After 21 years of consistent sniping, Rebellion’s Sniper Elite team is confident there “is still room to grow” as the series continues forward. Following this year’s Sniper Elite Resistance spin-off, Rebellion sees a bold future for the series.
Speaking on the upcoming episode of the FRVR Podcast, lead level designer Beck Shaw explained that there are lot of arenas and features that they ‘haven’t explored yet’ – despite confirming that the series will stay grounded in World War 2 for the foreseeable future.
“I think there is room for us to grow still,” said Shaw. “There are a lot of different arenas of the war that we haven’t explored yet, lots of interesting stories we haven’t told. There’s characters that we might want to explore more as well. Like I say, there’s a lot of room for it to grow, a lot of different features to implement and, yeah, more that we can hopefully give to the fans and hopefully new fans that might be quite interesting for them in the future.”
Despite it’s WW2 setting, which has seen levels set across deserts and woodlands, major areas such as the Pacific islands – which would boast lush jungles, are yet to be explored. However, Shaw stressed that while they will “never say never” to jungle-based missions in Sniper Elite, the environment presents some challenges for a game so reliant on a clear field of view.
“We do hear that a lot of fans would like to explore the Pacific, and I think internally there might be some design as well,” he said. “Who knows where we’ll go next. But, yeah, I think the Pacific would be a big challenge, it’s small island with lots of jungle. Jungles don’t really lend themselves to sniping as you can’t see very far,” he said. “But who knows, we would never say never. It might need a lot of swimming and we might need to get some vehicles in the game as well.”
Rebellion have been tight-lipped about Sniper Elite 6, with fans already starting to speculate on Reddit where the next iteration will be set. One thing is for certain, though, the infamous Sniper Elite kill cams won’t be much gorier. Shaw revealed that while they have tested more detailed gore mechanics internally, there is a sense these went ‘too far’. Still, as the series continues to build on mechanics outside of core sniping – namely stealth combat – we’re expecting an even more refined outing next time around.
While the series will stay tied to World War 2, Shaw is right: there’s a lot more to do. Over the past few games, Rebellion has massively improved verticality of maps, increased the number of ways players can interact with the world, and pushed the series’ visuals far above where they were at the turn of the generation. With this in mind, there’s a lot more sniping that fans can do and, despite the series’ niche, there’s a lot more creativity to unbottle at Rebellion.
