Bullseye
It’s been a little while since we last heard about the upcoming virtual reality installment in the Sniper Elite series. First announced alongside the Nintendo Switch port of Sniper Elite 4, all has been quiet on the Sniper Elite VR for the past few months. Publisher/developer Rebellion Developments haven’t given us much more information on the World War 2 shooter since then – until today.
In Sniper Elite VR you’ll play the part of an Italian Partisan, fighting against the fascist forces trying to take control of your homeland. Steve Bristow, the Assistant Head of Design at Rebellion Developments, outlined the team’s approach to bringing the series into VR by leaning on what he calls the ‘three pillars’ of Sniper Elite. The first of these pillars is the sniper itself – using as-of-yet unrevealed ‘clever tricks’ Rebellion claim to have developed a realistic gunplay experience. One detail of the gunplay that they detail is the use of PlayStation Move controllers to to manually reload your weapons, giving a physical feeling of carrying a Nazi-killing weapon.
Fans of the series will be glad to know that, despite not being feature in the reveal trailer, the second pillar of Sniper Elite VR is the iconic X-ray camera that follows your perfectly-placed bullets through your targets’ bodies. Again, not many detail were revealed about this – Bristow say that “Like a lot of things in VR, you’ll have to see it for yourself before you believe it.”. We do, however, get a brief look at what the modified X-ray cam will look like at the end of the release date trailer:
The final pillar is one that a lot of VR shooters have struggled with so far – free movement through the game’s arenas. In order to facilitate easy travel, there are a number of customizable movement options, including “free movement, single stick teleport and facing input and individual control over the position of inventory interact points and hand offsets”.
Sniper Elite VR will be released on PlayStation VR, Oculus and Steam VR on July 8th, 2021.
