11. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 2

After the Nazi Zombies wreaked havoc in the first standalone expansion to Sniper Elite V2, who could guess they’d return for another around? Nazi Zombie Army 2 offers a new campaign with fresh locations and enemy types, and you’ll once again slay undead by the droves solo or with up to three other players. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, but when it feels more repetitive than its predecessor, you have to wonder if it’s really worth it. Nevertheless, it’s more maps for slaying zombies, which counts most for some.

10. Sniper Elite VR: Winter Warrior

Another follow-up that noticeably falls short of the original, Winter Warrior is developed by Just Add Water of Oddworld fame. Given how well the first title fared, you would expect the momentum to continue. A forgettable narrative and iffy controls later, and you realize that’s not the case. The sequel doesn’t even do enough to switch up the formula or spruce up the visuals. The gunplay is still on point, but there isn’t enough content to justify jumping in. A mixed bag overall.

9. Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army

The original and Rebellion’s first attempt at a Left 4 Dead-style undead spinoff starring Karl Fairburne but set in an alternate universe World War 2. The shift from careful and methodical sniping and stealth to gunning down zombie hordes en masse is still a huge shift for the series. Nazi Zombie Army handles it well enough, combining the realistic gunplay and X-Ray Kill Cam with new kinds of threats and co-op. Though it won’t be competing with the best co-op zombie shooters in the genre, it’s a fun ol’ time, if nothing else.

8. Sniper Elite V2

The first sequel in the series, Sniper Elite V2 focuses on Fairburne attempting to stop the V-2 rocket program in Berlin (which explains why it didn’t get a simple “2” in its title). While it received some praise for the realistic ballistics, the AI was a mixed bag, alternating between competent and imbecilic. Respawning enemies and stealth were also points of contention, with sniping being the only aspect that resonated. That’s because Sniper Elite V2 introduced what would become a staple of the series for over a decade – the X-Ray Kill Cam, rewarding kills with a bloody showcase.

7. Zombie Army Trilogy

It’s a close tie between Sniper Elite V2 and Zombie Army Trilogy in quality. However, the latter wins out by not only remastering the first Nazi Zombie Army expansions but including a third campaign. You can play through them with up to four players, choosing from eight different characters (with Left 4 Dead 1 and 2’s cast joining later for an additional eight), and even adjusting the difficulty. The famed ballistics and X-Ray Kill Cam are also present alongside dismemberment, which adds a bit more strategy. It’s still pretty repetitive and lacks much of the series’ nuance, but it’s still good for mindless fun with friends.

6. Sniper Elite VR

The first Sniper Elite VR title and one that boasts a poor narrative with some strange gates stopping you from completing the last few missions. No autosaves, bugs, underwhelming melee combat – it’s almost hard to get on board. Where it excels is in the fine mix of arcade shooting and realistic ballistics. It’s also responsive enough to make racking up points with the most creative kills enjoyable. Still far from the best in the series, but a solid option for those who want a fun sniping title in VR.

6. Sniper Elite 3

After Sniper Elite V2 underwhelmed, Sniper Elite 3 came along and…marginally improved things (while flailing even more in other departments). Technically a prequel, it saw Fairburne venture to North Africa, with new desert locations to deal with. Unfortunately, the story wasn’t much to write home about, and the AI still had its failings. Where Sniper Elite 3 succeeded is in presenting larger more open levels for players to plan out a myriad of approaches.

Sabotaging generators to mask your shots with the sound, leveraging the revamped stealth to tactically take out threats, scrounging for weapon parts, setting up traps – it all felt so liberating (and, of course, the sniping was still on point). Add on improvements to the X-Ray Kill Cam to factor in organs and bone shattering, and on several gameplay levels, Sniper Elite 3 could be a fun time.

4. Sniper Elite 1

It’s somewhat ironic that one of the better games in the franchise is the one that started it all. Sniper Elite launched in 2005, and as far as sniping-focused titles were concerned, it was unlike anything else in the WW2 shooter space. The realistic depiction of ballistics, where factoring in things like the wind, felt fresh and challenging. Sure, you didn’t get the explosive viscera of the X-Ray Kill Cam, but it was still satisfying for a bullet to dramatically reach your target in slow motion. With all the other relatively new tactics, like using louder sounds to mask your shots, it’s no wonder it received attention despite some shortcomings.

3. Zombie Army 4: Dead War

Considering its predecessors, there may not have been many expectations from Zombie Army 4. Yet somehow, everything fell in place, from the campy campaign with its zombie sharks and zoo to the X-Ray Kill-Cam triggering off explosions and well-placed shots alike. Each character has extensive progression and some fun talents; the weaponry went above and beyond, straight-up embracing the elemental and bizarre new enemies debuted, including a zombie tank. Yes, it has overpriced DLC, and yes, the gameplay can still get repetitive, but it’s the series’ – and one of Sniper Elite’s – best offerings yet.

2. Sniper Elite 5

Sniper Elite 5 is not where the series’ truly started to take a turn and really come into its own with the sandbox-style levels and freedom of playstyles. It still excels in those regards, refining the realistic sniping we know and love while presenting some of the best levels in the series. There’s also Axis Invasion, a new mode where an enemy sniper can invade your game, leading to even more tense encounters. The key shortcomings of the series remained, but it felt like Sniper Elite finally carved its winning formula.

1. Sniper Elite 4

And it all truly began with Sniper Elite 4, which took the sandbox-like maps of Sniper Elite 3 and went even bigger. Fairburne was more agile than before, capable of clambering up structures to set up his shots. Night missions introduced new twists to the stealth formula and players were freer than ever to strategically take down enemies, go guns-blazing or take a completely silent approach. While it couldn’t overcome the series’ curse of middling story-telling and AI, Sniper Elite 4 achieved a new level, elevating it into something incredibly fun.

However, Zombie Army Trilogy has also been released for the PC, fulfilling its compilation purposes while serving a Metro Redux-like role in revisiting the franchise while visually polishing it (except on a much lesser scale). Confused? Whichever way you look at it, Zombie Army Trilogy is Sniper Elite meets Zombies for the current generation of consoles. And we’re going to find out whether these games are glorified ports, full-blown remasters or something in-between.

Head to head gameplay comparison between the PS4 and Xbox One versions. Select 1080p and 60fps for the best possible quality.

In terms of resolution and frame rate, both the PS4 and Xbox One versions run at 1920×1080 resolution and 60 frames per second. Sniper Elite 3 featured the same settings but the frame rate wasn’t locked at 60 FPS, just like like Zombie Army Trilogy. Both games differ in their overall scale though (which we’ll get to in a bit) but when we looked at Sniper Elite 3 on the Xbox One and PS4, we noted frame rate fluctuations on both versions in a previous analysis. The PS4 version would drop as low as 40 frames per second and while the Xbox One did better, it was severely hurt by screen-tearing.

Zombie Army Trilogy, on the other hand, is more consistent. It’s the Xbox One version again which features the least drops in frame rate though it’s still a far cry from being locked at 60 FPS. The screen tearing is also a factor, though not as major as Sniper Elite 3 – it can occur during the bullet cam and much more rarely when running around (as noted in our official review).

Regardless of its frame rate issues, Rebellion did a much better job optimizing Zombie Army Trilogy for the PS4 and Xbox One than it did for Sniper Elite 3. This perhaps comes down to improved development on the Asura engine, Rebellion’s in-house propiertary engine which it’s been constantly working on for 14 years. Sniper Elite 3 saw the larger number of changes for Asura, managing dynamic shadows and the shift between day and night settings while managing numerous light sources. Multi-threading also helped the engine to take advantage of multi-core CPUs, a significant upgrade over Sniper Elite v2.

Head to head screenshot comparison between the PS4 [left] and Xbox One versions. 

Asura’s biggest strength is in the use of obscurance fields. This technology essentially paints characters with soft shadows on top of natural shadows, giving definition to different body parts like the arms, chin and legs when a character is in motion. It’s meant to properly simulate real-world lighting and accomplishes it with minimal dithering. When seen in Zombie Army Trilogy, it gives a much stronger vibe and look to the zombies you kill and the soldiers you command.

Atmospheric and volumetric effects have also been significantly improved from previous games. Effects like smoke and fire look great, the foliage appears more detailed, and you’ll take note of effects like fog throughout the game. That last point is especially important since it helps mask the smaller scale of Zombie Army Trilogy’s levels. Each setting is still impressive aesthetically whether you’re traversing the dank, ruined villages or navigating streams of hellfire and you’ll only notice the change in scale if you’ve only played the regular Sniper Elite games over the years.

Not everything is hunky dory on the PS4 and Xbox One though. Both versions make use of a customized fast approximate anti-aliasing (FXAA) solution which is far from the best. It gets the job done without draining resources but one will also notice low resolution textures and crooked animations during the cut-scenes. It just goes to show you that even if it released on the PC in 2013, both games still utilized previous generation textures. This isn’t helped by the lack of depth of field, a discrepancy which is odd for any first person shooter and all the more glaring in a sniping-based game. Motion blur is included but ranks below average in its implementation.

More head to head screenshot comparison between the PS4 [left] and Xbox One versions. 

As if the low resolution textures didn’t seem shabby enough at times, low anisotropic filtering is present on both versions, causing blurry-looking textures. Tessellation is also included on the consoles but looks significantly toned down from the PC version.

We tested the PC version of Zombie Army Trilogy on an Intel i7-4930K with two GPUs and resolution settings – the Nvidia GTX 690 at 1920×1080 resolution and the GTX 980 at 3840×2160 resolution. The results were quite impressive.

GTX 690 (1920 X 1080) – 105 fps
GTX 980 (3840 X 2160) – 48 fps

Texture quality is not only superior on the PC but it boasts a range of graphical options. Anti-aliasing, draw distance and anisotropic filtering can be maxed out (though finer AA options are missing) and super-sampling is also available as an option. Frame rate issues are lacking thanks to V-sync and the excellent optimization done by Rebellion. Even features like motion blur and tessellation look far better on the PC but that’s just stating the obvious. It should be noted that regardless of one’s configuration, strong performance is guaranteed. Admittedly, though the X-Ray bullet cam looks great across all versions, it out-cools everything else on PC.

What isn’t cool is an odd issue involving flickering lights on the PC. We don’t know what causes it but it can be quite annoying.

PC Graphics Settings.

Conclusion:

Zombie Army Trilogy isn’t the best looking game by a long shot and it’s certainly not the most polished remaster/port available on the current generation of platforms. However, for all of its issues, Rebellion managed to excellent craft the atmosphere befitting that of a World War II, zombie-infested shooter, mixing historical accuracy with demonic events and gruesome enemies. Whether this results in a fun game or not depends on the player (and really, you should be playing it with friends).

However, if you’re utterly spent on the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and don’t quite like the feel of Exo Zombies in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the visuals in Zombie Army Trilogy are more than enough to satisfy the zombie culler in you.

GamingBolt’s Bill Smith conducted the tech analysis of this game.

Zombie Army Trilogy takes place during World War II and sees Hitler raising the dead in a last ditch attempt to conquer the Allied forces. Germany is thus a teeming nation of the undead and you – along with seven other players – will need to band together and wipe them out. Pretty straightforward and dull but then again, zombie horde shooters have never been known for their deep plot. There are eight different characters to choose from here with four new females being added to the cast. Differences are sparse between each character, functioning as little more than a unique skin for your custom load-out.

"Unfortunately, the overall twitch nature of Zombie Army Trilogy doesn't afford much opportunity to measure your shots. You'll be swarmed most times and just try to hit as many headshots as possible before the zombies get close."

With regards to weapon variety, you won’t find much to feed your Call of Duty-esque craving for bloodshed. Machines like the MP40 are relatively inaccurate and offer low damage output even when aiming for the head, causing you to rely more on handguns and rifles to down the dead. Weapons like the Preacher, the good ol’ double barreled shotgun, and the Panzerfaust let you explore a little outside of those confines though. There are also explosives like trip mine grenades, dynamite and landmines that can aid you but for the most part, the sniper rifles which will lead you to victory.

Gameplay in Zombie Army Trilogy is very simple like Left4Dead. You’ll progress from one checkpoint to the next and often times have to hold down a particular point while slaughtering waves of the undead. There will be safe-rooms to reload your ammo and change weapons. One advantage over the Left4Dead franchise is that you can properly customize your load-out before the game begins, opting for whichever rifle, handgun, machine gun and shotgun you choose.  I found the M1 Garand to be exceptional in mid-range battles while the Springfield disappointed with its low ammo capacity. Only hardcore Sniper Elite players will find any real differences between the various rifles in terms of wind velocity and gravity. The rest will just see one rifle as holding more bullets or being less stable than the other.

Unfortunately, the overall twitch nature of Zombie Army Trilogy doesn’t afford much opportunity to measure your shots. You’ll be outnumbered most times and just try to hit as many headshots as possible before the zombies get too close. While this could have been a somewhat harrowing experience, it’s mitigated by the fact that character movement feels awkward and you can employ a simple kick to knock zombies down. This kind of kills the gimmick of handguns and machine guns – why line up headshots in close range when you can just knock the zombie down and bash its head? On a side note, slow motion sniper shots piercing through multiple zombie craniums is fairly entertaining.

"Rebellion did up-res all the games into 1080p though the frame rate sees some drops every now and then. The screen-tearing on the Xbox One version can also be irritating and though it doesn't pop up all the time, it's still plenty noticeable when it does."

There will be times later in the campaign where zombie snipers and heavy machine-gunners come into play. The former is especially annoying since the zombie will leap from one building to the next after taking potshots. It doesn’t really imbue the games with any sense of the franchise’s strengths. After gunning down hordes of the undead, these snipers will be little more than a nuisance and an excuse to stop, drop and snipe them into oblivion. Heavy enemies are also borderline rage-inducing since they shrug off multiple explosions, rockets and grenades.

Zombie Army Trilogy does have a few new additions. As mentioned above, eight player co-op is now possible and you can also play the third, unreleased iteration of Nazi Zombie Army. There’s no doubt that the game would be much more fun with eight players all running and screaming and having a good time. One only managed a single-player romp however and can confirm that things are very dull without a few friends. Other new content includes the spiffy Horde mode in case you want to skip the boring story and get straight to killing zombies.

Rebellion did up-res all the games into 1080p though the frame rate sees some drops every now and then. The screen-tearing on the Xbox One version can also be irritating and though it doesn’t pop up all the time, it’s still plenty noticeable when it does. Though there are undoubtedly marked improvements over the PS3 and Xbox 360, Zombie Army Trilogy doesn’t really show off what the current generation hardware is capable of. Art direction is fairly typical for a game like this with smoggy towns, dank torn-down churches and hellfire-infested landscapes. Nothing memorable but it serves its purpose.

Zombie Army Trilogy is tough to recommend without friends and even then, it won’t take long for you and your buddies to tire of the typical zombie slaying. With various multiplayer titles featuring more interesting twists – like Evolve and Battlefield: Hardline – one has to wonder how much appeal this port compilation will have for the average fan. Regardless, even if you’re in the mood for some zombie-cide, you’re better off replaying Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Exo Zombies mode, Left4Dead or even Black Ops 2 Zombies than investing in Zombie Army Trilogy.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

Originally released for PC, Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army will be heading to consoles. Developer Rebellion, who is busy working on Sniper Elite 3 for current and next gen consoles, has promised there will be new content rather than Nazi Zombie Army being just a port.

Rebellion head Jason Kingsley stated in conversation with Eurogamer that, “We can’t say much yet but it won’t just be a re-package of the first two games – there will be plenty of new content to get stuck into.

“Like many independent developers, we’re still learning the ropes and having a lot of conversations with the platform holders. We’re not at the stage where we can confirm the platforms right now, but we’re fortunate to have experience already from self-publishing on Steam and mobile, so we’re confident it’ll go smoothly.”

Are you excited for a console release of Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army, especially for Xbox One and PS4? Let us know in the comments.