Dev Diaries | Multiplayer

It’s great to see so many of you getting excited about the varying ways to play Sniper Elite 5. With so many questions about multiplayer specifically, I thought I’d take the opportunity to walk the community through some of the upcoming features you’ll be able to get your hands on from May 26th.

One of the biggest changes coming to Sniper Elite 5 is the introduction of 4 team multiplayer. In past Sniper Elite titles multiplayer only pitted 2 teams against each other with a 12 player cap, this time we’ve pushed the cap up to 16 to allow for a new 4v4v4v4 mode called Squad Match. Due to popular demand, we’ve also implemented optional cross-play so players can join their fellow Sniper friends on other systems without restriction.

We’ve also greatly expanded the customisation options for multiplayer games across all platforms. Score type, score cap and time limits are no longer tied to specific pre-sets as we wanted to give players more freedom to build their own custom experience. Game modes from previous Sniper Elite titles make a return in new forms as Free-For-All, Team Match and No-Cross. Players are also encouraged more than ever to craft their own multiplayer experiences based on personal preference and are even able to customise the scoring type for any given match.

Another big change is how we’ve handled multiplayer progression and the meta-game. Progression towards attachments, skins and weapon unlocks is no longer shared with the campaign mode as multiplayer now has its own bespoke unlock system. As an example, if you want to unlock a particular attachment for a weapon, you’ll have to use that weapon or another related one to complete challenges whilst competing in Multiplayer to unlock completion rewards.

We’ve also included an entire suite of multiplayer exclusive perks that are split between 5 different classes. By default players will always have the Sniper class equipped with the choice of then picking between Scout, Medic, Engineer and Assault as a secondary class. These classes allow players to specialise their perks to suit their playstyle and the varying opponents they’ll be facing, this could mean swapping classes in-between respawns. Players are able to unlock perk points every time they level up which they can then use to buy perks from a classes perk tree. The perks have been balanced to help encourage and augment different playstyles as opposed to outright boosting weapon damage or accuracy.

Players can also make use of new items in multiplayer, one of the favourites amongst the dev team here at Rebellion is the Decoy! As the name suggests it’s an item that generates a scope glint that players can deploy to trick opponents into firing and giving away their position. Something to note is that if an opponent fires at your decoy and destroys it, they’ll automatically be tagged. So players are heavily incentivised to pick their shots carefully and be wary of any pesky decoys on the battlefield.

One more addition I’d quickly like to touch upon are Supply Drops, these are special caches that spawn in around the map at various intervals. Successfully getting to a Supply Drop first and opening it will not only net you a heavy weapon, but it’ll automatically tag any opponents within a 50m radius, so there’s a risk vs reward paradigm players will have to consider when dealing with supply drops. The rewards for getting to one first are notable, but failing to successfully do so will give away your position and put you at risk.