Sniper Elite – Useful Tips and Tricks

Various tips and tricks for playing through the original Sniper Elite.

Hints and Advice

All credit goes to Samz!

First off, SE1 has a difficulty bug, while all other settings will remain, the “AI Difficulty” setting will reset to the easiest setting upon quitting a mission but loading back in.

According to a Steam User if I remember right, (but I’ll need to check this myself more), you can “fix” this when you restart the game by starting a new mission with that AI difficulty, then loading a save into the other mission (So starting Karlshorst on Marksman then without quitting Karlshorst, loading the save of whatever mission you were playing on Marksman difficulty directly).

Use your Rifle when possible, your silenced P-38 has low-range and very inconsistent to find ammo and all 4 of the Secondary weapons have limited ammo too, the Rifle has alot more ammo to find in supply caches than the other weaponry, use the P-38 for silenced kills but generally try to use a secondary weapon instead for close-combat against alerted enemies.

When trying to locate enemy snipers on rooftops, keep in mind that enemy snipers on rooftops will hide after firing by crawling back, you may only be able to find them a fair bit later if you catch them offguard.

I think the stats of the 4 secondary weapons goes as follows: (This is speculation since there are no official stats, maybe the BradyGames Strategy Guide has them but I cannot find it online anywhere):

• MP40: Might be a bit more accurate than the PPSH.
• PPSH-41: Bullet Hose, Spray and Pray or burst-fire for longer ranges
• MG-42: Bullet Hose with less in a full “Magazine” but more damage and range but ammo isn’t as easy to come by.
• DP-28: I may be wrong but it seems to have more accuracy and damage than the MG-42, Ammo is super-scarce and the weapon itself is hard to find though, so it’s the best secondary weapon but you’ll be lucky to have more than a single full magazine usually.

You can unload weapons if you “Pick-up” a weapon with that same weapon equipped, a nice trick to keep as much ammo as possible is this:

Let’s say you want to pick up a MG42 but want to unload a fully loaded PPSH-41 you were carrying, find another PPSH-41 on the ground, unload it, then drop (hold down the button used for picking up secondary weapons/searching bodies) your PPSH-41, pick up the empty PPSH-41 and you’ll be able to unload your fully loaded PPSH-41, then pick up the MG-42, you have the MG-42 but also all 72 bullets back from your PPSH-41.

The manual mentions a knife, it’s a cut weapon so don’t worry about not being able to use it.

While you cannot swap your P-38 for a Luger, it is usuable in the Multiplayer.

“Realistic” Hand Grenades with a higher range on higher difficulties goes both ways, they are absurdly powerful in your hands if used right to the point where it arguably qualifies as an advantage, just watch out for enemies throwing Hand Grenades, throwing the higher range hand grenades around corners is an easy way to clear out buildings you know enemies are inside.

While you cannot disarm trip-wire grenades, you can shoot them/blow then up with a hand grenade to get rid of them (Such as if you block the entry way into a building but then need to get back out and no one ran into it).