These Sniper Elite 5 tips and tricks will aid novices and veterans of the game. It plays like previous installments, with larger maps and a few additional features, and builds upon the same formula of previous entries offering the perfect mix of stealth, tactical shooting, and sniping.
Sniper Elite 5 Tips
Going over these basic tips and tricks will help you better grasp the game mechanics of Sniper Elite 5, allowing you to dive straight into the action.
We’ll discuss stances, sound masking, objective choices, gameplay options, and the freedom players have while sneaking about the massive maps of SE5. So, these tips and tricks are sure to have a little something for everyone.
Crouch/Prone To Improve Weapon Stability
For stealthy maneuvering going prone is a no-brainer. However, improving weapon stability by staying prone is not. In the fundamentals tab, you can also find this tip under the crouch and prone section.
However, since these basic game features carry over from previous entries, most people no longer waste time reading these sections.
Crouching while using a ranged weapon may be more appealing for mobility but going prone gives that extra assurance for a clean shot. Aiming your weapon while staying prone increases its stability and accuracy, but it may take time to get used to shooting through tall grass.
Mastering Sound Management
Managing the sound you produce and hear is a sniper’s primary focus. Stealth is of major concern, and a silencer is your best friend in this scenario and can be equipped with all three types of firearms (sniper rifle, submachine gun, pistol). You’ll start with only a silenced pistol at first, but it’ll be sufficient for taking out enemies within proximity of each other without alerting them.
It is also important to note that loud noises help disguise your shots so enemies won’t be alerted further away.
You can manage the sound that you produce in several different ways. The amount of sound that you make is indicated by a sound wave UI on top of your HUD. If your sound is masked, you’ll see a big wavy line at the top of your HUD.
Enemies will be alerted quickly and will also react more aggressively if they hear your shot. Therefore, it is necessary to mask your shots. You can do this by firing your weapon when there is a larger sound source nearby, like a passing airplane, truck, or a simple generator, siren, etc.
There’s also an achievement linked to masking your sounds in the game. If you manage to kill 50 enemies with a shot where your sound is masked, you’ll complete the “As Quiet as a Mouse” achievement.
Swap Perspectives For Each Weapon
One thing usually the players don’t know is that you can swap the perspective for each type of weapon before hopping onto the mission. You can select if you want to aim down sight in third person or first person mode beforehand.
This is quite helpful because sometimes, like in the case of SMGs where you have to quickly get rid of a lot of enemies at close range, you could select the default aim mode to third-person.
This expands your field of view, allowing you to see more of your surroundings and makes it easier to aim, since the SMGS really aren’t that accurate, you wouldn’t be sacrificing much using the standard crosshairs.
Similarly, you could also set the default perspective of your pistol and sniper rifle to third person mode, but putting the sniper rifle aim mode to third person often isn’t recommended since it’s basically used at longer range. You can set the default aim mode of your pistol depending on how you use it though.
The third-person aim mode also brings forth another great mechanism that players can use to their advantage – Swapping shoulders. You can now swap shoulders (left/right) to alternate your field of view, specifically when looking over corners.
Disable Alarms
Alarms are a silent player’s worst enemy. Nobody likes the alarms going off at any point during the mission. Especially later on when you’ve spent a significant amount of time trying not to get spotted and one bad move destroys everything.
Finding and Disabling any Alarms that you find while on a mission firsthand will allow you to breathe easy through the rest of the mission, so it definitely is recommended. If you don’t fancy taking all the time to disable the alarm, you can just shoot it!
Kill Officers To Weaken Reinforcements
In addition to Disabling Alarms, you can also take down Officers early on during the mission to reduce your chances of getting into a larger fight. Officers are higher-ranked enemies that wear a black officer cap, along with a belt across their chests. They have the capacity to order backup/reinforcements to hunt you down if they see you. Since we don’t really want that, it’s best to get rid of these Officers first to reduce the chances of them calling in reinforcements.
Use Bottles To Knock Out Enemies
Another great tactic to knock out enemies, that’s quite often overlooked honestly, is using Bottles. Though they don’t really have a far enough range to throw and might be difficult to aim since you have to take into account the projectile motion or the arc, Bottles are still a great way to knock out or disable enemies if your shot is well placed on the head.
Bottles can also be used to knock out more than one enemy, if they’re standing together, that is. If you place your shot at the head of one enemy and throw the bottle, the shards of the broken bottle will penetrate the nearby enemies and disable them for a short time, which you can use to quickly melee them off.
Another great tip to remember is that you can also throw bottles over cover. You could technically call it hipfire, because you don’t really have to lose your cover to aim the bottle at an enemy.
Gain The High Ground Advantage
Sniper Elite 5 allows you to climb, so make full use of it. Scan the zone when approaching a high-rise building or cliff to find ascendable areas. Drainpipes, fretworks, Vines, etc., can allow you to achieve the necessary high ground to examine the area and eliminate your targets.
You can also evade swarms of enemies just by climbing and taking a direct approach to your objective.
Have Your Escape Plan Ready
Having an escape ready is essential to executing a perfect mission. Imagine a scenario where you execute a mission with no time wasted, without being spotted by the enemy, and with a 100 percent takedown accuracy, just for it all to fall apart at the end when you have no safe escape in sight.
The importance of having at least one exit in your sights is immense. You should also consider having a backup strategy as a safety cushion should the first fail.
Go Straight To the Target
The straight approach is sometimes the best one. Some tasks are more awkward to complete than others, becoming more challenging as you progress. Some players may struggle to keep up with the flow of the mission. If you ever feel overwhelmed, the most effective approach is to go straight to the target instead of taking every enemy out.
Turn Off Axis Invasion
The axis invasion mode may be one of the best additions to the game. However, for newer players, it can be extremely frustrating. The invading players only need to hunt the player without focusing on mission tasks.
The AI doesn’t attack them either. It isn’t a big problem for seasoned players who know the game in and out, but it may be too overwhelming for newer snipers.
So, stick to just the AI until you’ve finished the campaign.
Mastering Bullet Drops
Accurately aiming with your sniper is a crucial skill in the Sniper Elite franchise. Not only allowing you to smoothly progress through your missions and get some sick kill cams. Taking the distance and bullet drop into account is the mark of a skilled sniper.
This is affected by the attachments and type of sniper you use. Some scopes may offer a greater zoom rate but lack in the rate of fire or weapon stability. Other weapons, or the attachments on them, may increase the general weapon sway. This makes it harder to aim, especially when you’re sniping an enemy from afar.
All of this must be taken into consideration when choosing your arsenal. You should choose the best loadout, or the corresponding weapons and attachments to really minimize the sway and effectively snipe from afar without much of a bullet drop problem. This will mostly be effective if you’re planning to snipe from a long way off since the bullet doesn’t drop by a lot if it doesn’t travel too much.
If you’re playing on the Authentic mode, you won’t have that much help with the bullet drop. In that case, you’ll have to make a few adjustments. You have to use your binoculars and scan the enemy to know how far it is, specifically its range. You can then dial in the range into your sniper scope to adjust for the distance and the wind speed. That’s how you handle bullet drops in Authentic mode.
