When a Third-Person Shooter gives you a Sniper Rifle or another scoped weapon, aiming with it doesn't give you a crosshair in the middle of the screen. Instead you look through the weapons scope via first person.
This is usually done since a third person crosshair only works well in close to medium range and has problems emulating the precision and long range of a real world high-power scope.
This trope also covers non-weapon scopes, like telescopes, if used this way in an otherwise third person game.
See also Camera Perspective Switch for when games give you an option of toggling the perspective regardless of the situation.
Examples:
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Third Person Shooter
- While The Division is primarily a third person shooter, when you aim with a sniper rifle it goes into first person.
- Gears of War series: Sniper rifles always have you use the scope while aiming.
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Zig-Zagged. While the game is in third person, all weapons of the sniper class use first person if you aim. You can also place scopes on some other weapons, however, which allow you to zoom in without switching into first person. The re-release for 8. gen consoles and pc then finally added a first person mode even if you don't aim a sniper rifle.
- Looking through a telescope also puts you into first person.
- Hitman: While every game in the series is mostly in third person, aiming down a scoped weapon always lets you look through the scope directly.
- Just Cause series: Using sniper rifles of any sort switches you into first person while aiming.
- Downplayed in The Last of Us: You can aim a hunting rifle with scope upgrade, the El Diablo and the military sniper rifle in third person for medium range combat. However, you can also switch to the scope for long range shots, which puts you into first person. In story mode, the military sniper rifle is even first person exclusive.
- Mass Effect: Sniper rifles use a first person view if aimed with.
- In Mass Effect Shepard would be unable to aim down the scope if they haven't got the sniper rifle skill. They can still fire it, though only very imprecisely.
- In Mass Effect 3 you can place a scope on every weapon except shotguns, turning them effectively into sniper rifles and pistols.
- Max Payne series - The game switches to a first-person viewpoint with sniper rifles as expected, albeit with the signature Bullet Time incorporated by having the camera follow the bullet in its path towards a target.
- Certain automatic weapons may also come with a first-person scope attachment, as seen in the third game.
- While MDK and MDK2 are primarily in third person, using sniper mode switches the perspective into first person.
- Red Dead Redemption: Like in Grand Theft Auto V, using weapons of the sniper class puts you into first person while aiming. There is also a scene towards the end of the game where John scouts a gang hideout with binoculars. This scene is mostly in first person.
- Almost all of Splatoon's Charger class weapons have two variants: one with a scope that demonstrates this trope while charging, and one without. The scoped versions have a higher range than their counterparts, but starting in Splatoon 2, chargers without a scope can store a charge while swimming in ink.
- Star Wars: Battlefront 2: While you can play in first or third person mode, sniper rifles always shift to the scope while being aimed with. The Precision Pistol you can unlock also has a scope.
- Interestingly, if you play in first person, all guns have usable scopes when you use the aim button.
- Star Wars Battlefront (2015) can be played either in first-person or third person, but even when in the third-person mode, using the one-shot Plasma Cannon will force the player into the first-person mode. This even happens when you use it as Nien Nunb, who normally can only be played in third-person.
- Star Fox: Assault is in third-person, even when holding down "R" to stand and aim, except when using the sniper rifle.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: There is an option to zoom in, often used with Staves for sniping, that changes from third to first person.
- Shogo: Mobile Armor Division: The game can be played in both FPS and TPS, and a bug allows any weapon to be used while scoped.
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine switches from third-person to first when using the lascannon's scope. The scope even has a skull icon that lits up when a target is in the line of fire.
Other Third Person Games
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess normally averts this, seeing as the Bow can be used in either third or first person perspectives, but when using the Hawkeye mask, the Bow is locked into first-person mode so that the upgraded zoom-in can function properly.
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword:
- The Skyward Sword has a dousing feature that makes it audibly beep as the player approaches their destination. The catch is, using it forces a first-person perspective on the player where they can't attack or use any other items.
- The final item to be collected is the Bow, the most lethal projectile weapon in the game, which has a first-person zoom-in feature that qualifies it as a sniper weapon.
- The SpongeBob Movie Game: during the final boss battle you get to look through a scope on Neptunes trident when he tries to shoot you with lightnings. But since you still control Spongebob this might be "second-person" instead of first-person.
- Spyro: Year of the Dragon: the game is mainly a 3d platformer; playing as Agent 9, however, will turn the game into a 3rd person shooter with a "sniping cam" option which turns the camera into the first person one.
- Until Dawn: When the characters use the lounges telescopes or when Mike uses the hunting rifle the player sees through the scope directly. It is, however, unclear if the player has the same point of view as the character, as it is at least once implied that the player looked through a telescope longer than the character (Mike).
- The Walking Dead (Telltale): When the protagonists use telescopes or scoped weapons you always get to controll him/her in first person.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (2006):
- Sonic's blue gem can be thrown at any location within the player's view and an invisible force will pull Sonic to that location. Unusual for a platformer, throwing the gem forces the player into a first-person perspective.
- When playing as Tails in, the player can throw "Dummy Rings" that explode upon impact with enemies. Normally Tails just throws it at the nearest enemy, but their is a first-person mode that allows the player to manually throw the rings if they see fit.
- Kingdom Hearts II briefly stops it's third-person action RPG gameplay when using Chicken Little's Limit Break "FPS Mode," where Chicken Little and the player fire baseballs and firecrackers together at any enemies in sight.
- Donkey Kong 64 has a looking mode, in which you may look what is surrounding you, or you can use your guns with more precision and freedom. It is impossible to move in that mode, though.
