Review | Sniper Elite 5: Landing Force DLC

A mere two months after the release of Sniper Elite 5 (my current game of the year), the first DLC is already upon us.  Part of Season Pass One but available for purchase separately, this package is made up of a brand new mission, two new weapons and a free Multiplayer Map.  Let’s return to France to cancel more Nazis in the Xbox Era review of Sniper Elite 5: Landing Force DLC.

Being a fan of the 1961 film ‘The Guns of Navarone’ which at the time was supposedly ‘The Greatest High Adventure Ever Filmed’ this mission is right up my street.  ‘Operation Dragoon’ the campaign to liberate France is being held up due to the threat posed by a giant mountainside gun battery.   Karl Fairburne is once again the only person capable of neutralising this threat.  Sent in under cover of darkness it is the players’ task to explore the coastal surrounding area, destroy the big guns and turn off the local Lighthouse to signal that the area is now safe for allied shipping to enter.

A Shot in the Dark

As usual, the more exploration that you do the more secondary objectives come to light and let’s face it, these missions are there to savour not to rush through as quickly as possible.  I don’t like to complete a mission without carrying out every possible objective, destroying all enemy vehicles and killing every Nazi on the map.  The mission is set at night to aid stealth activities if (unlike me) that is your thing.  Captured footage can appear rather dark because of this but it is fine when you are playing the mission and ‘in the zone.’

To push the stealth agenda for this mission, one of the new weapons included in the Weapon Pack is the D.L. Carbine rifle.  This piece of kit is supposedly one of the quietest rifles ever produced and is nice enough but for me, its Pros are far outweighed by its Cons.  Yes, it is quiet and yes you can fix a bayonet to it which allows you to melee kill more hardy members of the enemy ranks but I found it to be as powerful as a pea shooter.  A rifle that requires several shots to kill a target is not useful to a seasoned sniper like me and I soon swapped it out for my trusty SREM-1.

Loud and Proud

On a more positive note, the other new weapon is the PPSH Soviet Submachine gun favoured by Johnny Red in the ‘Battle’ comic of the early 1980s.  This is a hellishly loud piece of kit that is perfect for those ‘Spray and Pray’ close quarter moments that a sniper who has stayed in one place for too long can sometimes find themselves in.  When combined with the 71-round drum at one of the three hidden workbenches this becomes a ‘Bullet hose’.  The only snag here is that you need to carry out the ’Killing Objective’ for this mission which involves poisoning a high-value named target to unlock the high-capacity drum.

There are no ‘Jäger’ infantry on this map which is a shame as they are a tougher and more challenging opponent to outwit, but there are three Gun Boats that must be avoided and are fun to blow up.  I always wish there were more enemies on each map when playing on the standard difficulty but that is possibly because I have got pretty good at wiping them out. 

The DLC performed well on my XBOX Series X but I came across one psychedelic visual glitch during my playthrough.  It only occurred once on a particular spot on the map when I changed the camera angle and was no big deal.

Lost in the Flood

A free ‘Flooded Village’ multiplayer map has also been bundled in with this package and is designed around the breached flood defences of Normandy that were used by the Nazis to try and slow allied progress on D-Day.  I played a team game of ‘No Cross’ on this map and found it to be an open and enjoyable battlefield for medium-range sniping.

The other major addition worth mentioning is the new Shooting Range option.  This allows players to test and refine the setup of each weapon before they set out to use them in anger.

In conclusion, Landing force is a welcome and timely DLC for anyone who has enjoyed playing Sniper Elite 5.  It is another mission to lose yourself in for several hours and although not mind-blowing in its own right it is a good addition to the base game and is arguably of a higher quality than the pre-order linked ‘Target Fuhrer: Wolf Mountain’ mission.  One of the added weapons is disappointing while the other is fantastic which although not ideal balances things out and I can see no reason why fans of the series should not enjoy this.

Reviewed on	Xbox Series X
Available on	Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, PS4|PS5
Release Date	July 26th, 2022
Developer	Flix Interactive
Publisher	Rebellion
Rated	PEGI 16