The Sniper Elite 5 development team is working hard to improve the game and headshot as many of those pesky bugs as possible. As always, we’ve been keeping a close eye on your feedback, with the Community and Support teams making sure nothing gets missed.
It’s been great to see how many of you have really got into playing Invasion Mode. Watching videos and reading stories of the awesome cat and mouse sniper showdowns people have been experiencing has made all the hard work worthwhile. As a result of the ongoing Community feedback we’ve received, we’ve made various improvements and fixes to Invasion Mode. We’ve done some balancing to make the Invader a little less powerful, have reduced them down to 1 grenade and 1 landmine, and have swapped out some of their skills. The ambition is to keep proactively balancing Invasion Mode moving forward as the way people play changes over time – but for now, the Invader will have to work a little bit harder for their kills!
We’ve also removed the bonus XP for simply playing with invasions on and have fixed a reported bug by which players could be invaded immediately after another invasion ended. We always intended to allow time between invasions and as a result of this update you’ll likely find you’re being invaded less regularly, especially on the first few levels. (If you want to be invaded as much as possible, either play later levels or use the re-matching system).
Additionally we have removed the ability for hosts to kick invaders from the game and we’ve re-balanced the anti-AFK timer. Allied players will never get killed or kicked for camping and will have a bit more time before the timer starts. Invaders can now pass through Axis AI, meaning you’ll no longer get blocked at doorways or narrow paths. You now also don’t have to worry about your Allied character talking too much as Invaders can no longer hear the Allied player talking to themselves. You might have noticed that you will see a normal HUD even if you invade a game in Authentic mode – this was to make things a bit easier for less experienced Invaders. There’s now a setting in the Options menu that disables that, so if you invade a game in Authentic, you won’t have a HUD either.
Seeing how much players have been engaging with the deep weapon customisation, perfecting different setups based on their varying playstyle has been really satisfying. We’ve made some small tweaks to weapons, such as applying a slightly slower ‘Time to Aim’ for the rifles and reducing how easily the Kar98K can become a 1 hit killing machine.
The Field Report that appears at the end of a mission has had a visual overhaul along with some under the hood improvements. We can’t wait to see more of you trying to reach the extreme points of the playstyle graph across various levels – so don’t forget to share your reports with our social channels. We’ve been in awe at just how good at stealth so many of you are.
Beyond the above, we’ve also been listening to player feedback regarding controller dead zones which we know has been a hot topic since launch. With that in mind, we’ve made some improvements to smooth out the transition, whilst also looking into further support for future patches.
Along with these changes there have been many other tweaks and additions, such as a FOV slider on PC, camera improvements, making the Teller Mine more likely to be triggered by passing vehicles, and various level and unlock fixes, to name but a few. For a more comprehensive list, see our full patch notes below.
As a final note, we’re delighted to release a FREE Multiplayer map as part of this update, as a thank you for the Community’s ongoing patience since launch. The existing No-Cross map Urban Ruins is now playable at night in our Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Squad Match modes. Not only that, but we’ve added more cover to the central park and opened up areas of the map for varying angles of attack so you’ll need to explore and engage with your new vantage points.
With that, please do keep your feedback coming in via our various Community spaces. We hope you continue to enjoy the game and, until next time, happy hunting!
Ryan Baker – Lead Designer