"Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier" preview

Image: Rebellion

在《狙击精英 VR：冬日战士》中，您可以像萨姆·费舍尔曾经那样，瞄准敌人并渗透到基地。 它是如何播放的 Meta Quest 3？

"Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier" is the second VR game in Rebellion's traditional stealth shooting game series. Like the first game, you take on the role of an Italian freedom fighter and assassinate Nazis in a World War II setting.

For the preview of Sniper Elite VR: Winter Warrior, I was allowed to play the first two Quests after the tutorial in Meta Quest 3.

Sniper Elite VR: The Winter Soldier is the closest to its predecessor

Like the previous PC VR game, "Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier" will let you play a lone warrior "guerrilla" fighting against the Nazis in Italy. They wanted to use a mysterious "wonder weapon" to win World War II.

My humble mission is to destroy the plans for these weapons, eliminate all those behind them, and drive the Nazis from my homeland once and for all.

Anyone who has played Sniper Elite VR on PSVR or PC VR will feel right at home. Guerrilla is voiced by the same voice actor, the menus are familiar, and Winter Soldier's gameplay is nearly identical to its predecessor.

Sneak, shoot, repeat

At the beginning of the Quest, Guerrilla briefly explained what I had to do and how best to proceed. In the first two Quests, I had to plant explosive devices in a port and find and eliminate an important officer in an old Nazi villa.

To kill silently, you squat down and pull your butt over the guard's skull. | Image: Rebellion

Core gameplay includes stealth and shooting. I decide if I want to move quietly or act like a bulldozer. To sneak into an unseen camp, I had to move carefully between crates or under the cover of darkness. I could also choose smaller alternative routes away from the main roads. However, the first two maps aren't particularly large.

Pushing a button, I crouched down and silently approached a guard. Once I'm close enough, I draw my weapon and hit the bad guy in the head. In some cases, I was able to shoot without being detected if very loud ambient noise overwhelmed the lens.

In my first Quest, the Nazis were firing a powerful cannon in the distance. Sound helps me move without being noticed. These stealth moments inevitably become one of the game's strengths, even if they aren't overly challenging - at least in the first two Quests.

Sniper Elite VR: The Winter Soldier doesn’t have the smartest opponents

As a native German speaker, the guard's unintentionally dubbed German voice sounds like something out of an 80's B-movie, which always makes me smile. Unfortunately, the robot action sequences lack charm.

In firefights, enemy AI can sometimes seem haphazard, placing itself in the middle of the line of fire rather than seeking cover. | Image: Rebellion

In the nearly two hours I've spent playing Sniper Elite VR: The Winter Soldier so far, I've rarely encountered coherent enemy behavior. Guards have a clear route and they usually don't deviate from it. However, when it came to firefights, they would sometimes run around in completely uncoordinated ways, crouch next to cover, or follow me into a room where I could easily take them out in one go.

Alarm triggering also seems a bit arbitrary. For example, shooting outside a mansion will lure a dozen enemies into the courtyard. But if I'm in the building and shooting all around me in the hall, I'm not going to scare the guy in the next room from his desk.

Rich and authentic arsenal

The developers have provided a large number of authentic World War II weapons for the firefight. Even in the first two Quests, there were about ten different pistols and rifles around. Gun lovers will have a lot of fun, especially since most weapons behave differently.

With countless weapon models, you can deal tons of damage in Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier. | Image: Rebellion

The pistol and ammunition can be stored in an adjustable holster on the body, while the rifle can be slung on the back by the handle. However, gunplay, which is so important to a shooter, hasn't convinced me just yet. The weapon sounds a bit small, lacks feedback on impact, and reloading doesn't always go smoothly.

Of course, I know it's tempting for VR to make the operation of weapons as realistic as possible. But this is rarely a good idea. If reloading a weapon requires up to four hand movements, but the controls aren't 100 percent accurate, the required realism will create frustration rather than immersion.

On a bolt-action rifle, for example, the grip points of the bolt and grip are so close that the game kept misinterpreting my inputs. Luckily, I have a wide variety of weapons to choose from, and between Quests I can pick the most practical weapon for my next Quest.

Kill shots in VR using typical Sniper Elite photography techniques

The sniper rifle is very important to the series and is by far the most interesting to me. I had to hold the rifle with both hands and stare into the scope. While looking at it, I can activate focus mode to steadier my virtual hand and stabilize the image. The red circle that gets smaller with each breath also helps me aim.

If I hit a direct hit, the camera gracefully follows the bullet as it reaches the enemy, then switches to a third-person X-ray view detailing skull or gut penetration. This may sound a bit scary, but it's so exaggerated that even people with weak stomachs should have no problem.

It's a shame that developers haven't implemented killcams more consistently in VR. The sudden shift in perspective knocked me out of immersion. I wanted the camera to stay on the bullet and let me run through the enemy in slow motion with a full view.

My review of Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier

The stealth genre seems to be making a comeback in VR. The fast-travel game just hit Quest 3, PSVR 2 and PC with World of Darkness conversion Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Nexus could be the next big hit with stealth potential VR games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrQEfYPqt0

If you're not into vampires or assassins, Sniper Elite VR: The Winter Soldier's world war setting is an interesting alternative. However, in terms of gameplay, I think a direct comparison between stealth shooters is highly unlikely.

The second VR spin-off in the popular Sniper series doesn't bring anything new, the enemy AI is underdeveloped, and the game's graphics don't look up to date. However, if "Rebellion" can score points with its creative Quest design in the remaining levels, then "Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier" will at least be a good VR game for fans of stealth and shooter games.

"Sniper Elite VR: Winter Soldier" will be released on November 30, 2023 for Meta Quest 3, Quest 2 and Quest Pro.

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