Rebellion’s Sniper Elite has just turned 20 years old, but the stealth-based shooting game is far from done. Following the release of Sniper Elite Resistance, the series shows no sign of stopping, but will the series ever move away from its current World War 2 setting.

Speaking to FRVR for the series’ 20^th anniversary, Sniper Elite: Resistance lead level designer Beck Shaw explained that the franchise is firmly rooted in World War 2, not just because of the clear Axis villain to fight, but also because there’s so much left to explore in that period.

“We are grounded in World War 2,” Shaw explained. “We try to keep firmly within that time period, which gives us limitations, but it gives the designers some interesting challenges to overcome.”

Shaw explained that Sniper Elite “can’t have drones flying through the sky” or “satellite imagery giving you constant updates” as too much information takes away form the sense of discovery. In the series, you’re often learning intel as you go, finding new hiding spots or secret routes and ways to bypass patrols that would simply be ruined by too much information.

“Obviously, we do have the map and the mini-map, and you can turn those off if you want to,” they said. “I think being more grounded in World War 2, it gives us a definite enemy that everyone can rally against and then things like the Bino[cular] Info [from Resistance] expand on that.”

“A lot of fans said they would like to explore the Pacific and, I think, internally there might be some desire for that as well.”

Sniper Elite lead level designer Beck Shaw

While bringing the series into a Cold War or even modern military setting would instantly allow for new options, Shaw explains that there’s a tonne of unexplored options still available in World War 2. From theatres to stories to locales, there’s so much untapped potential that has yet to be realised in a Sniper Elite game.

“There’s a lot more countries that we could explore,” Shaw explained. “There’s a lot of different, I guess, Nazi schemes as well that we might want to incorporate into our games. We usually have a big bad super-weapon or some evil scheme that we’re trying to take down.”

Of course, World War 2 was a world war, and the team has done well to show off a number of locales in the past, but many fans have asked for more of the Pacific front to be shown a future game. While Shaw didn’t rule out anything, they explained that this theatre would be more difficult than most, although not impossible.

“We do hear fans,” they said. “A lot of fans said they would like to explore the Pacific and, I think, internally there might be some desire for that as well. Who knows where we’ll go next. The Pacific would be a big challenge… it’s small islands, lots of jungle, jungles don’t really lend themselves to sniping because you can’t see very far. Who knows, we never say never.”

While Rebellion didn’t reveal where they’d be going for their next, completely unannounced Sniper Elite game, it’s clear that there’s still a desire to keep going forward and continue to support the audience the team has gathered and kept over the past 20 years.