The Sniper Elite series has a pretty tried and true mechanic and game loop. There's a bit of stealth, some over the shoulder shooting action, a whole lot of sniping, kill cams, and a World War II theme across a variety of the locales that conflict's campaigns covered. Zombies made an introduction to mix things up in previous iterations, but this go around, Sniper Elite 5 is bringing other players into your game session, with Invasion.
You can switch Invasion mode off if you prefer, but left will allow other players to enter the campaign as Axis snipers to the front lines to take on your Allied hero. The invader can use the AI of the Axis forces to help locate the invaded, even issuing commands like "Eagle Eyes" or "Stay Sharp" to increase their perception and alertness. Allied players can use phone locations to gain intel on their opponent. The effort appears to be to play the interaction out like the cat and mouse back and forth of two snipers, using all of the resources at their disposal to line up the one shot, one kill - hopefully before they opponent has even uncovered where that shot is coming from. Invasion will also be enabled in co-op play, giving the invader two Allies to eliminate. The rewards for the Axis invaders are weapons, items, and skins. The Allied Invadees get additional XP.
Sniper Elite 5 will be a day one release with the Xbox Game Pass subscription. It will also be available for regular purchase on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Epic, Steam and the Windows Store. No firm release date is available yet, but the game should be available later this year, around October of 2022.
