Sniper Elite Resistance dev defends asset reuse – “if they’re there to use, why not use them?”

The Sniper Elite team at Rebellion have defended reusing assets in video games, saying it’s a ‘smart’ move to avoid drastically increasing budgets and development crunch.

Sniper Elite smartly reuses older assets

Speaking on an upcoming episode of the VideoGamer podcast ahead of the Sniper Elite Resistance release next year, lead level designer Beck Shaw revealed that without asset reuse, a game like Resistance would take far longer than two years to develop.

“Reuse allows us to push out a full game again in a short period of time,” he said. “If we were making everything from scratch again it would really drastically increase that development time.”

Shaw explained that the act of asset reuse is essential in stopping crunch, a period where developers are working overtime to ship a product.

“[Without asset reuse], we might have to crunch more, just massively increase the budget on the product as well. So maybe we can’t hire as many people for whatever reason.”

More common than you’d think

In recent years, many online commentators have slammed games for reusing assets. Shaw explained that the practice is more common than many of think, and Rebellion in particular make full use of the practice.

“I think it’s something that everyone in the industry does really. It’s smart. If the assets are good to use, why not use them? In Zombie Army we do take stuff we’ve made in Sniper Elite and put it in Zombie Army, but we do for example add a grunge pass on top of it for the zombies.”

“So you’ve got the shot modiers in Zombie Army, which again they bolt onto the weapons, the character skins, we’ve rotted them up and dirty them up. So you can be smart with reuse, you can reuse things and tweak them a little bit just so they don’t look exactly the same.”

“I think it’s something that everyone in the industry does really. It’s smart.

SNIPER ELITE RESISTANCE LEAD LEVEL DESIGNER BECK SHAW

While asset resuse makes a lot of sense from both a budgetary and developmental standpoint, there is a concern – at least from a minority of gamers, that it comes across as ‘lazy’ – especially if sporting a ‘full game’ price tag. Yakuza, for example, has come under fire for reusing entire environments in its series – despite the obvious advantages when it comes to getting more titles out there.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Yukaza’s game director Masayoshi Yokoyama said: “If you take a GTA or Assassin’s Creed, those companies’ big marketing copy is [about] a new city complete with new gameplay – and they almost reinvent a large portion of the game.” Instead, the Yakuza team “take on an approach that builds on the previous version.”

“I think for me as long as the gameplay is there and I think most gamers, if it’s fun to play, I don’t think most people notice to be honest,” said Shaw.

Sniper Elite Resistance releases on Xbox One, Xbox Series, PS4, PS5 and PC on January 28, 2025.