Sniper Elite V2 Remastered (Review)

I’d say we’ve had it pretty good when it comes to remasters and re-releases of 7th generation games on the Switch. Despite a worryingly common misconception that the system is no more powerful than the Xbox 360, when in reality it’s somewhere in the middle. Because of this, ports tend to be a hybrid of graphical fidelity. Keeping resolutions and texture detail high, similar to the current consoles. Meanwhile, other effects like the level of detail and lighting tend to stick closer to last generation iterations.

Another console with similar in-between power was the Wii U. Which had a fantastic modern graphics chip but was severely bottlenecked by a very outdated processor. Because of this, third-party support dwindled fast and developers put less effort into their ports.

One of the earliest and most infamous examples was Sniper Elite V2. Despite having been a year old by the time the Wii U version released, the port shipped the game’s single-player campaign and nothing else. No co-op, DLC side missions, or multiplayer. And yet they still charged $50 for the game.

Now it’s coming back as Sniper Elite V2 Remastered and coming to all modern platforms, including Switch. Are Nintendo players finally getting the full V2 experience, or are we being clipped yet again?

So as you could probably infer, this review is going to be focusing more on how Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is as a port than as a game itself. So it only makes sense to start with how the game looks and runs. When I first started playing, I honestly wasn’t too impressed. I know I said earlier that with the Switch being less powerful than other platforms, you can tend to expect a hybrid between current and last gen graphics but to me, it honestly didn’t really look all that better than I remembered it looking. So I booted up the Wii U version and even the Xbox 360 version of the game for comparison’s sake. The Wii U version looks ever so slightly better than the 360, as one would expect, so I’ll be sticking to it to compare with the new Switch version. And when side by side, that’s when the difference begins to spring up. There’s way more detail in the remastered version, with tons of foliage and debris added to levels and even some of the cutscenes like the pigeons in the opening cutscene. Other than that, textures appear to be much more defined and even have some normal mapping applied. And there are some extra lighting effects that range from “oooh that’s nice” to “that lens flare looks awful and out of place”. Otherwise, Sniper Elite V2 on Switch isn’t exactly an impressive looking game. One thing that stands out is the distance where the game loads in the normal, more defined models as opposed to the lower-res ones being fairly short. It especially sticks out when sniping since a lot of enemies at a distance tend to look like GoldenEye enemies.

Wii U (left) vs Switch (Right)

As for performance, it’s alright. The game is capped at 30 FPS and doesn’t feature the 60fps option like the PS4 and Xbox One versions. And the game certainly likes to drop frames when just about anything is happening. But it’s not bad enough that it could ruin the experience. Especially since the game is so heavily focused on stealth and sniping, which doesn’t necessarily require crazy quick reflexes as general action shooting would. I should note that the game does have a day 1 patch with further optimizations in mind but considering that it’s going out the day of release and not while I’m supposed to be reviewing it, I can’t really comment on it. So I guess everything I just said is moot. Or not. I don’t know. Thanks, Rebellion.

The last thing is the resolution. Just like, well, every Switch game ever, the game utilizes a dynamic resolution to keep the framerate up while knocking down the overall quality of the image on the screen. And this is where I think most of the initial unimpressive reaction came from. I imagine the game hovers somewhere between 720p and 900p for most of the time though it can occasionally hit 1080p if it wants. Though I’m also sure this may change with the day 1 patch.

All that’s really left to talk about is the content. So, does Sniper Elite V2 Remastered keep everything from other versions of the game? In short, yes. Unlike the Wii U port, you’re getting the original game fully intact along with all subsequent DLC characters and missions. And it’s pretty great since there’s a lot of content. You get a single player campaign that can also be played with a friend in online co-op. Three different separate co-op game modes. A more or less standard horde mode. (Remember when every AAA game had to have these things). A handful of standalone side missions. And a multiplayer mode. Now since I have a review copy, I can’t really talk about the online co-op or multiplayer since I don’t have anyone to play it with. The only thing I can say is that while the multiplayer can support up to 16 players on PS4/Xbox One, the Switch version supports up to only 8 players. Which is…odd. I don’t think they Switch can’t handle more players but okay, I guess.

All that’s left is to talk about the quality of the game itself, which I don’t think there’s much I can say that hasn’t already been said in the 7 years this game has been out. You know how in like, every American World War 2 movie there’s always that one guy with the Brooklyn accent who’s like “yo you put me within 400 yards of Hitler, BOOM, we all go home”. That’s Sniper Elite V2. You’re that guy. You play as a sniper (as the name of the game certainly gives away) during the very end of WW2. And while the game controls like your average third-person shooter, the emphasis is on the game’s very in-depth sniping mechanic in which you have to account for distance, bullet drop, wind, and other factors. But one of the things that I actually really like about the game is the amount of control it gives the player to customize the experience to their liking. Not only does the game feature three difficulty modes that scale up the sniping mechanics and enemy ferocity, but there’s even a custom difficulty setting that you can mess with if you’d rather the game play like a straight third-person shooter or if you’d like to enjoy the sniping mechanics without worrying about getting sniped right back by standard grunts. The campaign isn’t exactly the greatest thing in the world. No real deep captivating story or anything, just a lot of standard “There are Germans, go shoot them” kinda stuff. My biggest complaint really comes with whenever you’re not sniping. The long-distance shooting mechanics are great but when the game (surprisingly often) wants you to play the game as a standard third-person shooter with the automatic weapons, it feels very very not great. Of course, it’s like this so the game encourages you to snipe rather than run and gun, but the game wants you to run and gun so often that it can feel a bit frustrating when all of your guns basically miss every shot.

The last thing I want to bring up is just some odd inconsistencies with this version of the game. If you’ve ever played Sniper Elite V2 on any other console, expect the controls to be very different. In fact, all three versions of V2 I tested for this review had different control set-ups. Which took time to get used to. Another is that the opening tutorial mission of the original 360 and Wii U versions is just gone. That is unless you turn on the Tutorials option on the menu, which is off by default. And lastly, this version of the game comes with a slew of extra characters to play as in the game’s co-op, horde, and side missions. And you can play as these characters too in the campaign, but when you start a new game it doesn’t give you the choice of who to play as and just picks the last character you played from other modes. And those characters aren’t the real main character of the campaign, either. So imagine my surprise when I’m playing the campaign and John Sniper Elite is lining up a shot in the cutscene only to be replaced by a female Russian freedom fighter in the gameplay. It’s a very odd oversight.

Overall, I really like Sniper Elite V2 Remastered. It’s not an amazing game or perfect port but still a very good experience with a ton of content and variety to keep you busy for a fairly long time. If you’re curious enough about it, I’d recommend picking it up.

Final Score: 3.5/5

Update: The day 1 patch came out as I was wrapping up this review and I didn’t really seem to notice too much of a difference. I think the level of detail and dynamic resolution might have been made a bit more aggressive though I didn’t really notice anything in my recorded footage. I’d say it runs about, 20% better? Maybe? Can we stop doing day 1 patches for ports and remasters? Please?