TL:DR - WAIT FOR FIXES AND BUY AT A DISCOUNT

First things first, Sniper Elite: Resistance (SER) is NOT Sniper Elite 6; it's a mere Sniper Elite 5.1, a.k.a. a huge DLC. On a number of points, it's "more of the same":

- the menu structure & UI are the same
- graphics are the same
- weapon customization is the same
- Invasion mode, Campaign, Multiplayer have the same structure

On the other hand, the novelties are quite limited. The main one is a Resistance Challenge mode (more on that later) which you unlock via posters found on the walls in missions. The other one is the return of a multiplayer mode from Sniper Elite 3 (!) where teams face each other on maps divided by an impassable obstacle.

Straight from the start, the "more of the same" leaves place to a "less of the same" feeling. The base game features 9 missions on paper, like SE5. However, of those 9 missions the first one is a Prologue featuring a tiny map extracted from Mission 4 where you get to play the full map, and the 9th mission is an Epilogue a la SE5, a straightforward assassination. As a result, we get to play 7 and a half missions (i.e. less than SE5) for the price of a fully-fledged game. That hurts.

There's a new selection of weapons in all three categories. Most are unprecedented (YAY!) but the roster is small (7 rifles + the KAR 98 if you buy the Deluxe edition, a disgusting move from Rebellion), 8 secondary SMGs and 6 sidearms (+ the 1911 again in the Deluxe edition). That's pitiful and a tad scammy, considering two of the most iconic weapons of WW2 have been gated behind a paywall, and the weapon roster will be expanded later via paid DLCs.

Ingame, we find the same flaws that already hindered SE5, but on a greater scale. In terms of graphics, zoomed-in textures are pixellated and there's a lot of aliasing (especially on buildings over distance). There's ray-tracing but its impact on rendering is minimal. In terms of gameplay, maps feel overall bigger than those from SE5, but are equally severely underpopulated. SE5 missions had a final kill count averaging 100-120 enemies; those from SER painfully get to 60-80, which fosters the impression of roaming empty maps. Enemy AI somehow manages to be even worse than SE5's, with enemies prone to kiting away, camping in place or being stuck behind walls instead of rushing and putting pressure on the player. There's also pathfinding issues with soldiers running against objects, spinning around in place or unable to climb ladders. A number of bugs also affect the player, with occasional invisible "holes" where you fall through bridges and platforms (sometimes through the map itself) or get stuck inside furniture and objects.

In terms of background action, there's a lot to be desired as well. There are LOTS of assets and props reused from previous SE titles, some of which include whole buildings and layouts. Other levels are heavily inspired by previous ones, such as Mission 7 which is an almost perfect crossover between SE5's Occupied Residence and Target Hitler. Credit where credit's due, some of them are cool and awesome-looking but the overall emptiness and number of reused stuff makes the result feel lazy and uninspired.

As mentioned earlier, the only real "novelty" is the Resistance Challenges. This controversial mode features a handful of TIME-LIMITED missions, one per map on which you unlocked it, centered around a specific theme - stealth, sniping, combat - where you're given a predetermined loadout you don't get to choose and have to complete the mission as fast as possible by killing a set number of targets to earn points based on a combo system awarding you a medal at the end. This gameplay mechanic feels awkwardly out-of-place in a game that's fundamentally supposed to be centered around patience and cautious gameplay. The sniping missions are still somewhat fun but the overall series isn't that much of a challenge once you understood the combo system and has no replayability value whatsoever since there's no point to keep playing it once you achieved Gold in all missions unless you're maniacal enough to try & top your personal best score, especially considering there not even a leaderboard to compare your performance to your friends or random people.

Another missed opportunity is the storyline and setting. Sniper Elite's storytelling (as a series) has never been it's selling point, but this episode is probably the weakest of them all, with poor narration and zero sense of threat. Characters are abysmally caricatural, insignificant & transparent; they are never developped, never even really shown in cutscenes. You never bond to them, never care about them, never even get to know where they come from and what they are doing here... The Resistance itself, which gives its name to the game and is supposed to be glorified throughout the campaign, doesn't exist INSIDE the game AT ALL: unlike Italian partisans in SE4, you never see them, they never perform any ingame actions, sabotages, never attack outposts, never appear as intel providers... They just don't exist. A huge missed opportunity. Same goes for the enemies: Elite german troops (Jaegers) almost completely disappeared from missions in favor of Gestapo members which are nothing more than reskinned Officers: they carry a pistol, can blow the wistle and spot you from farther away but don't have any additional perks, weapons or tools to make your life miserable. Utterly disappointing. Harry Hawker - your character - himself is bland, not particularly sympathetic and ultimately not a hero you end up caring about too much. True, he's quite new to the franchise as a playable character and doesn't have Karl's track record, but still ends up being sadly forgettable.

Overall, this game leaves a bit of a sour taste, with a last insult: Denuvo Anti-cheat. Once again, Rebellion implemented this overly intrusive system in its game, operating at Kernel levels within your PC. The problem is that, philosophical considerations aside, it also crushes the game's performance. On an RTX 2070 Super/Core i5-13900/32Gb DDR4 RAM/2To SSD (not the latest rig but most modern games still run at stable 60 fps on Ultra graphics), SER runs at 60-70 fps without Denuvo and 25-30 with. You are NOT required to install this bloatware if you intend to play solo, but if you're want to play INVASIONS, you WILL HAVE TO, which is a huge issue for players that have a rig comparable to mine, and I've seen reports from people experiencing difficulties on better rigs as well as memory leaks. There's still a lot of work to do to optimize the game, a song we're all too familiar with in 2025's gaming industry.

In a nutshell, if you were expecting Sniper Elite 6, you will be disappointed; Sniper Elite: Resistance is a mere DLC to SE5, with less content than SE5 at launch but the same flaws and the same price, leaving an annoying "more of the same - less of the same" feeling. Technical issues are certainly bound to be fixed within the next few months; game design issues, map design flaws, tiny weapon roster and predatory pricing are due to stay however. It looks like Rebellion tried to do with SER what Gearbox did with The Pre-Sequel back in the day, releasing the game as a filler to make us wait until Sniper Elite 6 while charging the whole price of an AAA in the process. In its current state, my advice is two-fold:
- wait for it to become more polished;
- NEVER BUY IT AT THE FULL STEAM PRICE. It's simply not worth the asking price. Legal sellers like Instant Gaming for instance offer a 30% discount on the Deluxe Edition, which brings it closer to its actual worth; a few months down the line, the game will become even cheaper, and that will probably be the best time to grab it. In the meantime, we'll be keeping a thorough eye on Rebellion which, for the 2nd time in a couple of years, seems to persist in predatory pricing and low-key effort put into game design, content and optimization. It will have to stop.

Having been a fan of Sniper Elite series for a long time, I have to give this one a thumbs down. No way this is worth full price. Very much copy and paste of SE5, the maps are very small in comparison and incredibly linear, save for maybe 1 or 2 missions.

Quite a few bugs (not being able to climb certain ladders properly, can't finish certain missions the correct way etc) and no real innovation from the previous iteration.

If you're a fan of the series, wait until it's on a big sale because it's absolutely not worth the price they are asking for.

I'm a big fan of the Sniper Elite games and have spent a ton of hours playing them. I have to say this is the worst Sniper Elite game of the bunch. A lot of reviews are calling it Sniper Elite 5.5, and I agree. While you do get 9 missions, many of them feel like previous games' missions. There are a significant amount of bugs that I've experienced. Overall the game feels rushed and poorly executed. It's definitely not worth full price. If you're looking to purchase I'd wait for at least 40% off.

TLDR: Rushed game. Feels bad. Wait for a sale.