Sniper Elite Resistance Preview: Hands-on with Harry Hawker

And it was a grand ol' time.

I’d forgotten how much fun it was to run around in a Sniper Elite game and simply cause havoc. Rebellion’s upcoming Sniper Elite Resistance quickly reminded me of that.

I was lucky enough to get an hour of hands-on time with the upcoming sequel, and trusted to do whatever I wanted within one of its levels. Rather than tackling objectives, I naturaĺly chose to do everything but.

I’m getting ahead of myself. A non-numbered entry in the long-running franchise, that’s because Resistance is a story that runs parallel with Sniper Elite 5. Always the bridesmaid and finally the bride, this tale focusses on Harry Hawker, the character that usually steps in to fill the role of your (optional) co-op partner.

I’ll admit that it was weird, at first, hearing a non-American accent come spilling out of the protagonist after I delivered my first headshot to a Gestapo agent. That wholly familiar — and still very satisfying — crunchy x-ray cam that showed off my shot? Well that made me feel right at home.

Eyeshots, headshots, lungshots — they’re all as you remember, but bundled with an environment that looked notably crisp and gorgeous. I took time to appreciate the rustic French skyline of the level I was in before setting up camp and getting to work.

Overlooking a vast landscape that sprawled out below, I put a bullet in an enemy’s head, then his mate’s, and then waited a beat before two other guards walked too close to a telltale red barrel while investigating and then took them out too.

Risking an elevated heartbeat, I next sprinted closer to where a patrol truck was pulling up and lobbed a grenade in its direction. Time slowed as the truck’s inhabitants spilled from it and were immediately ripped to shreds from the grenade’s initial explosion, and then from the chain fireball that erupted from the truck’s compromised fuel tank.

Immediate threats taken care of, I found the highest vantage point near me and pulled out my binoculars, spotting patrols, those wielding searchlights, and — of the highest priority, of course — the glint of opposing snipers who certainly had a bounty on my head. While doing all this would eventually make it easier to penetrate a safehouse and gain intel, I honestly had no intent in doing that in my preview playthrough.

There’s a lot of room, as per usual, in Rebellion’s latest sandbox. Do you go full stealth, keeping your rifle on your back and instead sneaking through tall grass and cautiously going for silenced pistol headshots, or do you instead become a one-man army, switching between pistol, rifle, and assault weapon to lay bodies in your wake?

I opted for somewhere in the middle, sabotaging any generators I came across and using their mechanic bellows of pain to mask my shots. If I had spare explosives — and I always did, thanks to exploration and an abundance of supplies to loot — I usually booby-trapped bodies just for fun.

No matter what you do, Resistance is another puzzle that you get to slowly pick away at and solve, either through careful planning or throwing caution to wind in an effort to memorise enemy spawns for next time. There’s no wrong way to play, provided you’re having fun. And fun I had.

Sniper Elite Resistance will let Harry Hawker take centre stage in digital and physical formats on platforms including Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store alongside Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, and PS5 from 31 January 2025. It’s also available on day one on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.