Sniper Elite 5

I just spent 3 hours on the first mission… annoyingly the kill list man didn't appear, despite clearing the whole map. It's more Sniper Elite, but with more open maps and a bit more 4Kness (on Series X anyhow). I like it.

I got invaded by a player mid game, crept my way to a building hoping it’d have a phone in it, but the option to interact with it wasn’t there. I’m guessing the other player bailed?
It’d be nice to have more guidance as to what’s happening and when.

Can you avoid the invasions by turning that off if you like? I assume yo can. I had hoped to start this this weekend, but didn't manage to. Mostly due to being a bit busy and spending what little gaming time I had with LiS:True Colours instead, mostly as a change of pace from constant worry about dying when playing Elden Ring for the last bunch of months!

Sometimes, I just want to mooch about exploring a level in my own time without getting plugged by someone else

That is not cricket mate! I was already to enter you! (your game of course) I will have my revenge in this world or the next 

Are we still going to Horde mode at some point, jono62 also.

Some point 😊

Xp doesn't matter anyway as most of the skills are shit, you can have all the good ones early anyway

Enemies are quite tightly packed so you do end up going loud quite a bit more than maybe you would like. Unless you are a ninja who has 5 hours to spend on each level.

Invaders will quite often get you in the shit as well.

I've played a little bit of this so far, but I've experienced a few negatives, which may hopefully become non-issues later in the game.

I've only messed around on the first level so far, experimenting with my approach, and I've already found myself in a couple of situations whereby after sniping an enemy, practically all enemies on the map have descended on my position from all sides, including areas I've just cleared behind me. I get it... the sniper rifle isn't silenced, but I suppose I was hoping for more stealth gameplay.

Also, on the first level I would have liked a few elevated positions, just to allow the player to get their eye in, have a bit of sniping fun, and to provide an introduction to the stealth and sniping mechanics (such as setting scope distance) but the terrain is completely flat so far.

In the end I just sniped a few enemies from long grass while I could, before coming under heavy fire, then waded in with my silenced pistol and machine gun down the trench system to take out the radar, but it felt wrong to do so. I've no idea how I could have approached this stealthily and remain unnoticed, apart from maybe crawling whilst prone the entire way... The game outlines none of this.

I'm also not a huge fan of the way to terrain funnels you down certain avenues with impassable fences and trees... I don't know why it couldn't have just been a completely open map.

Yeah, I had loads of subsonic rounds in the first level, then absolutely none in the second! Just started the third level and I’m almost a bit scared to head over the bridge…

barchetta
Not that I'm aware of. As I say, I'm only on the first level, but if they were in previous games I'm sure they'll make an appearance here too.

I'd have thought you'd be able to unlock a silencer for the rifle itself though, or you'd have a suppressed rifle from the start, rather than needing suppressed rounds ... I've already picked up a handful of silenced German machine guns, so I assume suppressed rifles existed during WWII? Maybe not.

Regardless, I'm just a little disappointed because I thought the game would be more Delta Force than CoD.

Vortex
I'm not sure, the game explains none of this, such as special ammo and ambient noise systems... Of course, it makes perfect sense for explosions / planes to mask sniper rifle fire, but if the game doesn't specifically tell me that it accounts for this, then I have to assume it doesn't. I'll have a look into all of this when I play later.

I take your point about the game being too easy with suppressed weapons, which is the conclusion I came to.

That said, ever since the experience of playing as a sniper in CoD (of all games) on the Wasteland and Array CoD maps, hiding in the long grass / snow, in a ghillie suit, with players running around trying to find you, I've wanted a full single player game that's the same, where you play as a "ghost" on the battlefield.

One false move and it's all over, but until that point have to patiently traverse the battlefield, or find a good concealed vantage point, lying in wait for opportunities to quietly eliminate enemies, who may even walk straight past you, as the human players did when I was playing CoD. I think it'd be really fun.

I'm finding the stealth mechanics far too eager and punishing in SE5 - even when lying prone in long grass the enemies all seem to know your position immediately when it all kicks off.

There’s both suppressed rounds and suppressed rifles in the first level- the rounds are easy to pick up in various places and the rifles are often in the lookout spots after you’ve taken out who’s there.

Sabotaging equipment and/or shooting from noisy areas let’s you use the normal rounds with relative impunity too.

That said, I agree it’s all a bit “loud” and the enemies swamp you too much. Will have to see how later levels go.

Legging it when shit got a bit out of hand/went badly wrong was kind of always the fun of it though.

Unless you happened to die during the chase!

A lot of it is learning the levels a bit before making the final moves.

I haven't even started it up yet, that's for my platnum jubbly hols. Cheers queenie.

4 missions/levels down and each one ends with a body count to rival and Rambo movie! it is definitely more action orientated than previous entries, or at least it seems that way. I am enjoying it though.