Sniper Elite / Nazi Zombie Army General - AKA Testicle Shot Simulator.

[Patrick Bait-man]

My first introduction to Sniper Elite was Nazi Zombie Army 1 in 2014, I remember enjoying it and sinking a decent bit of time into it. Fast forward to October 2025, I'm reminded of it through a Steam sale on Zombie Army Trilogy and decided to pick it up alongside the rest of the Nazi Zombie Army games to play as apart of my Halloween Marathon; and I love them.

They're some of the best and my personal favorite zombie shooters I've ever played, with great gunplay and a superb atmosphere. 1 / 2 / Trilogy ooze a creepy grindhouse atmosphere while Dead War holds the best gunplay (even though I sometimes miss the simplicity of the prior games).

Spoiler: Horror Autism

Speaking of, it's awfully fitting (perhaps intentional) that Dead War is the most B movie of the Nazi Zombie Army games given the historical trend of later franchise horror film sequels ending up comically cheesy; I mean the name reads perfectly like something straight from a shitty direct-to-video release. Really they're a love letter to horror cinema.

I plan on playing through the mainline titles in 2026, and I'm sure I'll enjoy them as well.

 

[piombo]

I plan on playing through the mainline titles in 2026, and I'm sure I'll enjoy them as well.

then to give a bit of a forewarning, from SE4 and beyond you will have to deal with denuvo fuckery, don't think i need to mention that you shouldn't humor the mp in any way whatsoever, and to finally treat them as arcade games since they're anything but actual sniping/stealth games, (you will mostly use your welrod/HDM depending on whenever you actually intend to buy the dlcs/complete editions)

don't think you'll care for the plot, so won't even mention it since there's none worth humoring, but i'll spoil that the italian soldiers of both SE3 and SE4 have atrocious VAing

in terms of which games (won't include the original SE) you should humor, from best to worst it goes like this
SE4>SE2>SE3>SE5+
to cut a long story short, SE4 got everything out of what this entire series can do (and god forbid the smgs and pistols are actually useable), SE2 is mostly a classic and if you don't have the original then pirate it since the remaster is completely worthless and makes everything uglier, SE3 is this inbetween that doesn't really offer much and mechanically speaking it's more similar to SE2, and SE5 is SE4 but easy anti-cheat, more DLCs and dark souls 2 pvp mechanics

if you plan to buy them strive for discounts on complete editions because rebellion is an aggressively jewish company, but if you want to get the "essential" DLCs then amongst these

you should get

1. for SE3 it's the camouflage weapons pack since HDM and all of the maps (save churchill and target hitler)
2. for SE4 it's silent warfare for the HDM and all of the maps (target fuhrer and the deathstorm trilogy)

past this much, it's just a rather mindless series that doesn't demand a whole lot since there's no failure state beyond death in any of the missions

e: oh right, and these two games are rather tame on the DLCs, if you've eyeballed ZA4 then you'll have noticed this

Spoiler: for the unaware, how many dlcs can you put in a game?

92.

 

[Achtung Bitter]

4 is basically the only good SE game, I don’t agree that it’s mindless if you play on hardest difficulties because for one you need to estimate distance with binoculars at all times and adjust your aiming to that. There’s the wind ‘simulation’ too, so the game is actually very fun but difficult at first.

I don’t recommend playing 3 cause it’s very dated and mostly boring. 5 is a dumbed down 4 with an inferior level design.

 

[sodaboard]

i played the first mission in SE1 and it wasn't at all what i was expecting, i thought it would be more environment puzzles where you have to snipe things in a certain order for big kills/explosions but it just felt like a MoD ripoff. does it get better in later entries?

 

[piombo]

I don’t agree that it’s mindless if you play on hardest difficulties because for one you need to estimate distance with binoculars at all times and adjust your aiming to that. There’s the wind ‘simulation’ too, so the game is actually very fun but difficult at first.

which is why i treat sniper elite (marksman if se2) the default of this game, losing the red square on authentic means you have to learn the rather schizophrenic take on the gravity/windage system, which as an example has the bullet drop start the instant the bullet leaves the gun, and then it's about learning the instant kill spots of the average grunt.

to which you reminded me to bring up that if you don't remember/know how to get those head/lungs/heart/intestine/testicles shots, you WILL have to double/triple tap the grunt that will inevitabily get up like nothing happened, so my word of advice is to not tryhard it since this game is not as smart as it wants to be

i played the first mission in SE1 and it wasn't at all what i was expecting, i thought it would be more environment puzzles where you have to snipe things in a certain order for big kills/explosions but it just felt like a MoD ripoff. does it get better in later entries?

if you mean as a stealth/sniping game, not really, if you mean as a functional game then yes it does slowly improve and peak at SE4
mostly depends on what you exactly want

 

[Achtung Bitter]

rather schizophrenic take on the gravity/windage system

since this game is not as smart as it wants to be

That is true, sometimes enemies also recover from headshots.

It can feel really annoying at times, when no matter how much patience you put into hiding in the bushes for hours, you get slaughtered because the system doesn’t quite work as intended.

 

[Lawrence of Algeria]

I don’t recommend playing 3 cause it’s very dated and mostly boring. 5 is a dumbed down 4 with an inferior level design.

I liked how they made suppressed weapons louder in 5, subsonic ammo made 4 too easy in my opinion (except for Authentic, of course). In 5 using standard ammo with a suppressor is loud as hell, and even subsonic ammo has a reasonable hearing range.
What I didn't like was the "hitmanization" of it. Non-lethal takedowns and a fucking instinct rip-off. The "sniper" in Sniper Elite is taking a backseat, and the level design suffers for it too.

 

[Seminar]

Well might as well reinstall 4 last time i played it i was REALLY annoyed how enemies seemed to just tank the shots like come on man if i hit you in the chest you should stay down so is there anything i can do to make that happen ? (like weapon recs i would like to try hardest dif)
I also watched some guy play Resistance invasion and it seemed cool but man i really REALLY doubt it is THAT good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPBe-7S0cp4 (is the guy thumbnails look like massive cancer but i like the content)

 

[Lawrence of Algeria]

Well might as well reinstall 4 last time i played it i was REALLY annoyed how enemies seemed to just tank the shots like come on man if i hit you in the chest you should stay down so is there anything i can do to make that happen ? (like weapon recs i would like to try hardest dif)

Well, you need to hit the organs - the lungs or the heart. Going for the head is still preferred though. Are you getting into open combat with them?
If you want to play Authentic Plus, I'd say Mosin. You'll need that muzzle velocity. Though I'd say more - avoid shooting if you can, unless you can shoot from far enough. IIRC the enemies can hear even a Welrod from almost 50 meters.

 

[Miller]

Sniper Elite 5 was a weird game, some items were locked behind the invasion gimmick while the horde mode was useless for the character progression. Also every French Resistant was either a woman or a black man. I was expecting the final assassination to be designed like a normal mission, instead you can't move and you have to wait a few seconds to kill the guy.
I kind of enjoyed Zombie Army 4 but the progression is way too grindy and the weapon mastery had some really shitty challenges.

 

[Geoff Capes Vapes Apes]

Sniper Elite 5 was a weird game, some items were locked behind the invasion gimmick while the horde mode was useless for the character progression. Also every French Resistant was either a woman or a black man. I was expecting the final assassination to be designed like a normal mission, instead you can't move and you have to wait a few seconds to kill the guy.
I kind of enjoyed Zombie Army 4 but the progression is way too grindy and the weapon mastery had some really shitty challenges.

The frog voice acting was terrible too, full on 'Allo 'Allo grade level haw-he-haw, strings of onions, baguettes and stripy jumpers levels of stereotype.

For a game with so much weapon customisation and being about snipers, the rifles were pretty forgettable too. I couldn't even tell you what long gun I used throughout the game. I know I had a sten and a welrod though.

 

[Snekposter]

I liked how they made suppressed weapons louder in 5, subsonic ammo made 4 too easy in my opinion (except for Authentic, of course). In 5 using standard ammo with a suppressor is loud as hell, and even subsonic ammo has a reasonable hearing range.
What I didn't like was the "hitmanization" of it. Non-lethal takedowns and a fucking instinct rip-off. The "sniper" in Sniper Elite is taking a backseat, and the level design suffers for it too.

I've only played 4 and 5 and god damn did 5 forget the "Sniper" part in favor of making you a commando with shitty close assault weapons. They don't even give you the M1C, but somehow decided a single-shot falling-block rifle would make perfect sense for their close combat pack. The weapon selection in 5 is one of the weirdest I've seen. No Garand for whatever freaking reason, especially since there were enough variants designed and tested it would be a perfect fit for the customization system in 5. Short barrels, heavy barrels, folding stocks, pistol grip stocks, 20 round mags, full-auto...

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

they should make a Winter War one with Kill Stalin.


I played them SE4 -> SEV2 -> SE3.

V2 was ass overall
Afrika was very good
Italy was sprawling overly built ass