During my time on Sniper Elite 5 I was leading the majority of the enemy unit design. One of the biggest challenges at hand was to meaningfully update and expand enemy vehicle and infantry variants while also adding additional ways both the player and enemies could interact with vehicle entities in specific.
This led to:
Adding more variety and mechanical nuance in the way vehicles can be destroyed by introducing sabotage points and armoured areas that require a specific type of ammo or item to circumvent.
Revamping enemy vehicles such as the Tank to feel more dangerous and present a real threat to players while expanding the tactical options that players had at their disposal against them.
Updating variants like the Enemy Snipers by making them more dynamic in the way they reacted to players in and out combat and expanding the enemy roster with specialised units such as the Machine Gun Crew.
More details on some of this work can be reviewed bellow.
Tiger 2 Tank
Our goals with the tank enemy were to:
Make it more interesting and intimidating opponent to fight in comparison to Sniper Elite 4.
To be used as blockers for the player or a way to slow progress towards a goal.
And used as part of a convoy or set to patrol an area.
To achieve this some unique elements and behaviours were introduced such as:
Heavy frontal and back armour immune to most low calibre weapons and small arms.
2 heavy MG34s to be used against infantry or light armoured vehicles in close quarters that could not be destroyed by small arms.
Reinforced weakpoints only weak against explosive and anti armour ammo.
Multi layered armour that required multiple stages of destruction into order to gain access to critical one hit weakpoint of the tank.
Removed the options to snipe the driver and gunner through view ports essentially rendering the tank useless with a couple of well placed shots.
Allowed for both close range and long range engagement options such as placing sachel charges on the back of the vehicle or using anti tank weapons.
Vehicle Sabotage
Vehicle sabotage was introduced in order to give the player more options to deal with vehicles, create more unique/interesting opportunities for setting up traps and additional soundmask areas while adding an additional layer of strategy and tactical planning.
3 types of sabotage were introduced:
Sound masks to allow for cover of weapons fire.
Booby Traps to setup explosive traps (but at the cost of an explosive item) on unsuspecting enemy driver attempts to start the vehicle.
Disabling the engine to create a distraction for enemies.
Each of these Sabotage enabled parts was indicated by interact points on the vehicle and they were all consistent across most vehicles (engines or exhausts for sound masks, engines for booby traps and disable points).
Distractions were set up to always trigger certain AI behaviours depending on context such as attempting to fix the vehicle upon knowledge of the issue based on audio visual stimuli but also interactions with the vehicle (e.g attempting to turn the engine on). These were planned as finite sequences that would give players a brief window of time that players could make use of as part of their situational planning.
Machine Gun Crew
The Machine Gun Crew was designed to be comprised of two infantry units, a gunner and a loader, that essentially act as a mobile machine gun emplacement.
The main goals with this unit were to:
Suppress the player and forcing them to cover allowing other AI units to get closer and attack.
Promote a more strategic target prioritisation and reinforces the need to scout areas and create strategies rather than rushing into combat.
They were designed to act in unison and are able to move the gun position when needed in response to player repositioning. This was only allowed at predefined positions placed throughout the level
Weapons fire was restricted to certain angles on the Y and X axis which allowed players to flank them if the could get close enough. In addition their machine gun had to be reloaded once the magazine was consumed giving players time to counter attack.
In order to emphasise their portrayal as a combat unit mechanically when the loader is killed the gunner takes longer to reload and relocate but when the gunner is killed the loader becomes a standard infantry unit that would rush the player.
Enemy Sniper
This enemy was carried over from previous titles but was somewhat reworked to be be more adaptive to player actions.
The unit’s primary gameplay goal was to block the progress of players, to defend certain areas, to be used for ambushes and to enrich larger encounters with a vertical threat.
They would normally be placed at vantage points throughout the map that allow them to scan their surroundings with their rifle in an effort to acquire a target.
A scope glint would become visible when aiming down scope which would flash when the player is sighted and when entering combat. This would also turn bigger when the player is being targeted for a shot.
They were able to move around a designated area, following the player to their LKP from a distance and where possible, using vantage/cover points.
While in combat they were designed to relocate after X shots or when taking damage while trying to keep up with player movement whilst always keeping a certain distance from them.