Stealth Mechanics

[Callate]

I've been playing through my back catalog, and I just got whiplash.

You see, I played through Mafia III, a game in which huge mobs of bad guys will continue in "searching" (paranoid, but not actively shooting) mode as you pick them off from around the corner, even as an enormous pile of bodies accumulates on your kill spot, to the point that it seems like there ought to be an enormous red "X" on the ground and an accompanying cartoon "Boy-oy-oiiing!" sound with every new victim.

Then I started playing Dishonored 2, where ordinary guards seem to identify you as a hostile from hundreds of feet away even as you crouch behind cover, often before you even know of their presence.

Yeah... Whiplash. I guess I've gotten a little spoiled.

I kind of feel that the most enjoyable stealth mechanics come from games like the Far Cry series, which does an admirable job of letting you know where the people are around you and who's in danger of spotting you. Yes, perhaps it's not the most realistic take, and it has its own quibbles (enemies seem to suddenly become a lot better at spotting you once you've taken out one or two of theirs, even if they never see the kill or spot the body), but the "hero against the unending hoarde" nature of games makes it seem quite reasonable to me that said hero should come into the fray with some advantages, realistic or not.

We've come a long way from when stealth in games inevitably meant creeping very slowly past the same five guards as they moved about their unchanging patrol patterns, hoping you didn't miss your timing by half a second and get mobbed before you reached the save point. But there's still a remarkable amount of variation in the way different games interpret similar mechanics, for good or ill, and stealth seems to have become part of the lexicon for a great many games, even ones that aren't explicitly stealth-based (see most recent open-world efforts).

What games do you think do stealth "right", or have their own refinements others should crib?

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Stealh games do stealth mechanics "right". For the most part. In the other genres stealth sections tend to be a chore, because the game doesn't give you proper tools to make stealth satisfactory.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The game that pulls off stealth the best IMO is still Metal Gear Solid series.

Stealth mechanics will never be perfect. They will always have to rely on something ridiculous to work, and more often than not that something will be the enemy AI.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Whether it's done right is up for debate, but I tend to prefer 'guerilla stealth', that is; stealth that gives you an edge in combat, but doesn't make you feel like a lame duck once broken, and doesn't have strict ALERT states that you have to wait out. The Last of Us did this quite well, where if you were seen or heard enemies would only zero in on the position you were seen/heard. They wouldn't just know where you are for a next 30 seconds or something despite you being out of sight.

The stealth is very "malleable", and you can use breaks to your advantage. I remember the little subway mall area filled with clickers early in the game when you only have two pistols and maybe a couple of molotovs. You're obviously meant to stealth through most of it, but with a little skill you can alert them to your presence and then run them to the otherside of the map and out of your way, and then just make sure they lose your track.

 

[CaitSeith]

I have yet to play Mark of the Ninja, but I heard it's close to the apotheosis of stealth gameplay. Nothing wrong with making the stealth feel authentic; but if it isn't the selling point of the game, I think a simple "stay out of their (clearly indicated) area of vision" with some clearly marked "safe spots" is enough to get it right.

 

[Saelune]

Hitman: Bloodmoney is the best stealth game ever. I mean, the later games have the same system, but Absolution did not have the level design quality of BM, and the games after are stupid episodic cash grab BS.

I wish I could replay Bloodmoney knowing HOW to play, but not knowing exactly what to do.

 

[Squilookle]

Props to Splinter Cell for really planning out its stealth, though it was always a bit dry for my taste I was always impressed by its attention to detail.

And also Thief (obviously). Still haven't seen many games since then adjust your detectability based around the type of surface you're walking on.

I think the biggest gamechanger came with Far Cry 3 though. As unrealistic as the sight-spotting indicator thing was, it gave you a proper realtime indicator of how long until someone spotted you and from what direction, allowing you to best gauge your exposure and seek cover before the time was up. This was a definite improvement over other shooters where you could get spotted at any time without warning.

Being quite probably the very first stealth FPS, Goldeneye has a lot of quirks in modern eyes, but I find them really endearing. For example, you can run up behind a guard and they'll never hear you, and if you dash across a hallway infront of them there's a chance they won't spot you (unless you're looking in their direction, in which case all bets are off). But if you face them and they face you or are walking in a 90? angle to you, they will spot you. Using an assault rifle to fire only single shots at a time will not be heard. As bizarre as that logic is, it really saves your bacon on numerous occasions, especially if you know the trick about taking out security cameras with one shot if you hit the lens. In some levels, trip the alarm and guards will come running into the level to track you down. Forever. Bodies disappear, but if a guard sees another guard go down, you're as good as spotted.

These stealth rules are different from real life and other games, but once understood a lot of fun can be had with them. One of the most frustrating levels to beat, Bunker 2, has you escape unarmed from a jail cell. A bit of exploration will net you some throwing knives. It was hard as hell to beat the first time on Hard, but now it's my most revisited level. There's always a new route to try, different weapon to challenge yourself with, or randomised guard placement to contend with.

There's a big debate in gaming about whether enemies, once suspicious, should return to a passive state or not after a search. While realistically they shouldn't, I'm firmly in the 'gameplay first' camp that says they should. Otherwise every level in a game has to be a flawless run or you may as well give up at the first sign of suspicion, and that's not good gameplay.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I think an important element of a stealth game is to be able to convey the rules of detection to the player. The worst thing is getting detected and not knowing who saw you or how they saw you. I also think a game should give abilities or powers to "speed up" the waiting parts like how the 1st Sly Cooper literally allowed you to fast-forward guard patrols or how Dishonored gives you so many powers or Hitman allows for disguises. Just studying guard patrols for openings makes for a not fun stealth game that comes off more as like homework or busywork IMO.

Then I started playing Dishonored 2, where ordinary guards seem to identify you as a hostile from hundreds of feet away even as you crouch behind cover, often before you even know of their presence.

There are quite a bit of AI options that you can change up in Dishonored like how easy you can be seen when leaning around corners IIRC. I wouldn't consider the Dishonoreds straight-up stealth games because a little thought about how to utilize your abilities and the games become hilariously easy if your goal is just to complete the levels. I view the Dishonoreds as basically true sandbox games because you are really given so much power and so many ways to utilize that power, that's it sorta up to you to be creative and make your own fun. You can really just teleport above every enemy and drop assassinate them but that, of course, gets both boring and repetitive fast.

The Last of Us did this quite well, where if you were seen or heard enemies would only zero in on the position you were seen/heard. They wouldn't just know where you are for a next 30 seconds or something despite you being out of sight.

Splinter Cell Blacklist had that feature as well. You would literally see basically a ghost of Sam Fisher to inform you of where you were last seen and where the guards are going to search.

I have yet to play Mark of the Ninja, but I heard it's close to the apotheosis of stealth gameplay. Nothing wrong with making the stealth feel authentic; but if it isn't the selling point of the game, I think a simple "stay out of their (clearly indicated) area of vision" with some clearly marked "safe spots" is enough to get it right.

Isn't Mark of the Ninja a 2D sidescrolling stealth game? That pic looks like an older game that inspired the new Shadow Tactics game (which is really really good).

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I've found many stealth games can do the visibility part right, or at least well enough. Line of sight, light/dark, shadows, cover, all that. But the sound thing is almost never right. What always winds me up is how, on a level with loads of guards on patrol, when I walk all guards in a given range hear my footsteps and remark "What's that sound?", "Who goes there?", "I'd better check that out!" or the like. How is it my footsteps are so distinct from EVERYBODY else's that they immediately know there's an intruder. Raaagh.

Styx does it quite comically actually. You can actually lure guards out just by running, it's so silly. They even have "Robies", large insect-like enemies with acute hearing who can even hear Styx crouch-walking. I find it immersion breaking that my footsteps will alert enemies, but their own go ignored. I realise I'm playing a game, and a stealth game where the challenge is to remain undetected, but there has to be a more sensible way.

Skyrim is a funny one too. It has similar issues with sound, but the visibility part is fun to play with. Even ignoring the magic spells for invisibility and the like, at 100 stealth, with all the perks, in light armour, with muffled shoes, you can crouch walk practically under peoples' noses in broad daylight. It goes a bit far to the other extreme.

I still love both games very much, just the mechanics could be a little more sophisticated.

I remember quite liking The Saboteur's take on stealth. Disguises, distance, time, suspicious activities, search zones, they worked really well mechanically.

 

[Bad Jim]

Isn't Mark of the Ninja a 2D sidescrolling stealth game? That pic looks like an older game that inspired the new Shadow Tactics game (which is really really good).

That pic is one of the Commandos games I think.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

I have yet to play Mark of the Ninja, but I heard it's close to the apotheosis of stealth gameplay. Nothing wrong with making the stealth feel authentic; but if it isn't the selling point of the game, I think a simple "stay out of their (clearly indicated) area of vision" with some clearly marked "safe spots" is enough to get it right.

I don't really care about stealth in video games being "authentic", i care about it being satisfactory.
While not being spotted is usually a primary objective in stealth games, and ghosting is something you do to "platinum" the game, it's good if there are alternative ways to deal with obstacles.
Thief had a good system.
Too much light? Water arrow. Not enough light? Fire arrow. Need to traverse to a higher place? Line arrow. The surface is making too much noise? Moss arrow. There's a group of enemies? Gas arrow. Need to bloodlessly remove an enemy? Noisemaker arrow. Don't care about bloodspill? An arrow.
This is just an example, gadgets in general are a good way to spice up the gameplay. Be it magic or sci-fi tech? Don't care much.

I think an important element of a stealth game is to be able to convey the rules of detection to the player. The worst thing is getting detected and not knowing who saw you or how they saw you.

Agreed.
Thief has a light gem. Splinter Cell has visibility indicator. Escape from Butcher Bay makes your screen go blue. Just give me a tool for the job.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

Hitman: Bloodmoney is the best stealth game ever. I mean, the later games have the same system, but Absolution did not have the level design quality of BM, and the games after are stupid episodic cash grab BS.

I wish I could replay Bloodmoney knowing HOW to play, but not knowing exactly what to do.

You could try HITMAN 2 then. It's the same game as HITMAN(2016), from what i've seen, but isn't cut into episodes.

I have yet to play Mark of the Ninja, but I heard it's close to the apotheosis of stealth gameplay. Nothing wrong with making the stealth feel authentic; but if it isn't the selling point of the game, I think a simple "stay out of their (clearly indicated) area of vision" with some clearly marked "safe spots" is enough to get it right.

Isn't Mark of the Ninja a 2D sidescrolling stealth game? That pic looks like an older game that inspired the new Shadow Tactics game (which is really really good).

Yeah, Mark of Ninja is a 2d side-scrolling stealth platformer. It also recently got a remaster, so a good time to pick it up. It was good.
And that is a screenshot from one of the Commandos games(first one i think). Besides ST, there are older games like Desperados or Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood. All same top-down, tactical, team maganing, stealth kind of game.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

MGS3 was the only MG game I really got into, and stealthwise the only game I really enjoyed that was stealth centric was Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven on the PS2 and the first two Thief games and arguably Jagged Alliance 2 (I love my nightfighting stealth builds personal avatars).... which arguably did stealth the best precisely because it has a day night cycle that is critical, a metric fuckton of equipment options and choices, and was turn-based.

I've been playing Shadow of War recently and frankly that game would be a lot less fun without the Brutalize mechanic. It's cathartic ...and kind of funny. I like to imagine myself as basically an insanely violent human emulating that infamous scene with John Cleese from MP's The Holy Grail. Peaceful orcs, just vegging out, hunting some caragors, and then me leaping out of the shadows and just terrorizing their entire community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBvwOdi8UJA

Stealth games feel kind of pretentious in a sense real life is a steath game. It hones that idea of weakness and fraility of the human condition, and tries to nail some idea that all warfare is based on deception and misdirection. And the early Thief titles or Jagged Alliance 2, give you the only legitimate reasons why you might want to accurately pursue that choice because it comes with deadly outcomes if you fail and why.

Jagged Alliance 2, when you're playing at your best, gives you that sense of less a 'stealth game' and more about setting up deadly ambushes, crossfire opportunities, effective overwatch support, and rewarding intelligent thought.

The mechanics of handling your character are not clunky, indeedthey are quite extensive and finetuned, and it's entirely your fault when an assault goes down poorly. Many stealth games are merely 'stealth plazas' whereby stealth for its own reasons is rewarded, and that feels annoying AF. If you can't make it fun and frenetic like Tenchu 3, or deep and meaningful like Thief 2 or the Jagged Alliance series, then I honestly can't be bothered.

Then again I personally don't like stealth games. I like games with a handful of stealth mechanics at best, because videogames simply will not do them well...

 

[CaitSeith]

I have yet to play Mark of the Ninja, but I heard it's close to the apotheosis of stealth gameplay. Nothing wrong with making the stealth feel authentic; but if it isn't the selling point of the game, I think a simple "stay out of their (clearly indicated) area of vision" with some clearly marked "safe spots" is enough to get it right.

Isn't Mark of the Ninja a 2D sidescrolling stealth game? That pic looks like an older game that inspired the new Shadow Tactics game (which is really really good).

Yep! The pic is from Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (PC game 1998)

 

[Xprimentyl]

Stealh games do stealth mechanics "right". For the most part. In the other genres stealth sections tend to be a chore, because the game doesn't give you proper tools to make stealth satisfactory.

Props to Splinter Cell for really planning out its stealth, though it was always a bit dry for my taste I was always impressed by its attention to detail.

Both of these (well, all except the part about Splinter Cell being ?a bit dry;? I?m guessing you meant to say ?perfect??)

The best stealth happens when action, proper strategy and believability really mesh, and imho, it doesn?t get much better than Splinter Cell. Ubisoft knows how to build environments for SC games that feel natural and allow for seemingly organic approaches to objectives and not the ham-fisted ?sneak past these functionally blind and deaf guys in this large area with a lot of conveniently placed shadows and hidey-holes.? Yes, SC is rife with shadows and hidey-holes (as most games with stealth mechanics tend to be,) but they never (well, ?infrequently?) feel forced, ala a man-sized air duct that separates two rooms with no apparent connection to a functional ventilation system. A lot of people argue the pacing in SC is too slow, but stealth is about patience and precision; I think SC expertly uses its meticulous pacing as a tool to make anticipation and anxiety parts of the core experience as opposed to being results of it: when the music slowly builds as you move Sam Fisher closer to an unawares target right before grabbing him, muffling his screams and jabbing a knife in his heart all while his buddies are in the next room clueless as to their thinning numbers, or making it into an area, completing a complex series of objectives, and making it out without anyone ever having seen or heard you are uniquely empowering experiences. Even the SC I liked least (Double Agent, I may look angry, but I still love you,) did stealth better than, say, a Deus Ex: Human Revolution where you can ?stealthily? drop from a rooftop in a blaze of lightning or ?silently? take down one bad guy with a flurry of incapacitating strikes 2 feet behind his unawares fellow guard. Those cinematic takedowns sounded like 3-4 seconds of a UFC fight less the commentators and crowd noise. I just heard my co-worker crack her knuckles and her desk is about 9 feet away; I can?t imagine anyone could hit her 3 times in the sternum before ramming her nose up into her brain without me hearing something?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Props to Splinter Cell for really planning out its stealth, though it was always a bit dry for my taste I was always impressed by its attention to detail.

I remember when the first Splinter Cell game came out and it was a bit of a sleeper hit in terms of how many people bought it. But that being said, it's aged terribly. And the alarm systems and mechanics they used were essentially 'lives' and the annoying thing was learning levels was if by rote learning. As those stunning non-lethal rounds you got a whole of three or four. And a lot of it just seems as if .... ehhh.

So the thing is you'd use items thinking you should (like explosive lockpicks) to get into a tucked away side office before someone spots you, only to realize that they work there ... and so you trigger their attention because their office is suddenly unlocked, and the hilarity of trying to remain undetected in a darkened room that an NPC is just strolling about is is kind of fun... but at the same time, you've used an item that was a poitnless expenditure, you've lost an alarm save, and you've spent minutes pissing about for no point.

And often by using yur items prematurely, it just makes the rest of the level impossible.

And in the back of your mind you're thinking ... "I'm breaking into the CIA... surely there is just some paperwork we need to fill out to make all of this irrelevant?"

Like that Tblisi level. Like, sure, the cops are corrupt but the fact that they killed a bunch of spies means it's fair game to cause an international incident by pumping rounds into them? The whole 'death to spies' thing is an international thing. Espionage carries a death penalty in numerous places. In the U.S. they fucking torture and then convict you of espionage. Doesn't mean the Chinese government shooting up a New York police precinct is exactly fair game.

And why do you need to kill them? I can understand killing them to get into someplace but a good deal of the level involves you just wandering about outside. Is there a legitimate chance they'll just murder people for shits and gigs? Do you necessarily need to chance public exposure by dressing as a high tech ninja? Maybe the cops shooting at a high tech ninja armed to the teeth and skulking about isn't exactly unmerited?

 

[Xprimentyl]

Props to Splinter Cell for really planning out its stealth, though it was always a bit dry for my taste I was always impressed by its attention to detail.

I remember when the first Splinter Cell game came out and it was a bit of a sleeper hit in terms of how many people bought it. But that being said, it's aged terribly. And the alarm systems and mechanics they used were essentially 'lives' and the annoying thing was learning levels was if by rote learning. As those stunning non-lethal rounds you got a whole of three or four. And a lot of it just seems as if .... ehhh.

So the thing is you'd use items thinking you should (like explosive lockpicks) to get into a tucked away side office before someone spots you, only to realize that they work there ... and so you trigger their attention because their office is suddenly unlocked, and the hilarity of trying to remain undetected in a darkened room that an NPC is just strolling about is is kind of fun... but at the same time, you've used an item that was a poitnless expenditure, you've lost an alarm save, and you've spent minutes pissing about for no point.

And often by using yur items prematurely, it just makes the rest of the game impossible.

And in the back of your mind you're thinking ... "I'm breaking into the CIA... surely there is just some paperwork we need to fill out to make all of this irrelevant?"

Like that Tblisi level. Like, sure, the cops are corrupt but the fact that they killed a bunch of spies means it's fair game to cause an international incident by pumping rounds into them? The whole 'death to spies' thing is an international thing. Espionage carries a death penalty in numerous places. In the U.S. they fucking torture and then convict you of espionage. Doesn't mean the Chinese government shooting up a New York police precinct is exactly fair game.

And why do you need to kill them? I can understand killing them to get into someplace but a good deal of the level involves you just wandering about outside. Is there a legitimate chance they'll just murder people for shits and gigs? Do you necessarily need to chance public exposure by dressing as a high tech ninja? Maybe the cops shooting at a high tech ninja armed to the teeth and skulking about isn't exactly unmerited?

Way to take an electron microscope to niggling details! I seem to recall quite a few shooters where you can take several bullets to the face, hide behind a wall for about 4 seconds, then pop back up, guns ablazin?, like nothing happened; let?s run your ?Reasonable Suspension of Disbelief-O-Meter? (patent pending) over a few of those and watch the needle shoot out the gadget and through a plate glass window, hahaha!! I doubt Splinter Cell would have been the sleeper hit it was had it been imagined as ?International Diplomacy Simulator;? instead of sneaking by a couple red lasers, Sam Fisher finds himself tangled in a mess of red tape! But seriously, if we question the why 99% of game protagonists are doing what they?re tasked to do, we?d uncover that the ?more sensible? way is often the ?less entertaining? way.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The one sealth series I really enjoyed was Tenchu, which is why I'm extremely hyped over Sekiro which seems to be carrying its soul. It's hard not to make stealth feel boring or OP but tenchu manages to make it feel exciting somehow.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Way to take an electron microscope to niggling details! I seem to recall quite a few shooters where you can take several bullets to the face, hide behind a wall for about 4 seconds, then pop back up, guns ablazin?, like nothing happened; let?s run your ?Reasonable Suspension of Disbelief-O-Meter? (patent pending) over a few of those and watch the needle shoot out the gadget and through a plate glass window, hahaha!! I doubt Splinter Cell would have been the sleeper hit it was had it been imagined as ?International Diplomacy Simulator;? instead of sneaking by a couple red lasers, Sam Fisher finds himself tangled in a mess of red tape! But seriously, if we question the why 99% of game protagonists are doing what they?re tasked to do, we?d uncover that the ?more sensible? way is often the ?less entertaining? way.

The item thing is a legitimate annoyance. It can make the level unbeatable, and it is an exercise in pure rote learning. And it doesn't help thatthe levels are so long that replaying them is painful, sometimesrelegating you to simply suffer an alarm going off to get past a bit.

 

[Callate]

There are quite a bit of AI options that you can change up in Dishonored like how easy you can be seen when leaning around corners IIRC. I wouldn't consider the Dishonoreds straight-up stealth games because a little thought about how to utilize your abilities and the games become hilariously easy if your goal is just to complete the levels. I view the Dishonoreds as basically true sandbox games because you are really given so much power and so many ways to utilize that power, that's it sorta up to you to be creative and make your own fun. You can really just teleport above every enemy and drop assassinate them but that, of course, gets both boring and repetitive fast.

If there are such options, I can't find them. (Maybe buried somewhere under "new game" when you choose the difficulty level?)

I agree that the game could be much easier if one didn't care about being spotted or killing people, but the game seems to express such disappointment in you when you do that, for all its open-ness, I still feel as a player that I'm playing it the "wrong" way. "Oh, you got spotted seven times, and killed twelve people? Oh, no, no, that's okay. Play the way you want to play it, I'm not judging you (continues compiling stats for next level)..." Making the choice whether or not to play through the game without powers an in-game decision felt like an extra kick, too. ("Oh, you're making a deal with the devil again...? No, no, I'm sure you have your reasons...")

As I said, I'm coming off of Mafia III; I'm slowly adjusting. I don't doubt I'll get through it, with perseverance and a bit of re-familiarization with quick save/quick load functions. For a game about choice, though, it sure is happy to rub the player's face in all the opportunities missed.

One person's "replay value" is another's "shameless guilt-tripping", I guess.