How Historically Accurate is Sniper Elite 4? | Games of History
Wow, has it been a while? Three months, I believe, so let me re-introduce myself. I am Josh at Games of History, a YouTube channel that reviews history-based games based on their historical authenticity. Today’s episode is one I promised about five months ago and is finally out – Sniper Elite 4. Was it worth the wait? Probably not, but please pretend that it was, for me.
Sniper Elite 4 picks up right where the third game left off. I can’t remember our hero’s name, so I’ll just call him Torn Rip, was previously in Northern Africa taking on Rommel’s Desert Foxes. With his job done there, he didn’t get any time off, instead being shuffled down the line to the next battle, and the next theater of war. But where exactly that would be wasn’t yet agreed upon by the allies.
When Northern African was finally secured in July 1943, the United States, particularly General Dwight D. Eisenhower, strongly argued in favor of an invasion of France. But British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill instead suggested an invasion of Italy. He argued France was too heavily defended, especially along the coast, and that they were better off taking the path of least resistance. This is a completely different Winston Churchill you may remember from our Battlefield 1 episode, in which we talked about Churchill’s crazy plan of invading the Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli.
The allies ended up invading Sicily, and then mainland Italy after that, but Sniper Elite 4 isn’t about any of that. Instead, Sniper Elite 4 weaves its own crazy, entirely fictional plot all across equally fictional locations with totally uninteresting characters. It’s a shame, because the gameplay is some of the best the series as ever seen, a little generic, but still a hell of a lot of fun.
All that being said, the game does at least touch on some real moments from history – German radio guided rockets, satellite towers, railway artillery cannons, jet bombers, partisans, and even the Italian Mafia. That’s what I find so frustrating about this game. It gets all the little known details like those right, but the big stuff is either wrong or completely fictionalized to the point where the World War II setting doesn’t matter. It almost fees like developer Rebellion didn’t want to make a World War II game, but had to anyway and just did the best they could with the setting.
But I’ll let you be the judge of that for yourself. I’d love it if you watched my latest episode on Sniper Elite 4 and told me you thoughts about the game. Or point out how I’m wrong and stupid and dumb, whatever floats your boat.
Posted Jul 31, 2017, 2:34 PM UTC