy if they're a decent adversary.

Axis invasion mode is where the game really ramps up the action. It's all well and good taking your time sniping billions of Nazis in the cranium, but once one of those Nazis are controlled by a human player or two, things really get tense and unique. With the ability to join anyone on any map at almost anytime during the single-player campaign; Axis invasion allows random players from across the globe to take over as Jager Snipers for the opposing forces and track you down. I'm not going to lie, my first encounter with this mode shook me up big time because I just wasn't ready for the level of intensity I would feel being up against a fellow human player. As Karl, you continue your mission all the while fending off AI enemies and but with the added pressure of being stalked by human-controlled foe too.

The inverse of this allows you to become an evil sniper and invade the other player's game, however, there are no objectives to do, no collectables, and no second chances. the focus is entirely on kill or be killed. While playing this mode I racked up 20 kills against allied players, and while it's incredibly satisfying to figure out where the player is, and then stalk and kill them, it can quite gruelling to do so across such huge maps with nothing else to do or collect, and worse if they get killed by any of the AI its game over for both of you with no win for the invader regardless of the lengthy time spent scurrying about in the undergrowth. You cant even shoot the concrete eagles or collect hidden items for yourself, or to help or hinder the other player, it's missing a certain something to elevate this mode into something incredible.

Adding into the mix deathmatch, survival, cooperative and more this game really has all bases covered when it comes to gifting you with strategic multiplayer action, though I found the all against all modes very challenging and defeating human players is a lot more taxing than churning through hundreds of AI bots. I really enjoyed the little things, like statistics in deathmatch for who holds the longest kill distance, but I miss the old school tripwire mechanics, which I assume has been phased out to make way for the less intricate Teller and Shue-mines to speed up their viability as a useful defence mechanism.

Sniper Elite 5 is the complete package. It's more of what made the previous games great, expanded on, and with the most detailed visuals of the series so far. As a massive fan of the series I wholeheartedly recommend this as essential to be playing on your PS5 or Series X consoles (especially while it's a part of Gamepass), as it is quite simply the best of the best when it comes to sniper games. There are heaps of unlockables via hidden items and progression such as; characters, skins, weapon attachments, ribbons and medals to unlock as well as 62 trophies to pop so replayability is also through the roof for lone wolves or team players.