Sniper Elite 5 targets May release date

Sniper Elite 4 was a super fun third-person shooter with a focus on stealth and sniping nazis from great distances. It's genuinely one of my favourite shooters of recent times, and Tyler loved it too, writing that it "embraces freeform play, gets better in co-op, and most importantly lets us shoot things from very far away."

Its long-awaited (by me) follow-up is Sniper Elite 5, and Rebellion has confirmed a release date: it's May 26. As is always the case with these games, if you pre-order Sniper Elite 5 you get a special mission centred around sniping Hitler himself. "You will get to infiltrate the Berghof, Hitler's private mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps, which is crawling with heavily armed personal guard, and a slew of collectibles for eagle-eyed snipers," reads the official blurb.

Rebellion also confirmed in January that Sniper Elite 5 will have a new "Invasion Mode" similar to the one in Dark Souls. So, expect to occasionally be invaded by a player-controlled Axis sniper, who also has the power to use other AI-controlled Axis soldiers to locate the Allied sniper. Sounds like mean fun.

In keeping with its usual World War 2 setting, Sniper Elite 5 will move from the last instalment's Italy into France. Expect a series of sprawling sandbox maps with a ton of verticality, all the better to shoot nazis from very far away, and then to enjoy slowmo x-ray footage of bullets entering craniums. Pre-orders are open on Steam now.

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.