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Ghost of Tsushima is, despite some minor blemishes, an impressively sharp swansong for the PlayStation 4.” You may baulk at the original game not getting a look-in as one of the best stealth games, and you’d probably be right to do so. It changed the face of gaming for the better by interspersing many different styles of gameplay into one cohesive experience, but it’s showing some signs of age. Mods may fix it, though Human Revolution is a more than decent alternative — I’d go so far as to suggest that it’s actually the better game. As a sarcastic little goblin, your abilities are obviously limited — there’s no flitting over buildings in this game. Of all the games on this list, Chaos Theory may be the purest in terms of stealth. It will punish your simple mistakes with its relentless AI, so you will not just be able to light up all witnesses with a hail of gunfire. It’s a game about patience, just an absolute load of door bashing, and iconic green goggles.
Praise, however, that is deserved. You play as Naked Snake, who is deep behind enemy lines during the Cold War in a tale of love, loss, and bullets. To survive, he must sneak around the dense jungles with a wide variety of camouflages and nibble on his fair share of crocodile.
It doesn’t feel like the stealth genre is on the way out, rather that it’s difficult to find a “straight” stealth title that isn’t interspersed with other conventions, like an open world or open-ended approach that gives the player plenty of choice on how to approach obstacles. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing — adaptation and evolution is part of why Mario is still as beloved as ever. Bearing that in mind, the most efficient items to steal are gems and jewelry, as they're high in value but low in weight - which means a higher chance to steal, as weight determines difficulty. Failure in most stealth games simply means trying again (or losing your mind and massacring everything in sight), but not with Invisible, Inc: death is as debilitating and fearmongering as it is in something like XCOM. The stakes are high no matter the mission, so playing strategically is key — you’ll be afraid to fail, but you should be prepared for the inevitability of it. This means that Shards of Darkness contains plenty of trial and error gameplay, which may frustrate some. For anyone who’s played an old-school stealth game, however, it’s a joy.
Meanwhile, I watch some videos of people just running circles around NPCs while the [hidden] indicator remains unchanged. How is this possible? Anyone who knows stealth games could have predicted that Snake Eater would be sitting pretty on top of the pile. Probably the least well-known game on this list, Echo is an indie with a seriously interesting twist to gameplay; indies are always where you will find the most unique mechanics. You must fight yourself (or many different versions of yourself) as you traverse a constantly twisting and changing palace. If that sounds nuts, it all makes sense within the game, trust me. Goldenglow Estate's external area, which is full of guards - providing you don't kill them during the Thieves Guild quest - is a great area to sneak around amidst multiple holstile enemies. Forts occupied by bandits or the Thalmor are another option.Billed as an action RPG, Human Revolution can be played as a straight run and gun, but where’s the fun in that? It’s at its best when you’re taking the constantly exasperated Adam Jensen around his dystopian surroundings and using his modifications to keep yourself in the shadows before eventually smashing through a wall to incapacitate someone while somehow not being detected. With Medievil seeing a remake in 2019, Sony better leaf through the rest of their catalog and unearth this stealth game gem. From one Klei stealth game to another, Mark of the Ninja represents the absolute best in 2D side-scrolling stealth games. For all his gadgets and bone-breaking, Batman is at his most effective when he’s stalking his foes from the shadows. Released during a time when dripfeeding content was all the rage in the industry, Hitman was one of the few that actually went about it the right way, releasing new levels with tonnes of replayability and special side distractions to keep you coming until the next batch of content was ready.
It’s really about time Konami bundled all of these stealth landmarks as one complete collection. We’re as tired as Snake at the end of 4 about that not happening yet. It’s a shame that its sequel, Mankind Divided, underperformed in so many areas, however, so much so that we may not see a new Deus Ex for quite some time.If I have 100 in sneak and I equip armor that gives a bonus to sneak, does that add up past the 100 limit? Because that's about the thing that might make a difference. By design (and also possibly the restrictions of the time), James Earl Cash is not great at hand-to-hand combat, so stealthing and “plastic-bagging” is the aim of the game instead. You can perform many of the stealth pillars (corner-peeking, noise distractions), but the real headline act of Manhunt — and also the reason why it earned itself so many newspaper headlines — is the brutal executions. Dishonored 2 is also one of those games that rewards experimentation and perfection, so take your time with it and you will take a lot away from it in turn.
Definitely the smallest game on this list, Intravenous comes from an indie studio that wanted to deliver a hardcore stealth game with some immersive sim elements that really gets your creative murder cogs whirring. Speech is levelled by buying and selling items, and successfully using the Persuade, Indimidate, and Bribe dialogue options. Arkham Knight is also worth a look, but only if you’re not on PC and also not averse to spending a whole bunch of time in the Batmobile. While there’s nothing revolutionary here in terms of stealth, there’s something to be said for making blood spurt out of someone’s windpipe like a fountain. If you have a large amount of gold saved up, you can sell and re-buy your most expensive items, which, bearing the markups in mind, will leave the merchant with a massively increased stash of gold for puchasing. Then, you can sell huge amounts of items - remembering to do so one at a time - to level up your Speech. This complements your Enchanting skill levelling particualrly well, as with that method you'll have huge numbers of enchanted items to sell, too.
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It doesn’t hurt that it offers the best gameplay in the series, either. Hitman had always been somewhat clunky by nature, seemingly to dissuade mass murder sprees. 2016’s Hitman, however, introduces the smoothest action seen yet with competent AI and reactive scenarios to still bring the challenge, as well as a much appreciated level of detail with so many different events triggering at once. Tsushima also shows a tonne of promise for the future of stealth games, which haven’t exactly been supported by the biggest companies in the industry over the last ten years.
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