The first Sniper Elite 4 gameplay trailer showcases slo-mo trauma and a surprise special guest

The Sniper Elite 4 gameplay trailer released today by Rebellion is disappointingly bereft of slow-motion nut-shots. It does have plenty of other slo-mo mayhem, though, including a gut-punch that lands so hard, a man's entire intestinal tract explodes inside of him. 

Okay, I don't know if it's his entire intestinal tract, but I'm pretty sure that this must be a heavier blow than the one that killed Houdini. You can also enjoy seeing a man's skull being turned into a bag of mixed nuts by a hard-thrown knee, watch another guy's kidneys gets torn apart by SMG fire, and witness a knife sliding effortlessly into the base of somebody's brain.   

There's a spot of sniping, too, but not as much as I would expect from a game that's ostensibly about being a super-sniper. I mean, it's right there in the title. Whatever happened to getting the job quietly, like a professional

The trailer ends with an injection of Surprise Hitler, although I suppose it's not really a surprise now. Sorry about that. The little snippet that wraps things up is taken from Target Fuhrer, a preorder bonus campaign mission. Your job is to assassinate the commander of a secret Nazi U-boat base in the Mediterranean, but when you get there, he's already dead—and Hitler did it! No points to Der Fuhrer for doing you a solid, though: Now you must destroy the whole base and kill Hitler in as many ways as you can dream up. Rebellion says Surprise Hitler—I mean, Target Fuhrer—is a “replayable campaign mission for 1-2 players.”

Sniper Elite 4 is scheduled to come out on February 14, 2017. We took a closer look at it in March.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.