Sniper Elite VR sets its sights on a July 8 release

Your home, your family and everything you love lies in the path of a vast and brutal army. Will you pick up your rifle and stand against impossible odds to defend them?

Rebellion, in partnership with Just Add Water and Coatsink, brings you a brand new addition to our multi-million selling Sniper Elite series. You will experience a powerful World War II story through the eyes of an Italian Partisan, rising with your brothers and sisters to protect your homeland from the fascist forces that threaten to destroy your homeland.

We’ve designed Sniper Elite VR from the ground up as a VR exclusive game that retains the authenticity that the title is famous for and delivers a new perspective on our critically acclaimed sniping and stealth mechanics.

The first and most important of these is the scope. The PlayStation VR Aim Controller really opened our eyes to how far we could go with the realism of using a sniper rifle. When you lift the Aim and steady yourself to fire, you find yourself holding your breath and squeezing the trigger slowly. It’s not just about playing the role of a sniper, it actually helps you to land that first shot on target.

There were many technical challenges to overcome. It is, after all, adding a third camera to the rendering demands of the game. But, with some clever tricks assisted by the console’s horsepower, we’ve created the seamless, immersive and natural feeling of using a real, physical sniper scope.

With the PS Move controllers, you’ll manually feed a new clip of ammo and action the bolt of a Carcano rifle or slap a fresh magazine into a Sten — or, if John Woo is more your style, dual-wield a pair of Colt 1911s.

Sniper Elite’s defining signature moment is the iconic X-Ray cam. There was never any doubt that we would need to bring it to VR and that it would have to express all the punch and power of the original. It took a lot of fine tuning but I’m happy to report that we have succeeded. Like a lot of things in VR, you’ll have to see it for yourself before you believe it.

Free movement is the third pillar of the Sniper Elite series. The tactical options that open up when you can pick your own path through the enemy, sneak to an overlook position or sprint for cover when things go loud demanded that we step away from the ‘on rails’ gameplay of some VR shooters.

That has required that we support a suite of movement and comfort options. Sniper Elite VR allows you to customize many aspects of the movement system including free movement, single stick teleport and facing input and individual control over the position of inventory interact points and hand offsets.

The combined VR development experience of the three studios working on Sniper Elite VR has been brought to bear to create an experience for players at all comfort level preferences without compromising the thrilling sensations of the gameplay.

Rebellion is a strong believer in virtual reality as a platform for creating unique gaming experiences. We were part of the first group of studios to deliver a release title for PS VR with Battlezone Gold and the principles that informed the development of that game; that it should be a full AAA game that exploits the unique qualities of VR, remain true for Sniper Elite VR.

If you’re a fan of the Sniper Elite series or are coming to it for the first time, you are going to get an explosive and exhilarating experience that will challenge you and keep you coming back for more. We can’t wait for you to get your hands on it!