Where Did All the Stealth Games Go? | Extra Punctuation
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- čas přidán 17. 05. 2024
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Just a heads up to everyone. Yahtzee and the other video makers have resigned from The Escapist. Yahtzee does not own the rights to "Zero Punctuation". There's basically no reason to follow this channel anymore.
Yeah how the hell does he not own the rights? It makes no sense. Plus they just launched several series based on his art style. I'm assuming Stuff of Legends is going to keep going, same for Design Delve. I really hope Frost quits too, he's the only other good content creator on this channel
Wish Cold Take joined them, he’s the only thing keeping me here now.
Looking at some of the replies on the latest Cold Take video, he has
@@Onikage55 Was probably part of the agreement he signed when he joined the Escapist as a twentysomething nobody and they never saw any reason to change it since he's been their cash cow for close to a decade - why would they allow him to take his talents elsewhere?
They’ve started a new one called Second Wind.
Yahtzee missed stealth games so much he disappeared from the escapist
They posted a video a day after this one and 4 days before your comment so no I can't imagine that
@@goatclub6943 you do realise literally their entire video team up and left a week ago right? Yahtzee is gone.
Based. Fuck the Escapist, but this video was fun.
@@goatclub6943 there is a delay between making videos and posting them. If I recall, its a week or two. Basically Patrons or whatever get to see it first then the rest of us.
One of my biggest bugbears with stealth games like the new Deus Exes or MGS5 is how they'll have a hundred different lethal weapons and gadgets and maybe two non-lethal options, and then chastise you for killing anyone. Interestingly, the Arkham games got this right too; you're Batman, who doesn't kill, so everything in your arsenal is non-lethal and you can freely experiment with all the gadgets.
That's an issue a lot of stealth games have honestly. Styx and Dishonored for example have a lot of the cooler tools and abilities has lethal options, whilst also completely disincentivising the use of them by giving rewards or locking the good ending behind full pacifist runs.
Annoyingly a lot of them could easily be non-lethal or even escape options if they were tooled even slightly differently.
I do miss the old splinter cell games for that reason. Limited ammo, life and so many non lethal but brutal options.
I felt the exact same. I know the punishment in MGS5 is fairly minimal in practice that you just grow horns or something, but it's so *in your face* about it. I get that MGS is an anti-war franchise but that's the precise reason it's a poor fit for the action sandbox MGS5 offers. There were tonnes of videos around the time MGSV was released of people doing really cool or funny or interesting takedowns of outposts with big body counts and stuff, but my attempts at playing it always devolve into snipe guy with non-lethal gun, hide body, thank you next
Mind you, I know alot of the weight being pulled here is that my lizard brain can't ignore it when a game is like "You shouldn't kill people, here have 1000 less points for that". The punishments *are* marginal... but you put it very smartly there that theres so many cool toys to play with
As someone who's just getting into the Metal Gear franchise, that statement severely concerns me.
That’s probably why I’ve never finished the Dishonoured games. They give you all these tools and powers useful for a lethal approach, and then penalise you for using them.
"Thanks for listening."
Thanks for talking, Yahtzee.
Imagine this being Yahtzee’s final video on Escapist
I think that honour goes to the second Yahtzee unscripted episode
@@ciphergacha9100 isn't it the slightly something else livestream?
Nevermind that “””””””””””””honour”””””””””” goes to the zero punctuation episodes escapist just posted, but those have their comments blocked so we can’t really talk about them
"You don't buy neopolitan ice cream if you're really in the mood for chocolate" is yet another excellent line to go on the excellent Yahtzee lines pile
neApolitian, it's named after Naples
sorry for being a smartass
@@gracelandtoo6240 Language changes with time, and the majority seem to support the "incorrect" spelling, so this may be a losing battle.
Yeah, I came down to the comments to see if anyone else appreciated that one
Guess it's going into my rotation of "lines I cribbed from Yahtzee" that I've been working on for close to a decade now
Really sums up the specialty games vs jiminy cockthroat games
@@LordSusagasure, but honestly as a continental non-british european person it really bothers me to see americans write "'s" in multiples of a word for example, and i'd hate to see that become normal
so i appreciate little corrections.. even if it'ss a losing battle
RIP, after all the hard work everyone put in reviving The Escapist, management just had to fuck it up
I feel like the Hitman series should have at least been given a bit of a mention in this one. True, they're not pure stealth in the Thief manner, but they're still pretty stealth-focussed and one of the better examples of doing it well AND still giving the player some choice about things.
That was my thought as well. It also has the social stealth aspect with the disguises. No, the combat doesn't suck, but the penalty is high for killing anyone who isn't the target. You can also get into a fair bit of trouble and 47 can't take a lot of hits before he's out. Elusive Targets and the highest difficulty also don't allow for save scumming, so if you fuck up you're stuck with whatever score you got. I got a perfect 5 star Silent Assassin score on the newest Elusive Target (the Drop), but that was after I replanned the mission (hadn't reached a point of no return) because I royally screwed up. I'd picked up 2 hobby knives and had thrown one to get a non-target to come into a room so I could knock her out. Well, I'd forgot about the 2nd knife, so I was still armed. I just stared at the screen and then laughed when I realized what I'd done. Oh, and the escalations are fun because they do add restrictions on the player and the player is expected to play some parts a certain way to achieve the goal (certain kill methods, certain disguises, etc).
The new Freelancer mode adds even more difficulty and ups the stakes for accomplishing each mission of the larger set.
Hitman is pretty clearly a stealth game, there shouldn't be any debate about this, it has traditional and social stealth, the action aspect can be embraced if you want, but it really is never encouraged
I'd argue Hitman is pretty close to a pure stealth game. Yes getting discovered doesn't always mean an instant fail, but it often makes finishing the game harder and/or gives you a lower score. The whole disguise bit I think helps the stealth a lot. If you get your cover blown you can restart, you could just have to avoid being spotted again or you could get a new disguise.
I agree about Hitman but even then it has the MGSV problem noted above: for a game that wants you to kill as little as possible and penalizes you otherwise, its entirely 'unlock and rewards' system is largely based around giving you the most loving rendered firearms in a million different, lethal varities.
Oh, wow, another shotgun that has no utility given how you want me to play your game. Thanks, Hitman.
I think the joy of hitman for me was that you could essentially get through as much of the level as possible doing a perfectly stealthy run but it was still heaps of fun when it devolved into action violence
Much like horror games; there’s this weird counterintuitive idea that negative feelings like the feeling of dread and being vulnerable can still lead to a cathartic and pleasing sense of relief and triumph once the danger has passed. The Arkhams masterfully can make Batman feel enjoyable to play as whether he’s the hunter or the hunted.
A lot of other games don’t know how to do both of that sort of thing well so they just go all in on making you the best hunter that could never fail to some clever girl or such.
You killed me at "fail to some clever girl" hahaha
Never would've imagined this was the last Zero Punctuation to ever air. A fitting conclusion all things considered with the Thief II joke at the end and everything. It was a good run while it lasted.
He'll be back on second wind
@@PowerSenpai In spirit yea thankfully, I will still miss the old brand though.
@@sirjanska9575I'm looking forward to seeing how closely he can sidle up to the old format, would be funny to pay homage to the old intro/outro music, and I reckon the art will be fine.
Second Wind, and watch Fully Ramblomatic the new review!
@@Danie_pixie Did and it was good, yet the end of the old brand is still a bit of a solemn affair
My favorite stealth game is probably Mark of the Ninja, despite being 2D the addition of indicators for noise is great and really helps things feel less unfair and like each cockup is your own fault.
also a forgiving auto save with fast reload time lessens the frustration of failure.
Mark of the Ninja was an amazing game in general. The platforming was approachable but still felt skillful, the stealth was easy to understand but still made you feel clever for pulling it off, and barely anything ever feels like it comes down to luck.
My favorite stealth game is probably Invisible Inc, by Klei (the developers of Mark of the Ninja). It is a roguelike turn-based heist game, built on the mechanics of X-COM. It feels closer to an action/puzzle game than to the spooky and isolated feeling you get from Thief, but that is neither an improvement nor a diminishment.
It's an excellent title, I wish it got a 3d sequel with bigger, more interconnected levels like Yahtzee mentions
Nice to see that The Escapist is disabling comments on their latest videos.
I literally laughed outloud when I saw they disabled comments. Like yeah I bet you did 🤣🤣🤣
This and zero punctuation were literally the only things I come here for, well done
Sly 2: Band of Thieves has always been an exemplar of how to do stealth right in my book.
You're not completely boned if you're detected, as you can always run away or beat the snot out of the small guard that noticed you, but it's always so much more gratifying if you sneak about unnoticed. Adding the detail that you can pickpocket guards was genius, because it makes you want to be stealthy just to keep feeling clever and getting rewarded for it.
Sly 2 also has an engaging story, it's zip to point clambering system was ahead of it's time, the characters are memorable and... Hold on, sorry, that incoming sandstorm was me getting the dust off the PS3, I've just realized that I have to go back and replay Sly 2.
I love Sly 2 and it's one of my favorite games of all time but it's very elementary in its stealth. That's fine if you're not looking to really be challenged but it's nice to have games that really go all in on stealth. The Metal Gear Solid series and Hitman do this very well.
Sly 2 also had a defined line between who you could reasonably take on if you messed up in the stealth department. Smaller guards could still be beaten down if you were spotted while larger guards, while not IMPOSSIBLE to beat, could easily end you because at the end of the day, Sly has a cane and they have fricken guns.
I couldn't imagine Yahtzee liking that game at all.
I have the Sly trilogy on my Vita and they are so much fun.
Just wanna say that if this is the last video Yahtzee has in this series, going out on Thief 2 (one of his and my favorite games of all time) seems poetic
It feels… strange knowing this is the last Yahtzee's personal video for the Escapist. I wish him good luck (though I will follow wherever he and the rest of the team will go)
Where did all the staff go? might be a more fitting title now...
"Where did all the stealth games go?"
...
I guess they're ... hiding
*rimshot*
@@azuarc I just could not resist
Gloom wood seems exactly like what you're craving. It's half built by the dusk dev and is a pure love letter to the classic thief games even down to it's visuals.
really looking forward to that one
@@SpeedMcWeed Yea but David is helping with the project. It's mostly those two working on it.
I knew Dave was helping but didn't realize it was that big of an involvement
Speaking of full level scope vs. set pieces, great moment playing Thief: The Dark Project for the first time was watching a servant pick up a fancy dinner tray and realizing, "If I just tail this guy, he'll take me to the Lord's chambers." And he did.
The older splinter cell games also felt (to me at least) like something that was amazing. It's not so much that you cannot shoot yourself through all the guards of the station, but it was at least as difficult if not more difficult, because in the end you need the stealth mechanics anyways, because unfortunately Sam Fischer is not an action hero so taking a bullet makes him somewhat not well... as you would expect it to.
Honestly, I owuld love to see an Ocean 11 kinda deal for a game. Haven't seen anything like that.
Did you ever play Monaco?
@@TheSlowPianist Never heard of it
@@Mirro18 It's got an Ocean's Eleven vibe. Top-down indie, good replayability.
I've heard this before in a comment when I was a kid and it made an impression on me that the original splinter cell games were brutal and hardcore. Fast forward to 2018 when I got my hands on the first Splinter Cell and it turns out that Sam Fisher can soak up bullets and not recoil at all after being shot and this was on the hardest difficulty. Moreover, you can easily shoot guards dead, the combat doesn't suck per se (for an old game like Splinter Cell 1)
Also, if I remember correctly, ammo was kind of scarce in those games.
The entirety of the escapist video team, including yahtzee were fired or quit and are doing their own thing now over on "Second Wind" check em out!
In his post-mortem of Deus Ex, Warren Spectre makes a similar sort of point. He was working with the Thief team before he went on to create Deus Ex and while playing The Dark Project, he found it frustrating that when he couldn't sneak through one bit that he was stuck on, the combat sucked and he kept dying. When he asked the devs to make the combat better, they refused because, as he put it, 'If you can fight your way out, no one will ever sneak.'
(Supposedly, that gave him the idea in Deus Ex to have you fight, talk or sneak your way through almost everything in the game)
I think that's why a lot of stealth in modern video games falls flat because the players is aware that you can blast your way through the problem most of the time and when you can't, when you're forced to do it, it becomes annoying. If you can fight through a problem easily, why would you sneak?
With Deus Ex though you are at least limited by character builds. In theory you can action or stealth your way through any challenge, but if you built a stealth character you are encouraged to not shoot at things, and your action character will have to fight instead of hacking the terminals.
@@TheJadedJamescorrection: encouraged to not give away the element of surprise when you shoot things, there's 2 options for the stealth run
I think a better limitation on combat is having it serve as a finite safety net. Deus Ex Human Revolution is the closest comparison I know to this kind of system. On paper, you could go guns ablazing in every room, or non-lethal takedowns and avoid every enemy. But ammo and energy are limited resources and the game is super stingy with both. So you're encouraged to treat combat as a last resort. Unfortunately, Human Revolution wussed out from committing to this idea by having the energy system regenerate automatically and giving weapons literally moments before they would be useful so it ends up being very pointless. But the idea is there and a better game could pull it off.
@@NotSpecialDude The half-arsed energy-regeneration system in Human Revolution was annoying. The way it would only regenerate to a point, then you had to use a consumable inventory item to get any more and set a new regen point, which you'd lose if you used too much power, had the worst of both worlds. It had the waits of the regen system and the inconvenience of the consumable system. Going all-out either way would be less annoying. I was fine with the consumables and charge points of the original, and had they scrapped that and gone entirely with regeneration, I could have lived with that (not to mention it's pretty plausible for the tech of the earlier setting). What we got plays into my "I'll go do something else while I wait for things to recharge" instinct, then fails to behave as expected.
Splinter Cell, especially Chaos Theory is the purest distillation of stealth IMO, using darkness and sound to your advantage is the whole point of stealth as opposed to stealth-like sections in action adventure games.
Splinter Cell took heavy inspiration from Thief in that regard. Shadows and sound play a key role in staying hidden
Chaos Theory remains one of my favorite games of all time and it is such a shame what happened to the series after that
Chaos Theory is a great game, until the bathhouse mission where it turns into an action-shooter with the worst shooting mechanics ever, and no stealth option. Then there's the timed bombs, where new enemies spawn with each bomb you diffuse. The mission after that have more timed BS and action shooting, which is completely contrary to the slow methodical gameplay that the first 3/4 of the game was based on. Great game, but the attempts at building tension in the end, only ended up building frustration
@@DefektoPrime True, I think they could've done sneaking through a full blown firefight far better than what they did.
@@DefektoPrimethat is one mission which can be skipped. Before shooting part, the bathhouse mission was also really fun.
This is already an interesting video, just by the title.
Dishonored probably had my favorite stealth gameplay of all of the stealth games I've played. There was a huge focus on not being noticed, bodies would alert people and start them on non-standard patrol paths so you had to hide them or drop them in places where they wouldn't be found. There was always an impressive variety of solutions to a level depending on the way you'd allocated powers and located in level usable things, and they even had segments where you'd do things other than standard sneaking, like the masquerade level where you were fully visible but disguised, but couldn't be caught saying something dumb or being in restricted areas. Then there was the big focus on lethal or not, the end of the game would change depending on how many people you'd killed instead of incapacitated, with levels changing based on your decisions in game, often becoming more difficult the more often you killed. Going completely unnoticed and non-lethal rewards you with the best ending, a mild murder or two gets you a mid ending, and engaging with the (to Yhatzee's point intentionally clunky) combat too much would give you a dark and difficult final level with the darkest ending, where even your allies want you caught. Choices mattered, stealth is rewarded, level traversal is immensely satisfying, murder is frowned upon but not forbidden. Top tier stealth game.
DIshonored was great, Dishonored 2 is one of my all time favourite games. It had some absolutely brilliant level design along the way, with many different ways to progress, and it just dripped creepy Lovecraftian/VIctorian atmosphere. The stealth felt rewarding, and if you screwed up you usually knew exactly why and it was a quick reload to not do that stupid thing you just did.
By far my favorite stealth game was Dishonored 2 (and yes, I agree with Yahtzee's assertion that playing as Emily is the correct way to do it). It felt like they'd refined both the stealth and magic systems to make something that truly fit together, and getting the "ghost" achievement on a level gave me such a shot of serotonin direct to the brain, you have no idea. Plus there was the one mission that had you traveling back and forth through two versions of the level in different times and that's the best thing either of the Dishonored games have ever done.
I need a Stealth Game
I’m holding out for for Stealth Game ‘til the end of the night
He’s gotta be quiet, and he’s gotta be unseen and he’s gotta be crouched behind a bush
I need a prowler
I'm holding out for a prowler 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be sharper than knives
Sharper than knives
Somewhere after midnight in my wildest fantasy.
Somewhere just beyond my reach, there’s someone slinking behind me.
Hidden by the thunder and sliding through the streets.
It’s gonna take a Phantom Thief to sweep me off my feet.
Give Yahtzee ZP.
Manhunt for the PS2 was an amazing stealth game. It was terrifying and if you got caught you'd quickly get overwhelmed and the enemies would destroy you.
And then it blindsights you with a crappy 3rd person shooter level, with a strict timer to add insult to injury
The enemies in Manhunt were quite smart too. They would start moving in groups, refuse to leave specific areas, shoot at dark areas if they think you were there. Sure some of the pure gun levels were the ones to sour the experience (Trained to Kill and Border Patrol), but the levels that used them along with stealth we're great (Wrong Side of the Tracks and Key Personell). Basically, Manhunt is at it's best when the game's main strategy is used to it's fullest potential; aka picking off overwhelming numbers one by one.
Most recent stealth games now are top down tactical games (real time or turn-based)...like Shadow Gambit.
that genre has less stealth and more save scumming. In Yahtzee's words: you win by "monkey typewritering' it.
They are great, but it doesn't hit the same when it's not first person
They're not really that savescummy on normal difficulty; particularly Desperados III; what happens is that they made quick-loading so seamless that you feel more compelled to.
If I remember correctly, Desperados III actively prompts you to quicksave near-constantly. It's an awesome game, but the save-scumming criticism is hard to argue with.
Also Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 kinda embodies the 'self-contained challenge room' criticism. The slightest mistake instantly raises the alarm in that 'room', encouraging savescumming. Yet other 'rooms' are unaffected by the other room's alarm.
In Desperados 1, the whole map is one massive 'room'. Alerting a guard on one end of the map might cause them to run to the other end, gather his allies, and then scour the map to hunt you down.
It's really similar to Thief 4 vs Thief 1/2
Escapist over now
Alien isolation had a pretty good example of multiple points. Shooting the androids to death was a last resort because it felt so clumsy, plus you had limited ammo & they were tough. For the majority of the game you have no defense against the Alien except to run away & hide. Once you get the flamethrower you kinda feel OP though, even if all you can do is scare the alien away for a little bit & try to hide again.
Alien: Isolation was one of the two game I came to the comments thinking of - Dishonored was the other. I disagree about the flamethrower being OP though - leaning on it was pretty dangerous, especially on higher difficulties, especially when they alien figured out it could just sit just outside of flamethrower range and wait. On my highest difficulty runs, the flamethrower was purely a weapon of last resort, as it was almost always better to avoid the alien until the very end of the game and the . . . complications . . . the game threw at you.
The Dark Mod is still a thing.
If you don't know what to play after the classic Thief games, go play that.
It still gets updated and there are still maps coming out. A lot actually.
Both Styx games (Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness) are great examples of good, modern(ish) stealth games. The focus is on learning complex patrol routes, using abilities to avoid detection, and taking quick, decisive action (like a brief sprint out in the open to grab something off a table) to achieve difficult objectives. It has a combat system, but it's hard to use and is basically worthless when you're up against two or more guards, and you don't have a lot of health, since you're a little goblin boi.
I'd recommend them to anyone who enjoys stealth, but Shards of Darkness is the better-polished of the two.
Shards of Darkness was phenomenal, yeah. SO many options for doing stuff.
The clone cocoon and clone teleport combo lets you do some hilariously broken stuff and I loved it. :P
@@AegixDrakan Careful not to softlock. I have one were I have to go back through the puzzle level to level up my character more, then go back and start over. Another needs leveling as well since I'm fighting...me.
@@brodriguez11000 I think that was in Master of Shadows, not Shards of Darkness, no?
"wHo GoEs ThErE?!"
"Aaah, iT's NoThiN'..."
i hated that the stupid bugs were "friendly" with the NPC. made no damn sense.
I'm going to miss you Yahtzee. Oh wait... I'll find whatever you come up with & watch you there. 👍
He's not going anywhere, he'll just start a new channel and make a ton of money in Patreon. That's what always happens with exoduses from big channels when they lose their golden goose.
I really like the game model of "tidying up" a room full of guards. The puzzle of figuring out the way to approach the room and the joy of walking unimpeded though a previously full room gives me a deep sense of satisfaction.
I used to play Thief 1 & 2 that way.
I look around and I see everyone doing "supreme ghost" sorts of challenges, and I'm all like "hmm can I knock out or murder literally everyone on this map without getting spotted?"
I’d watch a Let’s Play of Yahtzee playing the Thief series.
You can find an hour or so of him playing thief 2 over on his old alternate channel, Yahtzee19, "Let's Drown Out... Thief 2"
Well.. this series kept me returning to this channel. I guess I will check out what Yahtzee is up to. So long escapist👋
I loved Thief, didn't play it until recently and it's almost as old as I am, but it doesn't mess about. You have to be stealthy, you have to be aware and it makes you feel like a stealthy thief without cheapening the experience
Thief 1 & 2 still hold up, and I trot them out now and then and enjoy them just as much. I think the fan game T2X: Shadow of the Metal Age was also very good; maybe it's time for another playthrough!
@@butareyoureally1868 ooh I've not heard of this fan game, that sounds swell! But I have yet to play Thief 2, although I do have it installed
Never played it before? Then how can you even tell that liked it?
Loved the thieving, hated the supernatural bits like zombies. Then got to like level 4 or 5 and the textures were so samey that I got frustratingly lost and put it down. I like Thief in theory but not so much in practice.
@@gamelord12 you should play Thief 2. It's all of the thieving with none of the supernatural bits. (OK, I think there's like one undead knight in an optional secret crypt somewhere).
I sure hope Yahztee enjoyed playing Thief 2 for those 16 seconds of spare time he has 😅
Styx shards of darkness also had good stealth and ok combat options that made it a death sentence if there was more than one guard
The Mr Freeze section in Arkham City & the dead deadshot section of Origins are two of my favorite batman game moments. You can't keep relying on the gargoyle heads and after a while you've just about exhausted every resource you have before taking down the big bad
The Mr. Freeze boss fight almost justifies repeat playthrough by itself because there are more ways to attack Mr. Freeze than his heath bar allows, while the rest of the bosses are functionally about following this one strategy with little variation in between the stages.
Arkham Knight applies a similar but less strict version to its predator sections. The remaining enemies will take steps to deprive you of environmental features you used, like mining vantage points, destroying perches and weak walls, ignoring your fake orders, etc.
Also, it's such a great boss fight. My girlfriend actually hated thay fight. And I can confirm that she is really bad at adapting
@@artofthepossible7329 Replaying on the harder difficulty basically requires you to use every single method to damage Mr Freeze, iirc, and it's both frustrating and extra satisfying.
I think the Hitman games were the most fun I’ve had with stealth in recent years, with the amount of tools they give you as options but also having so many various methods/quest lines to stealthily take out the target. Can’t wait to see what the devs are cooking up with that 007 game.
the Hitman games were the only stealth games in recent years...
Just a reminder, Thief came out in December 1998, _Tenchu_ came out in February of that year. Both were great though.
Tenchu was fkn awesome!!!! bring that back
I'd love to see another good, tightly-designed Tenchu game. It gave you options, but it never felt so open that your choices no longer mattered, and often choosing an alternate solution meant using one of your limited items.
As Yahtzee said, lots of current games tend to be too open and too free with options, going for the "Play it your way" route. I feel like the open world craze has only exacerbated that. Still, if a new Tenchu game came out, I think it would be neat to see one where you actually got to use stealth against bosses. The combat was passable, but it felt like a missed opportunity that all boss encounters were just straight-up fights.
@@sageoftruth Yeah, although it's tricky to make boss encounters where stealth is an active playstyle, and not just a way to completely skip the encounter. They need to make it so that stealthing the boss requires several separate high tension encounters, like sneaking around to multiple trap points over the course of the battle.
A good stealth game reminds me of how it felt as a young lad to sneak around in games I played with my friends. A sufficiently good game of hide and seek tag made you feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator or even the Predator himself. Recapturing that feeling in a videogame is absolutely wonderful.
One of my first stealth games was also my first FromSoftware game, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven. You're a ninja, there's bad guys screwing around, away you go. But going in without a plan was a sure-fire way to get a few shuriken lodged in your skull, or have several samurai make sashimi out of you, so you HAVE to stealth around. I mean, of course, you're a ruddy NINJA. And sure, there were the straight-up boss fights at the end of certain levels, but while there was the usual FS difficulty they never felt unfair or overly brutal. Personally, I'd LOVE to see FromSoft take another crack at the Tenchu series these days. To this day, it's the only ninja game that really made me FEEL like I was playing as a ninja. Story was pretty good too.
Given they've gotten back into Armoured Core, you never know.
rip escapist, heh
Damn I'm so shocked right now, I just found out! I hope we get to hear his voice soon enough
I highly rate the Dishonoured game model. Yes it had a combat system but it often felt massively like I'd fkd up royally if I ever got involved in a pitched battle. I could stab and slash my way through a level but I'd feel worse for doing so.
I got bored with Dishonour and halfway through decided to ditch stealth and just outright murder everyone in my path. Doing that I discovered it’s one of the most fun first person sith/force power games ever
And u usually made the next level even harder because of all the recources you spent. Wich likely ends in you getting into AOTHER fight and so on...
Loved dishonored, hated the loading times....
Plus the game would punish butchery by increasing spread of the plague and you'd wind up with a worse ending
ehh dishonoured is *okay*. the stealth was fine but as another reviewer once said, youre hiding to protect the others from you and not to protect you from the others, which is how it should be. also the game really beat u over the head with the moral choice bs. having it state "dont kill or le bad ending" is not good game design. on top of that every idiot could see the twist coming from a mile away too. "hey guy who did all these murders for us, come over here lets have a drink :^)".
IMPORTANT: Yahtzee is continuing under the name Semi Ramblomatic on the channel Second Wind
1:59 I do not blame Yahtzee at all for this point. The “impromptu stealth section” trope is exactly what’s preventing me from playing Bug Fables.
I do rather prefer stealth in explicitly stealth-oriented games.
It's short. It's frustrating, but don't let one tiny flaw prevent you from finishing this gem. I had to take a step back myself.
I don't even remember the stealth section in Bug Fables. The thing I remember finding annoying is the platforming sections. Don't let one annoying segment prevent you from completing the game.
I'm surprised yathzee never talks about splinter cell whenche talks about stealth game. they were always my favorite. i like the idea of enemies becoming stronger when you get spotted.
He mentioned it once in a Splinter Cell review, said he didn’t dislike them but they never really satisfied him the way Hitman and Thief did on account of SC’s comparatively linear level design
It's a great series (1, 2 and 3). But you can't compete with Thief 1 and 2.
@@elkarion no way. It can absolutely compare.
RIP
Sam Fisher
I can’t believe this is the last Zero Punctuation we’ll ever get 😢 But I can’t wait to see what Yahtzee does next!
I noticed this need for proper stealth game when I realised playing Cyberpunk I subcontiously started self-imposing challenges of "play the game as if you were going for ghost playstyle in old Splinter Cells". It's easy enough to repaint the walls with red, but completing missions leaving no traces behind is oddly satisfying. I wish we could get another game like Thief 2 the Metal Age
"It's only me..." - Sam Fisher
Splinter Cell: Blacklist was stuck in a dilemma, because Casual playtesters liked the less stealthy options like the Mark and Execute system from SC: Conviction, and Veteran playtesters liked the more stealthier options. Basically, it's hard to sell Stealth.
Executives translate that as: "Stealth doesn't sell."
The Sniper Elite series does IMHO stealth quite well, particularly on harder difficulties.
Playing stealthy feels the most satisfying to me, particularly with the knife.
You can also go guns blazing, particularly if spotted, however you won't survive very long.
So slow and methodical stealth is the core but you can temporarily liven things up if you so desire.
"...hankering to play through Thief 2 again." You and me both, Yahtz.
I’d like to believe they went along with kojima when he left konami
I think the metro games are a good example of having a good stealth system _and_ good combat. In the second, there's an enemy area you have to get through, and there's an achievement for getting through it undetected. But importantly, there's another achievement for killing everyone and all backup. It tells you that both options are equally valid and it actually means it.
You know, thief 4 was basically one of the first games I ever played. It was just called thief on the box so I didn't realize there were previous games until later.
I'm nostalgic for it, in the way that lots of people are nostalgic for the games of their childhood. It's been... probably more than ten years since I've played it.
It comes up in game reviews occasionally. Zp, mandalore's. But nobody ever like, actually says anything about it. I remember enjoying it, for the most part. Though I also remember a bug wiping out several hours of progress at one point. Anyway, nobody ever actually talks about it in any detail. They just mention it, make a gross out noise, then move on, like how terrible it is is supposed to be self evident. So thanks for going into the reasons it's disliked, at least a little bit. Though as far as I can tell, the main reason it's disliked is that it's called thief. If it was called something else and they changed the story a bit, I'm pretty sure it'd just be forgotten rather than reviled the way it is.
I'm actually kinda surprised I didn't see GTFO mentioned in any of the comments I scrolled through. Yes, it has a combat system, but that only comes into play (generally speaking) for two things: either you've activated an alarmed security door and the noise summons waves, or you effed up your stealthing and it's time for guns. The majority of the gameplay, as I've understood it, is to be quiet when you need to, as the sleepers get agitated by sound and light. It's definitely doable, but MAN is it tough...even with a full squad, if one person makes one small oopsie that's a fail and reload last checkpoint.
Love that game.
7:15 you will regret it when Indie games add a pile of thief 2s
If there are some truly good ones in there, I'd be happy to rummage through that pile!
Aragami 1 and 2 are probably the most recent(ish) games I can think of that does stealth very well. You're a literal shadow ninja with shadow powers, you can play either completely non-lethal or go full mass murder, both have their rewards and challenges.
Could never get into the first one but the second is a ton of fun.
I was gonna mention Aragami as well! Fantastic game. I especially liked the way the combat system let you take out enemies in 1v1s fairly easily but immediately became impossible with more than one opponent.
Aragami 1 is great for pure stealth enjoyers. Letting the player teleport to nearby shadows means the stealth gameplay doesn't break flow if they get spotted, and instead lets the player hide and consider other paths. The maps are large and have noticeable Thief inspirations. The sequel is more combat/action focused.
2 felt way more actiony and generic over 1, but yes 1 was excellent
@@maxdarwin7517 1 had the common stealth game issue of being a bit too slow. 2 still required stealth, but you were a lot more mobile. I almost never engaged in open combat but you could rip around the map if you wanted to and it was a lot of fun.
Thief 2 is my most played singel-player game ever. Many of the fan missions to that engine is some of the most memorable experienses I ever had.
"If you don't raise the tension ... you don't feel like a predator. You feel like you're tidying up." That's it. That's it *exactly.* I couldn't tell you how many times I was rolling around one of these open-world action games, removing enemies from it like I was completing some checklist of chores. I think you could use that as a quantified metric for how awful of an Assassin's Creed game you happen to be playing, simply by expressing how much time you spend doing this as a fraction of total playtime.
I think this is why people love Black Flag so much; there's a major gameplay element that mostly avoids this. If you're good with the swivel gun you may play for whole hours without doing it at all.
Blades Of The Shogun and Mark Of The Ninja are peak stealth and I am a bit surprised Yahtz hasn't come around them.
He reviewed Mark of the Ninja. It's in the FIFA 13 Zero Punctuation video where he doesn't actually review FIFA.
Kind of an old game but invisible Inc. Was one of my favourite stealth focused games.
It's a stealth and assassination game by way of xcom. The two combine well to create a tense and punishing game worth playing.
Invisible Inc. is a very clever title
Heat signature has been filling that void in my gut for a while now. It's not the purest stealth experience you can have, but it also fills an adjacent hole gut for exciting interstellar B&E.
While I had a lot of issues with Sonic Lost World, I think my biggest gripe was the level where you had to hide behind bushes to avoid getting seen by the big, owl robot. Gotta go fast... except when you shouldn't.
The original Thief as well as the original Deus Ex did MANY things well. Too bad that most developers getting inspiration form those games understood ONLY HALF of these things.
Deus Ex's stealth sucks lol
A big part of the problem is they want to "recreate the original experience" of Thief and Deus Ex by copying them, but part of the original experience was their uniqueness.
@sithdude2436 really, I enjoyed it. And I played it for the first time on steam. I have zero nostalgia for the game
@@meapickle I enjoyed the game overall, I thought it was written pretty well and the world was really fun. The stealth mechanics just kinda... suck. Maybe it's because I went full nonlethal stealth though.
@@sithdude2436 I think it was the nonlethal. I did that for my first ever play through and it was a challenge
The first 2 (even 3 is pretty ok) Thief games are just amazing. I played them again last year after like 14 years and they’re still 2 of the best games ever made.
I always assumed the reason why stealth games are kinda rare is because people often just don’t like them. A lot of people want high octane action or immersive story, and while stealth gameplay can have a lot of the second, it also usually requires a lot of patience, composure and sometimes creativity to get yourself out of certain situations. And that just not something a lot of people find fun. Plus I imagine the logistics of making a stealth game is a lot harder than it is to take a regular rpg or action game and use a few stealth aspects like crouching or sound or other small things like that. True stealth games, Like Styx Shards of darkness and master of shadows, splinter cell, Hitman, thief (yes including the new one, even though it sucks but it has a more stealth focus) and dishonored are still for Niche audience. Can’t expect a big turn out. Even dishonored has the option to flat out blow your way through every level with force so it’s a bit different, though I’d call that a stealth game with action aspects attached to it. Kinda like what the first assassins creed was.
Maybe we’d see more stealth games if developers made a stealth game first and then added action elements into it later and we can avoid the horrible nonsense that we have now with these multi genre games (especially assassins creed as it is rn)
The problem with optional stealth is that it has no risk most of the time.
I get it in horror games, because you only have 6 bullets and you don't know when the next 6 will come. But in action games where you can take them down faster with your OP weapons then stealth knock outs. It makes it feel less pointless, and risky.
I consider Splinter Cell Chaos theory my all time favorite stealth game, I wish we talked about how it can work in this context. Or maybe it doesn't.
Splinter Cell is a good example of a stealth game because fucking up isn't an instant gameover, but you're not strong enough to run into every level gun-blazing.
I had mixed feelings about the stealth. Still leaning positive though. I mean, the stealth had a lot going for it, given all the cool gadgets and means of traversal you had, but as for the screwing up part of stealth, I didn't like that part.
When the guards spotted you, they opened fire immediately, which basically made taking them out the only option you had. And Sam Fisher was pretty good at taking them out, assuming he was already sneaking up on them, so often getting spotted meant you inevitably took damage, maybe died if you didn't go aggressive quickly enough, but always responded the exact same way, ignoring flight and going straight to fight. Getting spotted always felt more annoying than heart-pounding because of that.
To be fair, if it was room with many guards in it, you'd probably take one out and then run to find a more advantageous position.
@@scrittle Getting spotted in Splinter Cell could lead to tense situations because while you are not Rambo, you can take down a few guards and escape if you think fast
Thief is the franchise that's most desperately in need of a revival, but also most likely to be misunderstood by modern publishers.
Only worth reviving if gets back to its roots of the classic first two games. The third game started going astray with its unnecessary city hub, and omission of rope arrows, omission of the classic mission briefings, and suffered from its console limited mission areas. The fourth was. . .well, just a total mess, that's all I have to say.
The most recent big name stealth game I remember enjoying was Alien Isolation. I'm sure a few people remember it as "that awesome stealth game that was spoiled a bit by having a bunch of forced stealth sequences" which it turns out, the devs didn't want to include nearly as many of, and originally tried to avoid but the guys in suits who like to sound important insisted that "gamers want more action!" and forced them to do it then that one thing that all the suits were so careful to make sure the game included was 99% of the negative feedback about the game. Funny how often that happens in the industry, people who think they "know what gamers want" prevent the people who actually know what gamers want from delivering it.
Oh, also Invisible, Inc. because it's better at making jump scares actually scare people than any horror game I've played.
I agree. To add, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (showing my age here) or well the original trilogy adapted the Thief formula. Limited ammo and gear; made aiming real sucky unless you sniped and guards are expert marksman.
Aliens Isolation has to be one of my favourite stealth horror games. Shame they never made a direct sequel to it
This. I get so tense playing it, I have to take breaks. I haven't done that kind of thing since Doom came out, when I was 8.
I'm surprised to notice a lack of mention to the first two Splinter Cell games. Slow, methodical, and paced very well. They knew when to take away options that players would obviously exploit, and all our firefights rarely went in the players favor.
Add chaos theory too
I've read that Gloomwood is inspired by the early Thief games... but also Dishonored and Bloodborne. So that might not scratch that particular itch.
My favorite stealth gameplay in recent years is from the Sniper Elite series.
Amnesia the bunker is my favourite “recent” stealth game. Horror stealth games are usually frustrating for me because I just have to run away and try again, it’s very tiring if you suck like I do. But with Amnesia because you can fight back and even use the monster to your advantage, like throwing a bottle at a door to lure the monster out and smash it for you. Getting caught is fun because you can use the environment to lure the monster into traps, or using resources like your gun, grenades or crafted Molotov cocktails to make the monster runaway, giving you much needed breathing room. But it all drains resources and that’s what I love, you don’t get away and have to try again, you drain your limited resources and give yourself an opportunity to progress.
Count ur days escapist
He was all you had
I miss Splinter Cell
Here's a good place to start with Stealth. Maybe have it so that if one dude spots you, he has to call in back up, giving you a chance to stop him before he does so and having only a handful of guards able to assist once they are alerted
A stealth section in games I recently found myself enjoying was AC:Valhalla. That was slightly different from the 'make combat bad' approach, in that the combat in the game was so trivially easy that I found myself incentivised to challenge myself by stealthing sections as much as possible
I think Plague Tale did a great job of allowing you a chance to defend and save yourself, but also only gives you a couple chances before you’re killed and you’re likely not going to be able to kill multiple enemies at once with a sling.
Dang, I remember a time when Splinter Cell was basically the face of the stealth action genre, nowadays it won't even get mentioned in a "where did all the stealth games go?" video 😂😭
Splinter Cell died as DLC in an open world game, that died with an NFT nailed to its coffin.
thats the main reason me and my brother miss the old MGS games and Payday2 (yes stealth is optional but for most missions it was an option)
Rip The Escapist. Never thought this would be the last video of theirs I’d watch when it came out.
My biggest problem with pure stealth games is that I always feel bad if I mess up. Like the whole feeling he describes about being a master thief is lost for me if the whole cockup cascade thing happens. This is why the Arkham games are so fun imo, honestly it is actually less fun to not mess up at least a little bit in these games because without it they wouldn't even know Batman is there and thus don't get scared.
Not true, as before long the enemies have heartbeat monitors so they know whenever one of them goes down. What Arkham does well in is making mess ups not as punishing, because you have smoke bombs and the grappling hook to instantly break line of sight.
Rip.... Another "smart move" by management and the people who actually do the god damned work and make the f'ing money quit. Will people follow the creators or stay for the corporate bull shit brand?
The splinter cell chaos theoey was a master at selling those AAA graphics of its time while keeping a pure stealth focus.
That's a mood. The last truly good pure stealth game I played was "Styx: Shards of Darkness"
Big sprawling levels with multiple paths, a metric ton of items/skills/options (some of them hilariously broken when combined right), loads of clever objectives, and a shocking amount of replayability with the challenge goals (Ghost run, Speed run, Explorer Run) for each level.
Ugh, you know what, I'm going to re-install it and give it another playthrough once I'm done with Sea of Stars. I REALLY miss good stealth games.
Arguing that modern game devs don't understand why you might deliberately make gameplay suck feels like a weird point to make in a world in which microtransactions exist.
Yeah, if it ain't about maximizing the bucks, they don't wanna know about it.
No Yahtzee no escapist, cya…hope frost follows and goes with the gang.
Followed because of Yahtzee
Unfollowed cause he’s gone
Could have been a different outcome
Kiss your subscribers goodbye
You know you’ve shafted yourself
Over and over again
Useless without a great content
!
One of my favorite Stealth memories in gaming is playing as Blanca In Shadow Hearts.
I really enjoy it when stealth is rewarded because combat is hard and taxes your resources - like the last of us. on higher difficulties especially, getting caught out means you'll need to use your bullets and other supplies more than if you were sneaky. having a series of really good stealth sections and having your inventory fill up because of your efficient play is a great feeling