Rebellion Developments the U.K based development house behind the Sniper Elite series has confirmed that the latest entry in the franchise, Sniper Elite 4, will support additional features on the PlayStation 4 Pro. PS4 pro owners will not only have the option to play the game in 4K if they have the set for it but also able to enjoy higher frame rates, increased load times and additional levels of detail not possible on a standard PS4.
Speaking about the enhancements that the PS4 PRO and Microsoft Direct X12 is able to bring to the game, Rebellion CTO Chris Kingsley said:
“The power of PlayStation®4 Pro, and DirectX 12 on PC, means we can take things even further for our fans who want the best sniper experience in the world. We’re turning everything up to 12!”
Here is a full list of additional PC / PS4 Pro featuring coming to Sniper Elite 4 on launch day: SNIPER ELITE®4 FEATURES ON PLAYSTATION®4 PRO INCLUDE:
• Enhanced frame rate
• Increased draw distances
• Increased geometry level of detail
• Improved lighting and shadows fidelity
• Increased image quality of reflections
• Faster loading times
Sniper Elite 4 will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One on February 14th. We got the chance to preview the game back in June at E3, go check out what we thought of the game back then.
There wereabsolutely dozens upon dozens of booths with hundreds of interactive experiences for attendees to try. Fionna and I tried to see as many booths as we could and play as many games as humanly possible with only six hours of floor time per day. Here is a visual rundown of some of the 3rd party booths – so not Microsoft, Sony or other major console manufacturers – from both the North and South Hall.
Just outside of the South Hall cafeteria was a small multi-part booth for the recently released 10 Cloverfield Lane. If you read my review of the film when it hit theatres last Spring you’ll know that I absolutely love the franchise. The booth in South Hall was complete with a functional jukebox and board games that attendees could play. A little odd for a movie to have a booth at E3 but hey it works.
Near the back of the IndieCade booth in Sout Hall was a small game called _Transfer being demonstrated off of the main programmer’s laptop. This game has a sci-fi / cyberpunk feel and from the 10 minute demo that I played gave me the same kind of feelings that Analogue: A Hate Story gave him – memories and identity are at the core of this unique experience.
The folks from Kona were at E3 also at the IndieCade booth, unfortunately all I saw was their laptop with a wallpaper. No developers were on hand for my time at the Indiecade booth 🙁
A number of unique experiences were on offer at the IndieCade booth include a real life adventure game set in an 8 year old’s bedroom, indie titles like Inversus and it was one of the only spaces where people could sit together on an actual play together.
Natsume had a medium sized booth complete with an inflatable tree, Harvest Moon demo-stations and the chance for fans to get some awesome swag provided that they play all four titles available at the booth.
Rebellion showcased Sniper Elite 4 in a pretty sweet lounge.
Some general shots of both Halls, the crowd outside on Day 2 and other general areas of the convention.
Capcom went all out for their E3 experience: A dilapidated demo theatre for the stealth announcement of Resident Evil 7, A replica of the actual courtroom from the Ace Attorney franchise complete with fans shouting “OBJECTION!” and a playable demo of Dead Rising 4 being played alongside members of the Capcom Vancouver development team. Of course some of our collegues have found that playing Resident Evil 7 in VR can be a bit of a nightmare!
Square Enix brought a lot of stuff to E3 -their booth had several stations for Final Fantasy XV, Star Ocean V, Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Final Fantasy XII HDand more. It would have been easy to lose an entire day of E3 to the offerings at Square Enix’s booth alone. Don’t forget that Kingdom Hearts 2.8 includes new content not found in other games – if you missed the E3 trailer from a few days ago check it out here.
That’s it! The conclusion of our 2016 3rd party booth tour in pictures. Do you think that a number of the games announced at E3 will be successful? Let us know which booth from E3 was your favorite in the comments below.
Just to recap some of the biggest games we’ve seen so far at E3 2016: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Lawbreakers, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Resident Evil 7, Death Striding and Gravity Rush 2. AAA publishers like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo alongside smaller indie develoeprs brought their best games to this year’s E3 Expo!
I had the chance to hook up with Rebellion and to try out their newest entry in to the long running Sniper Elite series. Sniper Elite 4 will be releasing Feb 14th 2017, but Brokenjoysticks was part of a select few who were able to try the game in its alpha state today. The demo was about 30 minutes long and featured a wide open Italian country side setting, with a primary mission being to blow up a viaduct by placing a satchel charge and then shooting it to blow it up.
see the beautiful Italian country side through the scope of your rifle.
Loading in to the game the first thing I noticed was we were not in Germany anymore. For anyone else that has played Sniper Elite game, the usual setting is a blown out western front city, with bomb craters and grey mats all over the place. Italy by contrast is vibrant and green. The developer who was assisting us on the demo mentioned that the was in Italy in 1943 and although it was not an “open world” but it is an open philosophy for the game. The maps are quite large described as being at least 100 square meters, with no real boundaries and plenty of secondary objectives to explore.
Since we only had 30 minutes I mostly concentrated on the main objective of the game which was to blow up that bridge. Players familiar with the series will be happy to hear that combat is still very sniper rifle centric, targets are marked with binoculars, and depending on the type of target an icon will appear over their heads and allow you track them as they move across the map. Since I have already played the Sniper Elite line, the first thing I did was drop prone and use my binoculars to scan the area around me for enemies. I found quite a few and in particular one sniper. Just like pervious sniper elite games, these snipers have a rage that’s so long it actually goes out of your radar range (increased in this game to 70m) so its very important to mark and hit these guys as early as you can to avoid any problems that might come from them spotting you later on.
Xray Kills now work with melee as well as longer shots
I was playing on a PS4 controller which is much different than my normal Xbox one controller so I took some time to get used to the controls, most of the things from the previous series are here, you have to carefully monitor heart rate, which allows you to use slow time and focus so that you can easily hit your targets. Equipment is still very important, with health packs, grenades, stones for distractions and a variety of traps making an appearance.
I was playing with the intention of being stealthy, but just like previous titles, occasionally I just had to whip out my Thompson and mow down a few enemies. The developers promised that there were over 100 enemies on the large map we were playing on, I only managed to kill 30, but in a 25 minute demo I think that’s pretty good. I also was the only one of our testing group (and only the 5th of E3!, to complete the level in the allowed 30 minute time slot.) Stealth is still very important, and its still very important to crouch and use cover.
From the moment I started the game, I painted my objective, and the enemies near it, and they stayed as icons on the screen guiding me over to my eventual victory. As with all of the other Sniper Elite games, bullet drop is in the game, and I assume that just like other games you will be able to select a mode with out the ever present in this demo red diamond that tells you where the bullet will hit. In Sniper Elite 3 you were able to play a mode with out the assist, and I am eager to see if this game also features it. Also returning is searching bodies, I was surprised to find that one of the bodies had on it a duty roster. This roster highlighted several enemies I hadn’t spotted through the binoculars, making my journey a bit easier.
There is an emphasis on being able to do a sort of parkour in this game, you can mantle, climb, and move about quite easily.
Many items are returning favorites, traps and the like are back in game. Flare gun, trip mines, S Mine, Stick Grenade, TNT, and the Silenced Pistol all make returns. Players of course can also strip off any items or weapons the find on bodies around the map.
Though it was still subject to change there was also a progression system in place as I played that gave me ribbons and little appointments when i did something that took more effort or work than a simple kill shot. Cover is classed in to separate systems, with wood being able to be penetrated and rock and other harder surfaces impermeable.
enemy AI seems to have been improved considerably, at one point I was forced to play a sort of ring around the rosie with an enemy who was dodging me around the back of a train, I ended up laying a mine down to kill him, and just running off to the next objective.
The standard alert system is back an arrow will appear when there is danger, yellow for when its getting close, and red for when you are noticed. I was noticed twice during the demo, and both times found it fairly easy to slip away from the people whom had noticed me with just a few minutes of clever hiding and shooting.
Italy is a beautiful shooting gallery.
Fan favorite X-Ray shots return, with a serious vengeance, now everything from melee kills to the sickest sniper shots will trigger the signature mode which shows exploding bone, organs and flesh. I really enjoyed the feeling of nailing that one single shot that got me away from being noticed, or using a well placed burst from the Thompson to take down an enemy.
I Was able to finish the provided demo level, and according to the developer who was assisting with the demo that was better than most. My time was bout 25 minutes, but I did manage not to die at all. Though i did not do it, the game offers a variety of weapons to try, I stuck with the old reliable Springfield, knowing what it was capable of and how it could do damage. But, if you want to be experimental, you can always pick up weapons off of dead bodies and try then out instead of your trusty Springfield and Thompson.
Overall I really enjoyed the demo, I am by no means a skilled player of games such as this, but I found myself able to adapt fairly easily, I really liked the X-Ray feature, as well as what appeared to be very much improved AI in the enemies. I can not wait for the arrival of this game on Valentines day of this year.
