Somehow, stealth almost always feels mediocre.

The enemies in almost any game move in predictable patterns. They know that they are being stalked, but won't turn around or even look over their shoulder. You just follow them and follow them. In almost any stealth game, you crouch slowly around, even though doing that wouldn't actually make your steps quieter. In my stealth game, you would be upright (unless you need to hide behind a low object) and encouraged to quickly rush enemies. To compensate, the enemies would be less predictable and dumb. I also want the darkness from Splinter Cell to make a return. It's a shame that we had four Arkham games and none of them made use of the darkness, Batman's friend.

I kind of loved the stealth in Thief. And a bit in the original Deus Ex. The games felt different enough that you weren't so sure of how far you could push it before being spotted.

Dishonored has pretty good stealth too. Metro maybe?

I think the key is that you need to have some interesting gameplay levels/portions that wire into the stealth aspect. Preferably an interesting character/set up that has to do with stealth. And some interesting mechanics that have to do with stealth.

And if I look at Tomb Raider it doesn't have any of those except maybe the third. But those mechanics so far, look like the usual. The enemies are not doing anything surprising or interesting. I don't know that you can unscrew light-bulbs or anything like that. That's I think its biggest problem in terms of stealth. Nothing that stands out in terms of mechanics.

That's a good point about the Batman games. They don't have a darkness feature. Lol. Although, they are great stealth games. But games with sort of an afterthought of stealth, like the Metro games, even make use of light and darkness.

Stealth is pretty much clunky in most games not designed from the ground up to accommodate that playstyle. The best stealth games are the hitman series imo.

Then there are other obvious games that do a good job at balancing stealth and action. Then games that have it for the sake of having it.

As for the movements you bring up like crouching etc.....they're games. THey need visual ques and gameplay mechanics to distinguish themselves from more aggressive gameplay options.

Well, Thief was the pinnacle of stealth gameplay and I doubt we will ever see something like that ever again. Current gamers want scripted sequences/Michael Bay monents every 2 minutes.

Why do I want to use stealth in a Tomb Raider game?

Same with Evil Within, I played to shoot monsters, not spend 60% of the the game crouching and sitting idle.

I love the tension.

I also like run and gun games like Doom but I'd hate if they were all mostly about running and gunning.

Also a bit into some horror/body horror so I guess RE7, EW really works for me.

Even in games like DS I spend more time slowly lurking around corners than getting into the meat of the action.

I probably won't survive a full PT game. I had someone with me play that demo and I still freaked out.

It does nowadays as its a lot easier and with no consequence other than making you try again. Back in the day with games like Thief and even Tenchu, stealth was harder and more rewarding.

Now though its more like this: "huh! what was that?" ....walks over then stands there looking around gormlessly and cant see you because todays AI always have tunnel vision. "hmm... it must have been my imagination" turns back to player....*PRESS F TO PERFORM STEAL TAKE DOWN!* ...Kill sequence ensues.

I guess they made it so so that it's approachable for most. I guess they don't want to invest in proper high difficulty option too with a wildly different AI.

Anyway I thought about Crysis 3. Kinda annoying actually.

Once someone gets alerted enough, they call backup and their route becomes different and start slowly lining towards your last ruckus.

When there's a maximum alert, they don't disengage.

If one soldier doesn't get alerted enough it does exactly what you said which is pretty ok with me as it isn't a full stealth game but would be cool if it had that super AI for high difficulties.

It used to be good in its simplistic form in the past. Games like MGS on both MSX and psx. It use to be like classic game of simple set of rules and mechanic that get ramp up level after level. You know levels get added with more camera cones, more guards, and different patrol patterns. Simple precise design yet challenging fun gameplay tasks. Got find my mgs vr missions cd. The problem with today is the realism has picked up but AI designs are not accurate enough to capture compelling gameplay. Hitman is the closest at giving you that classic MGS feel with improvements.

These days I like it as an option where if you gotta a nice encounter design like TLOUS it gets fun when you **** up stealth. Its natural for tomb raider to finally embrace it but as always there encouter design sux.

"Body here, it looks recent."Motha effer, that guy was literally right next to you a few seconds ago not some random person you discovered dead.

Most stealth in games are a joke because its not the core game design and slapped on simply for gameplay variety.

Evil Within is definitely a bad example of how to do stealth in games. Because it encourages you not to get into head-on confrontations with the monsters throughout the game, but throws all that out the window to force you into a boss fight. I hate that type of game.

It also decides on a whim when stealth is possible. Game on a whole is terrible. Apparently the sequel (handled by a younger team than RE4 man) is superb.

Superb? I wouldn't go that far. I'd rate the second at about the same as the first. Both decent games, but I would never bother to finish either of them more than once.

You have played it wrong. Evil Within 1 has much more combat than stealth.(And combat is much better than stealth)

I've heard that batman begins 2005 game uses darkness for stealth. Maybe that won't disappoint you.

batman-begins

Still unnecessary. In the old MGS games, you moved upright without making any noise. Then Kojima decided his games had to play like all other stealth games.

@ezekiel43: At least with the Arkham games, enemies would realize they were being hunted and acted accordingly by moving with their backs to each other, checking known hiding spots, and using their upgrades against you. I always enjoyed making sure the last guy knew he was alone just to watch him panic.

Yeah, that's one of the rare examples I can think of where they did watch their back.

The old Thief games had really good sound design (you'd have a bunch of different noise levels depending on the surfaces you'd be walking on) great use of shadows, enemies had lines of sight...

The level design was the shit though. Not so straightforward and you'd really have to figure them out, which made for a much more rewarding and thoughtful experience. Oh...and they had excellent atmosphere too (especially Dark Project/Gold)

There's also a difficulty mod for 1 & 2 which makes the AI more aware, among other things. And you also gotta play on the highest difficulty too, as that apparently effects the AI.

I liked how you couldn't just easily rely on fighting/shooting your way out of things either, as that would take away a lot of the tension which helped make it so good on the first place.

I hate stealth mechanics as I'm not patient enough. I dont mind trying to accomplish a mission stealth, but I like the ability to finish objectives by brute force.

Still waiting for Chaos Theory II.

I find Elder Scrolls games have best stealth feel to them.

Really enjoy sneaking thru deep shadows in Oblivion and Skyrim, stalking enemies thru dungeons, getting stealth kills and so on.

Of games with modern settings, old Splinter Cells felt pretty ace. And MGS4 was good too. In it, you had chameleon camo suit that activated when you were totally still, making you look like part of your surroundings. that was cool.

The stealth parts are almost always the same in your *insert generic 3rd person action game here*.

Stealth is usually good when it's the focus of the game. Look at Thief series up to Deadly Shadows on how to do it right.

Stealth in video games has gone from a tool used to avoid enemies and craftily navigate levels, to just another gimmick used to sneak up and assassinate people. That's what it seems like, at least. Rarely are there games like Thief where you are encouraged to sneak around a level and avoid people; no, more often you are encouraged to just run up behind people before they notice you and stab them in the back or slit their throat.

I enjoy a lot of stealth these days, but it's not how it used to be. I Would love to see more "light gems" and "sound meters" mechanics as they had in the original Splinter Cell and Thief games.

To me, another big obstacle is also AI. Simply waiting 10 seconds to see a foe's patrol pattern in order to sneak by or assassinate is just not that rewarding any more. It requires a bit of patience, but if they could somehow program in better awareness and such, it'd make them a lot more fun. Games where they at least attempt this--for example, games where enemies notice opened doors previously unopened, torches/lights mysteriously put out, and so forth--add a lot to immersion but in general they are still routine experiences.

A lot of people put down the stealth components of TES games, but I agree, I thought they were good. It might seem simplistic, what with the unseen/almost seen/seen indicator, but that just makes it a little more challenging because you never really now just how covered in shadows or how quiet you are being. Your stealth could fail you at any moment, or your target could see you or turn around at any moment.

Deus Ex had the same mechanics as well. In fact, the original had no stealth or sound indicators, you just had to go by feel and experience. Was excited, made for a lot of tension as a patrol would get close to where you were hiding and you never knew if they were going to spot you or not. They'd usually go "Hmm" or "Huh" or "What's that over there?" and you'd have about two seconds to move backwards a little bit haha.

They are very predictable in Rise like in UC4 and even I'm far from able to beat them stealth all the time. It's hard and I'm very good.

So I say enough hard for now.

@ezekiel43

after fast forwarding to about mid video so I could actually see some game play i would have to say I agree

Nothing very stealthy about giving you an icon to tell you where the item is, and a huge birght cant miss it arc so that you know where the item will land when you throw it.

not a deal breaker, but a good hint

My issue with how stealth works in in most games now is its an option, not a necessity.

I loved the old Splintercell games where you were FORCED to be sneaky. going loud was just not a viable option. IMO, stealth is only interesting when getting caught means you will really struggle to succeed (not necessarily fail though, games/missions where you instantly fail if you get noticed are rarely fun).

If stealth is only an option (ala recent FC games, Dishonored, Tomb Raider, MGS V etc.) then you always have the knowledge that if you get caught, you can just shoot or fight your way out. its way more fun if you feel vulnerable and really don't want to get caught, and are forced to run away and hide rather than just shoot everyone if you do get caught.

very few games have compelling stealth options nowadays for this reason IMO

yeah. deus ex human revolution did that originally. spend praxis kits on stealth based skill trees only to find they're utterly useless against the bosses. awesome. think the director's cut fixed it but it was a big oversight initially.

i love the jeopardy in games like early splinter cell and thief.

but to me, in games like crysis and dishonored, stealth is really enjoyable too. in crysis, having the cloak allowed you to play like the predator, which was awesome. and in the dishonored games the powers are really nicely weighted to allow you to play either as a ruthless supernatural assassin or, like sc and thief, a ghost, depending on how you spend your runes.

and tbh, if you play either on hard difficulty or above (crysis you'd definitely need to play on delta), you're likely to struggle fighting your way out of situations when your cover gets blown

crouching makes u less noisy and lesens the chance of being spotted.

Also, the invisibiltycloak makes you a stealth god. Still, don't fart.

yea I still enjoy playing stealthily in these games where its just an option, but its a very different experience than something where an entire game is designed around stealth.

It also seems like these games mostly lack the kind of nuanced mechanics you'd get in Thief or early Splintercell where walking on different surfaces made different amounts of noise, and you could hide in shadows and dark spots instead of having to rely on physical objects to block line of sight.

yeah 100%.

when i look back at all the awesome mechanics chaos theory had - noise level meter, darkness meter, movement speed control via the mouse wheel, remote hacking, electronic disabler on the handgun, interrogations, that split jump thing you could do to straddle tight corridors, four different goggle types including binocular zoom... there's probably more, it makes me sad to see one by one these things all got lost along the path to blacklist. diluted or removed to dumb the game down into a basic cover shooter with xray sonar vision and mark and execute auto kills. sigh. such a shame

Stealth in games to me has always seemed like a really good way to totally avoid playing the game you just paid sixty notes for.

Creep about, hide in the shadows, avoid everything, then ask yourself why you're bored rigid.

Particularly galling is games like Dishonoured that boast about freedom to do as you wish their game is so open ended etc then they penalise you drastically for NOT playing the whole game in absolute stealth mode by unleashing a rat infestation all over the place because that is the ONLY way they wanted you to play the game and you just didn't listen.

Stealth absolutely blows in videogames. Yes, all of them. But if you're really into it that's okay. Hide under the stairs without telling your mom and see if you can make it to the kitchen without her noticing because that's just so much fun. Right? Stealth games tell me this is totally fun.

No.

Toejam & Earl had stealth.

Thief (2014) is a typical example of taking the idea of a well regarded game and just doing a Naughty Dog and making it all shit. You can only grapple in specific points in that game, how lame is that? There is no true freedom, you have to do what it wants you too all the way through.

There is no reason for there not to be a game like Thief: Dark Project apart from the assumption gamers wouldn't buy it because "it's to hard! :'(".

Games nowadays take away the control because they are scared you might fall over and hurt yourself and cry because it wasn't easy the first time.

Millenials. Bah. Paranoid risk-averse publishers. Bah.

I give in.

Mentally challenged modern (AAA) gamers would give up and get frustrated from the level design alone. Newer games have trained them to not think but just follow quest compass and mash awesome action buttons.