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Sniper Elite protagonist Karl Fairburne has had a legendary run across five games, but the series could benefit from giving him a replacement.
It may have been a long wait, but developer Rebellion shocked fans when it announced that a new Sniper Elite game was on the way during a recent ID@Xbox Showcase. Sniper Elite 5 brings legendary soldier and series protagonist Karl Fairburne back into the battlefields of World War II to take on the Nazis, this time as a member of the resistance in occupied France. Although the action in the trailer features another promising entry from the series, some fans couldn’t help but feel that it might be time for this long-running stealth-action shooter to shake things up a bit.
For years now, players have followed the exploits of one-man-army Karl Fairburne as he assassinates and sabotages his way through the entirety of World War II’s Western Front. With the upcoming sequel set to release on current and last generation consoles, Fairburne will have been fighting since the first game was released way back on the PlayStation 2 in 2005. Despite having such a long history, the Sniper Elite series continually returns to the well of the Western Front, complete with its perennial protagonist despite many fans clamoring for a change of pace. With Sniper Elite 5 once again returning to the Western Front with its third-person WWII action, the next game needs a new direction, complete with a new protagonist.
In the early narrative of the series, Fairburne made sense as the main character. Although little was revealed about his past in the first few games, it was eventually revealed that he was in fact born in Berlin and a German citizen. Fairburne escaped Nazi Germany to America, where he graduated from West Point and enlisted, quickly becoming the legendary sniper fans know him to be. Karl was the perfect choice to be a commando who dropped deep behind enemy lines into Europe because of his fluency in German and his familiarity with Berlin in particular. However, if the series wants to evolve moving forward and explore different areas of the massive World War II landscape, he might not be the best choice of protagonist for the future.
Moreover, the Sniper Elite series has always been one that has relied on gameplay-driven experiences rather than narrative-driven ones. For most of the games in the series, the storylines exist as a reason to get Karl into some prime Nazi-killing locales, and though many have been based in real-life World War II battles and missions, the narrative always took a back seat. By choosing a new character to star in the next Sniper Elite game, Rebellion could use this as a soft reboot point, allowing it to place more focus on the story and narrative, a frequent request by diehard fans. Subsequent games could even reinvent themselves each entry, much like Call of Duty so does from year to year.
For instance, a Sniper Elite game that took place in the Pacific Campaign and featured a new Asian-American character as the lead could not only focus on an expanded narrative but could give players a unique perspective on the United State’s military conflict against the Japanese. The Pacific battles of World War II were ripe with dangerous snipers and guerilla warfare, two things the Sniper Elite series does better than any other in video games, and seem to be a natural setting for a sequel to the series.
Furthermore, Rebellion has already created its own characters who could serve as a fitting new protagonist if the series decides to move to a different World War II battle theater. The Zombie Army games, which are themselves a spinoff of the Sniper Elite series, have their own cast of characters that have become favorites over the years. One, in particular, Boris Medvedev, is a stoic but humorous Red Army soldier who would be a perfect choice if the series decided to shift into the Eastern Front of the war. Fans have long requested a Sniper Elite sequel be set during the massive Battle of Stalingrad, where many real-life legendary snipers battled each other throughout the rubble of the city. A game that starred Boris and saw him sneaking through the bombed-out remains in an attempt to dispatch high-ranking Nazi officers could prove to be the perfect new direction for the series at large.
Sniper Elite 5 is due to release sometime next year, and although Fairburne will return once again to this time aid the French Resistance, the series would do well to make this his last campaign. It’s time to advance into new and exciting battlefields and to do that it is time to leave Karl Fairburne behind.
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