The Five Types of Stealth Game Gadget - School of Stealth Part 2
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 11. 06. 2024
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Welcome back to the School of Stealth, a GMTK miniseries on how stealth games work. In episode two, letâs look at stealth game gadgets. From optic fibre cameras to camouflage outfits to the trusty silenced pistol. Subscribe to ensure you catch future episodes.
Sources
What Works And Why: Unfair intel in stealth games | Rock Paper Shotgun
www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018...
DGC Ep 136: Interview with Randy Smith and Greg LoPiccolo | Dev Game Club
www.devgameclub.com/blog/2018/...
Design reboot: Thief | Radiator Design Blog
www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/...
Video chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:51 - Category 1: Information Gathering
02:04 - Category 2: AI Manipulation
03:15 - Category 3: Redefining Space
04:46 - Category 4: Movement Systems
05:29 - Category 5: Dispatching Enemies
06:18 - Balancing These Gadgets
10:49 - Conclusion
Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)
Dishonored 2 (Arkane Studios, 2016)
Hitman (IO Interactive, 2016)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint (Ubisoft Paris, 2019)
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (Kojima Productions, 2015)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD (Nintendo, 2013)
Batman: Arkham City (Rocksteady Studios, 2011)
Batman: Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios, 2015)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft Toronto, 2013)
Control (Remedy Entertainment, 2019)
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Ubisoft Montreal, 2005)
Alien: Isolation (The Creative Assembly, 2014)
Invisible, Inc. (Klei Entertainment, 2015)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios, 2012)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (Kojima Productions, 2014)
Gunpoint (Suspicious Developments, 2013)
Metal Gear Solid (Konami, 1998)
Hitman 2 (IO Interactive, 2018)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012)
Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009)
Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones (Curve Digital, 2014)
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Konami, 2004)
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (Aquire, 1998)
Persona 5 (Atlus, 2017)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Konami, 2001)
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Eidos Montreal, 2018)
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2012)
Assassin's Creed: Origins (Ubisoft Montreal, 2017)
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands (Ubisoft Paris, 2017)
The Last of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013)
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Eidos Montreal, 2016)
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (Mimimi, 2016)
ECHO (Ultra Ultra, 2017)
Music used in this episode
Splinter Cell: Double Agent soundtrack - Michael McCann
Systematic - Lee Rosevere (leerosevere.bandcamp.com)
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soundtrack - Amon Tobin & Jesper Kyd
Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes soundtrack - Harry Gregson-Williams and co
Contribute translated subtitles - amara.org/v/C3BDt/ - Hry
Whenever a stealth section is put into an action game, the reason that it feels shoehorned in is probably the fact that they lack gadgets! Without your guns, you have absolutely nothing, so you just have to awkwardly duck-walk for 20 minutes, turning a fast-paced action game into a $60 game of âred light green lightâ.
I absolutely hated the stealth in Final Fantasy 15!
Spider man stealth sections in a nutshell
Thiago Costa definitely. I completely forgot about those. Awful.
This definitely explains Astral Chain's stealth sections. Quite a few elements are left to be desired for intriguing stealth play, but gladly, the game does use stealth sections sparingly, because AC is first and foremost an action game. Also, binding is op, crouching is annoying.
zelda games are the worst offender for this.
One stealth mechanic that I thought was amazing for the time was in Metal Gear Solid 2; where, if you incapacitate a guard, They'll receive a check in call after some time, the person making the call will realize that the person you incapacitated isn't responding and, logically, send someone to the guard's area to look for him. This didn't happen all the time as the person making the check up call will sometimes say he can't spare someone to look for the missing guard. It made you feel like you were going up against a competent enemy force and brought a sense of realism into the game.
Hence me shooting every single walkie talkie in the game
Happened to me in MGS V. Shot a guard who was talking on the walkie talkie and as he dozed off mid sentence the guard on the other end realized something was wrong and alerted everyone.
This does actually happen in modern stealth games from time to time. A guard will do a check in and if someone isnât answering, either that guard or somebody will grow suspicious and check it out, or at the very least put on an aware alert state.
Biggest example I can think of is the Predator Challenges in the Arkham game where if you do really well around the beginning and none of the guards see you, then the Joker/Riddler will announce to the guards that Batman took a few of them out, alerting them to your presence.
This reminds me of stealth in payday 2 where thereâs a similar system of having to answer a guards pager to prevent detection very cool mechanic.
@@ajerqureshi6411 why does it not surprise me that the joker would ruin a perfectly good stealth run
In Shadow Tactics some guards have patrol routes with interaction with other guards. If you kill one, the other will take notice and enter a yellow alarm mode, beginning to search for the missing guard (or you). Its really clever and took me by sorprise the first time
A similar system was used in Robin Hood The Legend of Sherwood. Some enemies would notice the absence of others, look around for a bit and if they couldn't find him they would go and alert the local commander which in turn organizes a search party that looks over the entire map. If they couldn't find the missing guy then everything went back to normal.
@@TyphonNeuron I remember that system first from Desperados, same devs from Robin Hood but came 1 year earlier, absolutely loved that game.
In MGS2 some guards regularly have to call base, don't know why it wasn't kept through the rest of the series.
Shadow Tactics is one of the most insane stealth game i've played beside Invisible Inc. The guards sometimes is so airtight shut you really have to make your own opportunities or played enough to know it's nook and cranny.
@@Rafaeleao2 Interestingly, the devs of Shadow Tactics are currently working on Desperados 3. Should be a lot of fun.
My favorite "super power" when it comes to information gathering is from the original two Thief games.
Just the ability to stand next a door, face 90° away from it. Lean towards it and boom; You have put your ear against the door and can listen in, be it slightly muffled, to what is going on in that room. No need for optic cables or x-ray vision, a human ear. It is limited to sound only NPCs in thief are generally fairy chatty even on their own and footsteps approaching need no further explanations
The Thief trilogy was a masterpiece
Such is the case in the dark mod as well - a game very similar to original thief with almost endless amount of user made levels which range from moderately good to excellent. Just putting it out here in case someone doesn't know. The dark mod is for free btw
Sounds cool. I never tried that. I think stealth games often don't focus enough on the audio design, but Thief nailed it.
That's amazing. One more reason to consider getting Thief lol
@@artey6671 Unless you played Thief:the dark project within a couple of years of launch the spatial audio is broken (Creative bought out the other spatial audio companies and sat on the patents) making it a much harder and less fun game. Things like listening at the door lose almost all of their usefulness beyond just hearing there's a guard there.
The Mr. Freeze boss fight in Arkham City is a good example of a stealth boss fight. You can't use the same move twice so it forces the player to remember the options they have available. It also helps that you do a regular stealth section in the same area shortly before so you are familiar with the layout of the room.
It's, to this day, my favourite boss fight because of this.
Agreed. I'll never forget this fight as long as I live...
Well that and "The End" sniper battle in Metal Gear Solid 3...
The End in MGS3. An enemy that can almost instantly fuck you up if he sees you, but there's a catch: you can't see him either. You need to remain hidden while also tracking him down. He even uses your same tactics: camo, traps, shooting and changing position.
Its pretty great.
"I learn from my mistakes, do you?"
Great call. That whole game does stealth really well
"leaning around cover in dishonored"
Yes but also he literally has Dark Vision
That ability is so overpowered that I simply never use it. Where's the fun if you're never at risk?
And the ability to peek through the keyholes
Dark Vision is so fucking good.. It's literally wall hacks, but in a stealth game.
He probably didn't want to give similar examples, dark vision is very similar to the X-ray vision in Batman which he also mentioned
He also has a half-living heart that prowls in the minds of any target in sight and reveals their secrets.
"These sneaky boys and girls are often defined by their iconic inventory items."
- Shows a clip of snake sliding down a hill in a cardboard box
Beautiful.
as iconic as it can gets
ikr, and they even reference it in Mark of the Ninja lol.
Dishonoredâs âpossessionâ ability was a great twist on the disguise ability in other games, because itâs time limited, and when it ends you immediately pop back in to the universe behind the possessed. It forces you to have a usually very specific plan for how to use it, which inevitably leads to you making an error and needing to improvise. Powerful but brittle.
Possession is so much fun, easily my favourite stealth mechanic in any game. The possibilities to use it are amazing. Get an enemy somewhere secluded, pass a checkpoint, let them fall off a building, let them stumble into a hacked Wall of Light...
But if you make it too powerful, you get something more like DAH (Destroy All Humans).
I recall a game where you played as a cherub and could possess humans. Can't remember what the plot was about or it was called, though.
@@K__a__M__I I am frequently reminded that although I finished Dishonoured, I never really *played* it!
I get the same feeling with Prey sometimes. The possibilities are so endless it would take multiple playthroughs to really understand the game. It's a shame I don't have the time to experience everything these amazing games have to offer
@@Roxor128 that was called Messiah. I quite literally have chills right now thinking about that game, because I haven't about it for years! Must have been about 20 years ago now, what a blast from the past
Favorite stealth mechanic? A cardboard box. Why?
"...when I put it on, I suddenly got this feeling of inner peace. I can't put it into words. I feel... safe. Like this is where I was meant to be. Like I'd found the key to true happiness."
Cat detected
"YOU should come inside the Box. THEN you'll know what I mean."
"Man I don't WANNA know what you mean!"
Is it just me..? Or is everyone connected to the major, strange?
@@LeoKRogue This fox unit is a nutfest!
What is this from? I'm sure it's an MGS quote (maybe an easter egg of sorts) but I can't remember the context
"Sam Fisher's goofy goggles..."
how dare you.
3 bright lights
"stealth"
You can't see lights if they're in the dark
@@OhNoTheFace those lights aren't visible to the naked eye.
@@OhNoTheFace the lifhts were added because sam was so stealthy even the playtesters couldn't find him
@@chriscormac231 hahaha what
THE NEW CATEGORY FEATURE IS AWSOME. Nice to see you using it.
I wish it was also for mobileđą
@@techshtuff8289 update your app, it's there.
@@techshtuff8289 It is on mobile, but its just recently been rolled out. So not everybody has it in their app yet.
This is new to me. How do I use it?
Edit: People putting skip links in the description has always been a thing, but I wonder what it has to do with that new system
@@MichaelGarrity I saw categories on a 5 or 7 years old video, which had timestamps in the description. Could this be automatic?
11:07 I kinda laughed at how you say "strategies should be mixed up, not endlessly repeated" while showing the same clip of batman invert taking-down the guy for the third time.
:D
@@GMTK They did fix it in Arkham City, where enemies start to destroy gargoyles if they 'notice' you using them.
@@pirat87pl Um, they already fixed that problem in the first game. I don't remember how often it happened but there were a few rooms where the gargoyles were set with explosives that would blow after a few seconds if you touched them. So the developers already accounted for this.
@@pirat87pl IIRC they also added enemies that can detect you if you are using the X-Ray vision in Arkham Knight
@@snaxandsoda They trapped the gargoyles once in Arkham Asylum. It's not really much of a limit. It's more of a limitw that you can't hang someone from a gargoyle where there's already someone hung - but you can cut them down pretty easily. (Arkham City and later also made it a 'noisy' takedown instead of a silent one, so it alerts to your location.)
Honestly, the bigger limit is just that gargoyle locations are sparse - There's usually about 4-6, and they're on the edges of the level, so getting a target to walk under one can be an issue.
This video convinced me to become a Patron.
Thank you very much!
Is 5 months too late to call out a simp
@@Geetarit it's never too late
@@Geetarit you must simp for the boys, its our duty
Yes I love both Eggcellent and GMTK
I really enjoyed the Semblance power from Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. Its an interesting take on Agent 47's disguises- you can use your magic to disguise yourself as an NPC, but only if they're unconscious (not dead), it drains your mana whenever you move while disguised, and you can only do it on any given unconscious enemy once. So you have to not only knock out a guard, but carry his unconscious body around until you need a disguise because you can only move a certain distance from him before the disguise drops.
I think your abilities (like running and climbing) are also restricted, right?
And it doesn't fool every enemy. Dogs can smell through your mask, as can supernatural enemies.
In DotO i loved the Foresight power. Basically a drone with loot highlighted as well as enemy patrols. So much better than Dark Vision in my opinion.
Imo Death of the Outsider was a lot of fun because the developers took away the choice of what powers to get. When the developers know exactly what tools you have, they can design a level around those tools.
Gioco Royeca Best games of all time imo. Too bad they arenât appreciated for their worth because the current generation of gamers are just COD players without an attention span long enough to appreciate any game with more to it than killing things for no reason.
Snake's cardboard box, especially in MGSV, is an insanely versatile tool, to the point of absurdity. Of course, MGS is a series that revels in absurdity so...
I'm currently playing MGSV (like 5 hours in or so), but haven't used this silly box so far. Maybe I should investigate that little thing-y.
But speaking of MGSV, can you tell me: is there a reason why there are credits after every single mission? I mean I already lost track on how many times I've read "Directed by Hideo Kojima" and it kind of gets a bit annoying.
@@lonestarr1490 The video game industry is infamous for not giving developers credit for their work. You've probably heard of Hideo Kojima before, right? That's because for a long time he has insisted on plastering the games with his name. There are tons of successful video game franchises out there the developer's of which (I mean the individuals, not the studios) you've never heard of. Who was the lead designer for Witcher 3? The game that won like 250 game of the year awards? Or The Last of Us? God of War? Very few people would know off the top of their head, but anyone that follows the video game industry knows Hideo Kojima. A big reason for that is that ever since the opening cinematic of MGS1 Kojima's name has been all over the games and not just hidden in the end credits 90% of players either never reach or skip past.
By the way you can skip the credits after the missions by pressing X (or A) without fear of skipping a cutscene or anything after them.
@@poika22 I was totally fine with the credits after the intro or after the prologue. But after every single mission? That's ridiculous. Yes, it helps in becoming aware of who the lead designer is (but not more than that because all the other names get too few screen time). But it also helps in developing the feeling of star behavior and excessive drive for recognition on that lead designers end. Plus it really undermines immersion.
Btw, that is my first Kojima game and I knew his name (and also his face) before. There's no need in shoving it down my throat again and again. Thanks for the tip, though.
BtwÂČ, a video game of this caliber is not the work of a single man but of hundreds of people. If I have to choose between the reluctance of the video game industry in glorifying developers over their piece of work and the Hollywood way of "here's the producer, here the director, here the male lead and nobody else matters!", then I know what I'd prefer.
@@lonestarr1490 I'd prefer that some game developers be remembered for their work than none at all. Also note that Kojima's reputation played a huge role in allowing him and his fellow coworkers at Kojima productions to recover and seamlessly transition away from Konami after their mistreatment at the company. If he had been just another no-name game dev he as well as the rest of people that brought us the Metal Gear franchise would have gotten completely fucked, which is not uncommon in AAA development.
â@@remembertotakeshowerspleas355 No objection. I just don't see why going on my nerves was a necessary requirement for that. As I said, he already knew him quite well for his work prior to any of that.
Enemy tagging in MGSV is handled wonderfully. Initially, you have to do it manually. Even with upgrades and tools to help identify, they can still provide only minimal and temporary data. The thrill of infiltrating a stronghold is the fear that not every enemy was tagged during the recon phase.
@Alperen Ăetin Right, but you lose the mobility of D-Horse and there's way less sniper support/in-your-face-boobage-and-assage shots you get from Quiet.
Even with D-Dog, he only senses enemies and doesn't permanently tag them. You still need to do that to keep them marked when you get out of range.
D-dog also has the range of like 50 meters
I turn them off, same as how there is no listen mode in the last of us on harder difficulties. It takes away your crutches.
Alperen Ăetin I think D-dog would have been a lot better balanced if he could only sniff out enemies from 25 or so meters away. So he could earn you about a guard you havenât accounted for sneaking up on you, but wouldnât revelar the entire outpost before you barely got inside
Just use dd the best budy ever
One of my favorite mechanics, which you touched on briefly, is the Response System (RP) in Metal Gear Solid V, which basically serves as a tangible measure of adaptivity and enemy preparedness. You mentioned that if you score lots of headshots, guards will start to wear helmets more often, but there are lots of other really cool ways the enemy adapts to your tactics, as well!
If you frequently use sniper rifles or other long-ranged weaponry against the enemy, they'll start deploying snipers of their own to counter you. If you use lots of sleeping gas, the enemy will start wearing gas masks frequently. If you use vehicles like tanks or APCs, they'll begin deploying soldiers with anti-tank weaponry like rockets, and start deploying anti-vehicle mines. And if you frequently infiltrate bases at night, they'll start to issue all soldiers night vision goggles and flashlights in order to thwart you. There's more than what I've mentioned here, too! It's a very fleshed out system that makes the world feel lived in, like you're fighting a real enemy that learns from your tactics, forcing you to come up with new plans and strategies to overcome new obstacles.
It sounds good on paper, but I feel it's just too weak; I played through MGSV until I activated all the responses: gasmasks, goggles, snipers, flashlights, armour and so on, but it really didn't make getting through unnoticed all that much harder, so I never bothered with the missions that disable them. The enemies only improve _after_ you've already succeeded in a mission, too, meaning there's no moment-to-moment surprises there: How much cooler would it be if, when an alert was raised at night, all the guards would put on goggles and flashlights then and there? And finally, they may get better gear, but with the exception of snipers, they don't actually change their behaviour at all; They still just walk around as carefree as before, which is just silly! If you were a soldier on guard duty and you were instructed to wear NV goggles, you would naturally understand there is a real danger of a night assault by an enemy force, and if you understood that, you would naturally be more wary and cautious on your night shift. This way it just looks like the enemy military is just complacent and lazy, which is not bad by itself, but it completely goes against the purpose of the RP system in the first place!
My problem with it is even if you Fulton out an entire mission leaving no one to tell how they were taken out or how they should adapt, they do anyway. How would the enemy know I headshot them if they canât tell anyone? âHey boss, I got a feeling that someone has been tranqing everyone in our outposts with a headshot then recruiting them to his base in the Seychelles waters leaving no witnesses behind.â âHow do you know that?â âI got a very specific fortune cookie.â
@@luigivercotti6410 Are you playing with reflex mode on? I just find it difficult to believe that snipers didn't add any challenge to your experience , they literally have super vision in this game and unless you've identified them yourself early on they can definitely catch you by surprise. Helmets and body armor definitely make both stealth and firefights more challenging. Another cool aspect is that later in the game if you've been using too many distractions enemies will call each other if they're close enough to go investigate together. I dunno seems good enough to me.
â@@linkinpark4everize I did play with reflex mode on, and perhaps I should disable it for my next playthrough to make things more interesting, and there were times where I had to rely on it to avoid being seen by a sniper, but generally, just immediately going prone when you hear "Boss, get down!", spotting the sniper if you haven't already done that as part of the first recon sweep before you go in (snipers are very exposed in that game after all, so you can easily spot them from far away, not like in the Sniper Elite series), then pulling out your own sniper/tranq sniper and taking them down works 95% of the time, and it's more of a routine than some exciting action. If you don't wanna take them out then and there, you can pretty easily pull a red light, green light on them by moving closer when they're not looking in your direction, and that does make things more exciting when coupled with avoiding guard patrols, but it's often the case that it isn't, making it another routine. Once you have a good enough tranq pistol/sniper, helmets aren't much of an issue: with reflex mode on you can just be detected, wait for them to turn towards you, then shoot them in the face, but even without it, just shoot them in the arm or leg, and they'll go to sleep soon enough. From long range, just use the tranq sniper and shoot them wherever really; Whether they go down instantly or after like 3 seconds is immaterial. And if you're not concerned with murder, things get really easy when you get the silenced anti-materiel rifle that basically goes though helmets and body armour like a knife through butter. But even without it, you can just pop them twice in the head with your pistol/rifle and 80% of the time no-one will be close enough to give you trouble when they hear the clank of the popping helmet. In terms of firefights, alright you have a point, but getting into one means you have failed the stealth so it doesn't really matter so much to me; As for enemies calling each other, well, with reflex mode you can quickly dispatch two guards as easily as one, but of course, two guards instead of one investigating something makes things harder if you're distracting them towards you, but it makes things easier if you're distracting them away from you; That way there's two guards missing from the patrols you need to slip past. In conclusion, I must agree with you, but I must specify: It's good enough for a first step; For a first step it is, and bravo to novelty, but there's a long way to go to have a Response system that truly adds to stealth.
Luigi Vercotti if youâre on PC thereâs a mod to get rid of ocelots constant inputs and one to make enemy ai more advanced and adds more patrols etc. , also turning off reflex mode is the way to go if you want a more immersive experience
You know what games nailed the "see through walls" power for me? The Middle Earth Games: Shadow of Mordor and War. Use the power whenever you like, and you can see every enemy nearby, but the terrain becomes harder to see. This way, you can either gather information, or you can traverse the environment, but doing both simultaneously is a hassle. It makes the ability feel more like a tool to be used when appropriate, rather than the objectively most effective way to play the game.
@Frank Drebin _Hear hear. Fully agree with you on this one in the Mordor games.
It's awesome when you are near a stronghold and don't think there's many enemies nearby, then use your wraith vision and see the screen fill up with enemies. Always a "great tension" moment when that happens...
Absolutely "precious", lol...
Yeah. A game that failed with that was Watch Dogs 2. You can just use the "net vision" or whatever it was called and bump up your gamma and see clearly.
@@nerd_nato564 That's why play testing these kinds of ideas are very important.
Obviously play testing this Watchdog vision thing wasn't handled properly and they just signed off on this mechanic without thinking it through.
I have watched a buddy of mine play through entire missions of Watchdogs without taking this "vision" off.
I actually asked him once what the point was of having it on all the time if you can't see the actual textures of the game.
He replied that if it's kept off then he'll fail the mission...
I don't think he plays those games much anymore...
Blacklight Retribution had a so called "tactical visor" that lets you see enemies, allies and points of interest 8control points, terminals, capture flags, etc) but on the downside you can't use any weapon, move very very slowly and your enemies can use it, too. Oh, and it has a rather lengthy cooldown.
Last of Us did it well too. Using "listen mode," as it's called, can only be done when crouched down, which greatly reduces mobility and strips you of your offensive options.
It's even implemented well in multiplayer too, as it encourages stealthy gameplay without making it the sole winning strategy.
"What's your favorite weapon in splinter cell?"
"Hands"
*Switches SC 20k launcher to SC 20k shotgun*
"Oh yea hands, definately"
@@Anant6925 But they're so loud and they don't have that much ammo.
I know but it's still my favourite weapon
The only correct answer.
If I recall correctly, there was a clever section in Batman Arkham City during the mr freeze fight where you were forced to stealth around the boss. It's clever in that it made you use all of your abilities instead of sticking to your "main" stealth strategy since the boss always adjusted his patterns and his environment so that it's impossible to repeat strategies.
"Where would stealth games be without the black jack, trip mine or the silent pistol" - Untitled Goose Game answers that question fairly effectively - goofier, lower stakes, and more relaxing all combining to be more approachable for those who aren't usually into stealth games. For favorite stealth mechanic? I recently replayed half of the PS2 Gregory Horror Show and gathering information to solve puzzles by spying through keyholes in a clockwork world on a 24 hour cycle is surprisingly satisfying to this day... Though that might just be because you get to fill up everyone's schedules which is... Err... Satisfying enough that I think it's the main reason I've never beaten the game, eventually I fall into a loop where filling the schedule becomes a bigger priority to me than solving the puzzles. Basically the only part of that game that's aged poorly, imo, are the use of tank controls.
The cloning system from the Styx games is one of my favorite - it's a great piece of dual-purpose design. You can spit out a weaker and (normally) nonlethal copy of your goblin self that you then actively control to scout ahead/alert guards/set up traps/explode into a noxious cloud (which covers a whole bag of stealth game tricks in one little green package) and then hop back into Styx to move ahead. Where this gets really clever, though, is that you can magically teleport Styx to where the clone is (consuming the clone) to skip hazards or take advantage of some opportunity you didn't see beforehand - a cool ramification of this being that you can spit out a clone and leave it somewhere safe as a sort of manual checkpoint you can eject back to. Since Styx is very fragile protagonist, and even basic guards can swiftly overwhelm him, this also serves to reduce frustrating level resets for perfectionists such as me.
"An advantage over the enemy in practically every access except sheer brute force"
I can call in an attack helicopter in MGSV
Stealth game starter kit: Metal Gear Solid V, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, Hitman 2, Mark of the Ninja
@@GMTK Mark of the Ninja is like a perfect stealth game for me.
@@GMTK Swap MGS V with Thief II: The Metal Age and you have the perfect list.
@Jimmy Evil Because it's the best game in the series in just about every regard. It has the best level design, the best controls, the best balancing of your power vs that of guards, it has the least story impact on its gameplay (making it infinitely more replayable than something like Conviction or Blacklist) and it is the absolute peak of stealth design focus in the series, as it is a natural evolution of Splinter Cell 1 and 2, before the series began to focus more on action and gritty stories starting with Double Agent.
@@GMTK I think one of the first two Thief games would be more appropriate than MGSV
While probably not the best single player experience, I firmly believe Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine to be one of the most fun co-op stealth games.
Definitely, great moment I had in that game was finding out the end goal was on the same floor in one of the missions, so I just broke the wall down to escape
Freedom Spoon!
My siblings loved playing Monaco. Itâs really focused gameplay until someone gets spotted and then all rules go out the window and the only goal is the exit
beat the whole game with a friend.....I'd do it all over again.......if I had another friend......... :'(
Great video as always.
I do disagree about Dishonored : I love the challenge of clearing a level, enemy by enemy, without being seen, and there's a great sense of satisfaction in passing through what was crowded with dangerous foes and is now a wasteland.
I agree. To me the moment you can walk freely in an area (whatever the stealth game) is a blessing.
Eliminating every sentinel generaly requires a series of very well times moves and their execution can be quite stressfull.
The freedom of movement that follows is very rewarding.
It's the same feeling after killing all your ennemies in Doom.
The problem is that this playstyle only works with self-imposed limitation. To name just one example, using the rat summoning makes clearing a level near effortless.
It's a big criticism of mine that the abilities in Dishonored are way too powerful. You basically have to chose between using them or having a semblance of a challenge. It's honestly pretty bad game design.
People like to play stealth games in one of two ways:
Either there's no bodies for the guards to find, or there's no guards alive to find the bodies
the problem with dishonored is that if you play low chaos you have only one way to play the game but otherwise it's full of tools to get rid of your foes and they're alot more fun than "blink, choke, repeat"
@@abdullahpoyraz2838 Dishonoured 2 helps improve that by having all of Emily's abilities be useful even if you are playing non lethal as well as dishonored 2 having a way of playing less stealthy while being non lethal.
I love that you're using the chapter feature of CZcams. More (as in all!) channels should do that! :)
wait, for how long has that been a feature on youtube? there are plenty of chaptered videos who dont use the actual chapter feature, and i was never aware of that, wow.
The what? I'm not seeing this anywhere.
yeah, and music albums also benefit from the feature, it's pretty neat
@@PerMortensen if you look at the red bar at the bottom of the vid, you can see its broken up into chapters
I was just checking to see if someone else had spotted this. Thanks Game Maker's Toolkit!
Stealth is my fav genre! So glad this is a series
Cloning in Styx was so versatile! You could use them as distractions, as tools for setups, as exploration, as smoke bombs, as a respawn point on the difficulty with no checkpoints, as switching co-op and in puzzles
Yeah, cloning in Shards of Darkness was a real way to actually avoid save scumming.
It is still basically the same thing, but your gameplay still feels continious, as you use more clones to try to progress.
Styx's mobility is my favourite power. He is small, quiet, jumps high, and can take incredible routes through (and sometimes even "outside") the level. In some linear levels this is somewhat immersion breaking (why is there a hole in the wall right in the prison entrance?), but on larger levels the freedom of movement is awesome.
Sounds interesting. Ill have to check it out. Also, am I the only one that liked that elves in these games start as larvae in a giant tree? Really interesting.
Honestly, half the fun in dishonoured is stacking unconscious guards like firewood in some random spot, and imagining their reaction when they wake up and have no idea how they got there.
I'm gunna take a stab at what these 5 gadgets might be before I watch the video:
1. Move yourself (blink, dive, grapple)
2. Make the opposition move (distractions)
3. Obscure the opposition's senses (disguise, smoke bomb)
4. Eliminate the opposition (kill guards etc.)
5. Gain information on the opposition (sonar pulse, tag enemies)
EDIT: I basically got it all right, but I like how you articulated obscuring the opponent's sense as manipulating the space. Good job.
Pretty close!
This is the cringiest flex I've ever seen.
@@justynjmsr8684
lol fr
@@justynjmsr8684 yeah cus everyone knows he made the list after he watched it. He gave positive reinforcement in the end of the comment to the creator, sadly, he just had to give it to himself first. A desperate and insecure needy attentionseeker. But hey, we all have our flaws.
Wow, thats amazing.
While examining AI-controlled sneak-em-ups where a single designer created a scenario with the intent, most of the time, to allow the player to win, what about situations where improvisation is forced upon a stealthy player?
The Spy in Team Fortress 2 is ostensibly a stealth game character, but rather than taking out AI-controlled baddies, Spy players are up against a team of other players. So how exactly does the stealth game formula (detection, gadgets, etc) change when the game design is meant to trick other humans?
Surprisingly less than you might think, I mean the spy is defined by his cloaking and disguise mechanics which plays into the idea of temporary states of advantage to let you slip between safe areas you can be fairly sure the enemy isn't present in while you get into a position to do some damage. He gets access to a little bit more information on the enemy team than other players on his team, he's the only character that can see enemy health values by default and he can use his cloak to simply observe the enemy undetected for a bit if he's so inclined, especially with the Cloak and Dagger.
The TF2 environment doesn't have much ability to change dynamically, but the Spy can sabotage some formidable player created obstacles with his sappers or take advantage of them himself, most notably with dispensers and teleporters.
The big thing that he's missing is extra movement options. He has a small speed boost compared to other classes (a buff that was only given to him like 10 years after the game launched), but he can't compete with things like the Scout's speed and double jump, the Demoman and Soldier's explosive jumping, the Medic's quick fix and the Pryo's jetpack and Detonator. Heck, even the engineer can do some tricky movement things with his buildings, including rocket jumping to some degree. Personally, I think this was probably a bad idea for the spy overall and might have contributed to his consistently weak state, in addition to the fact that stealth just doesn't really work very well against a halfway coordinated team.
i think that the spy isn't a good example, by being on a multiplayer space, most of the features used in stealth games can't be applied and leads to a VERY unreliable skill set
You never know when an enemy may come around the corner and bump into you or just decide to shoot at you to check you
the spy plays more like poker, you have to act as generic as possible as to not attract attention and choose how deep into enemy terrritory you want to go, the further deep you go the more you risk wasting the precious time you could have used to take down an important target near the frontlines but at the same time you could disrupt something more valuable, like a sentry nest
One of the main differences about the spy to other classes is that surviving doesn't pay nearly as much as taking out an important target, as long as you use your current life to do something valuable, you've made a good trade, specially because a spy that doesn't die will keep everyone else on edge
@@rompevuevitos222 I think that the idea of stealth as applied in competitive multiplayer situations is an interesting thing to explore in and of itself, especially in relation to the stealth described here for single player games.
I know GMT doesn't really look at multiplayer stuff generally, but its worth an examination, especially in how it varies between games.
To take the really obvious examples, as well as the spy there's also Overwatch's Sombra, who fleshes out some elements of the spy's design and reduces others. She has much better movement options than the Spy, like her fast movement when invisible and personal teleporter, and like I said I think the Spy's unexceptional movement in the context of TF2 is the classes' most consistent issue that probably compounds a lot his weaknesses. She also has more of focus on controlling spaces as GMT describes, where the spy can only really sap some engineer buildings she can sabotage health pickups, which is a more reliable ability on the whole. She can softly incapacitate enemies with her hacking attacks to deprive them of their key abilities, and finally, compared to Spy, she has much better ability to gather more information that gives her a meta advantage over her enemies since she can see low health enemies through walls. So she hews much more closely to the stealth game 'standard' as described in this video, while still remaining a multiplayer game character.
Having said that she has a different overall focus, Sombra is more about weakening an enemy team over the long run by catching them out with hacks and sabotaged health, and staying alive and out of the way with her cloak and teleporter to keep pestering them. Her ability to find low health enemies pushes her towards favorable engagements where she'll have an obvious advantage, preferably out of the way of more powerful enemies. So she ends up with more of a supportive role weakening the enemy over the long run without pulling off many crazy plays. Spy is almost the opposite in that regard, his backstab lets him immediately eliminate very dangerous and high health enemies, and he's built with the understanding that his tools are meant to get him in place to make huge picks that can turn around a game in an instant by using his cloak and disguises to sneak into the thick of battle rather and get the heavy-medic combo about to use an uber. Some of his unlocks, most notably the Dead Ringer, further emphasis this by allowing him to tank a deadly blow and get out of the thick of it, or (with the big earner) move quickly from one backstab to the next in succession or run the hell out of there. He can also skulk around trying to annoy people and take out weak targets, especially against snipers and lone engineers, and some of his tools can help him with that, but he's probably not as useful in that role as Sombra.
Traditionally Spy is a weak class in TF2 who's difficult to use effectively in higher skill settings, so I don't think his overall design works very well (the Sniper for example is usually a much better pick class) but I don't know enough about Overwatch's overall meta to say if her differences in focus is better in the end. I would be curious to hear about her current place in terms of power rankings and if she shows how a stealth class can work effectively in a multiplayer game like this.
It's pretty simplistic. Even if we look at better examples like Trouble in Terrorist Town or Assassin's Creed multiplayer, it's less about stealth mechanics and tools and more about blending in and avoiding attention *socially* (often through meta adherence) - more like the party game Mafia than a single player stealth video game.
I'd argue this is necessary because stealth only matter if "guard" players (regardless of their skill) can reliably take out a hunter who fails to blend in. e.g. TTT wouldn't work if a counter strike pro could just gun everyone down. Too much mechanical depth would allow mechanically skilled players to bypass the social stealth game and ruin it for everyone else.
P.S. TF2, Overwatch, etc. are pretty different. Those are treated pretty much like MOBA abilities - it's barely a stealth experience for the Spy and it certainly isn't one for the other players. Even there, it's social/meta blending in rather than proper stealth game fare.
Spy has 3 specialized, stealth gadgets: invis watch, disguise kit, and knife. Cloaking allows him to secretly gather information and get good positioning. Disguising increases the time before enemies get suspicious, and sentries won't shoot you. Backstabbing somebody instantly kills them.
However, cloaking is balanced by running out and requiring ammo packs, being vulnerable to random spam, and being audible when decloaking. Disguising requires good acting while being highly ineffective against good/paranoid players. And the knife does little damage when the enemy isn't facing away.
Yet, these simple mechanics provide a ton of depth for stealth. Cloak management, dodging while invisible, appropriate disguises, distraction (shooting for attention then turning invisible), nearby decloaking when there's enough noise, exploiting backstab mechanics, understanding player psychology, predicting when an enemy will be facing away from you, etc. Add in different Spy weapons, TF2's map design (a lot of verticality), and common class traits (airstrafing, damage surfing). His skill ceiling is deceptively endless.
When you talk about players sabotaging the experience for themselves by falling into repetitive strategies, its not limited to stealth games by any means but I agree with you. My quest to find the most efficient way to play the game does sabotage my experiences with those games. The example of taking out all the guards so your exfiltration is effortless is excellent. I'm sure every player is guilty of doing something like that and its an interesting viewpoint, leaving the wildcard in the hands of the player to decide if they wanna get out of the mission easy, or trusting the designer will have thought of that and have put in something to spice things up. For example in MGS5:ground zero when you finally get to Paz there is a guard change so that no matter how meticulous you were going in, there's still tension on your way out. Definitely makes for a more interesting experience.
The careful balance between giving the player the opportunity to make meaningful plans that makes their experience more enjoyable and more successful vs changing the circumstances so that the players plans aren't fool proof and there is still tension in the gameplay. Too much planning and your players can over efficiently remove all the tension and challenge with a good plan, too much change and you encourage the player to not bother planning because its pointless as everything will just change anyway.
Falling into repetetive strategies can be made a strong point of the system - amp up the difficulty as player goes through to let them choose between being versatile and picking best matching strategy for each situation, or master using their strategy of choice to the point of being able to deal with challenge despite the odds being against them. On more generic level some RPGs like Deus Ex series do that quite well, by providing multiple options to solve each challenge and - while having at times some preference towards one solution being optimal - not removing the option of using different solutions, but still keeping the benefits of staying versatile.
Edit: this approach nicely fits making game a good choice for challenge runs (finish the game while using exclusively one strategy, or by never using something), which can then be emphasised even further by achievement system that rewards you for completing said challenges. It's a cheap way to bump replayability for completitionist players (you need to finish game multiple times to get all achievements), but requires designing around this level of flexibility.
The new Category feature is great! Thanks for putting in the time to implement it! That being said I can't wait for 2 years in the future when CZcams removes it for no reason.
What feature is this? I see nothing different.
Always a good day when a new GMTK video releases ^_^
sneaking past enemies is my favorite mechanics. Its kind of puzzle solving/ strategically/tactically approaching your objective
I do love how Thief's light and sound systems work, and how they can be toyed with. Moss Arrows can turn noisy surfaces into quieter ones, and of course there are Water Arrows to put out torches.
With all that in mind, I'd be interested in seeing a stealth game where smell is also a factor, like if the guards are dog-men who can sniff out a problem. You could mask your own scent with a neutralizing mist, or maybe mark certain areas with suspicious scents to draw Goodboys off of their intended routes. "Hwurh? Somethin' smells fishy, an' it ain't me!" *[tracks down that fish head you tossed earlier]*
GmodPlusWoW This is a really great idea but i think itâd be hard to make it make sense to the player. Like itâs very easy for the player to see how dark an area is or how hear loud something is, but a smell system would require some kind of UI element and that might make it feel more clunky/arbitrary as a result. It also requires pretty careful implementation, as it could hamper immersion a lot of its not 100% consistent. With all that being said, smell based enemies do sound like theyâd be really scary and interesting to go up against and i donât want to bash the idea. It would just be super duper hard to do well/intuitively imo.
@@masone.9004 Cartoony smell clouds/trails
You mean like in Red Dead Redemption 2? Animals can smell you and you have consumables that mask it. When you go in to Eagle Eye you can see the trails of smell, I guess pheromones, from your own and other living organisms. Details in that game are amazing.
Allegedly, The Last of Us 2 will implement guard dogs than can smell you out. It will be interesting to see how they will implement it and how to bypass it. Probably by throwing a piece of bacon/food away from your position, lol
Theres already a game that has dogs tracking your scent, it was even in the video. Mark of Ninja.
Javier Fonseca Youâre absolutely right, that slipped my mind. In my head i was thinking of a relatively realistic game like thief or metal gear. it would look a bit weird to see a smell trail coming off of snake. edit: oooh i see how eagle eye mode or some other kind of special awareness mode can fix this issue. i appreciate you guys setting me straight.
I love how subtle every gadget and tool is in thief, nothing is over the top because it doesnt need to be. Garret just needs to get in and get out, simple as that.
I always enjoy mines and other things I can put in the enemyâs path, like the explosive gel in the Arkham games or the Dishonored stun mines. It makes me feel clever when I can anticipate where the enemy is going to be and set a trap for them.
This channel is so well made to the point it is crazy to imagine the amount of work that is put into these videos, honestly Iâm speechless by the quality of your videos
My favourite stealth game of all time is splinter cell chaos theory. I love the many little gadgets you have to gather information, all with limited supply (exept the cable camera), which will make you plan every step carefully. I also like the differend modes of his goggles: No overpowered x-ray, but thermal vision or the ability to see electric currents, which make it powerful to scout, but you can't have them on all the time, because you simply wont see many things.
I really hate the new trend of â scan enemies â it kills the sense of tension of not knowing what next or to except in the level, thereâs nothing more thrilling than walking slowly using your senses to discover enemies and preform immediate plans.
I consider it a better alternative to squatting for 10 minutes to memorize the ai pathing.
@@NotSoAccurate
You don't think automating the reconnaissance part of a stealth game robs the appeal? It's not like staking out enemies actually takes more than a minute.
I think the logic is to discourage the kind of super-conservative play that something like MGS2 or MGS3 has, but it definitely swings the pendulum too far the other way.
@jocaguz18
I've never had to stare at a guard in a MGS game for over two minutes, and MGS is like the epitome of that mechanic.
Generally one minute to figure out a single enemy's pattern is pretty damn accurate. Three minutes is like the maximum you might spend.
the problem with that though is the combat scenarios that play out if you get caught usually are not fun to deal with for a lot of people depending on the design of the gameplay. This is the crux of the problem and even brought up in this guys video series about how games fail to balance both playstyles. Nobody wants an instant fail load screen, but nobody wants a full on fire fight either when they showed up to play a stealth game and the combat controls are not engaging enough. Unless the gameplay is fairly balanced to make each encounter combat or stealth equally fun to play so you don't care how the scenario plays out tagging seems like the way to go.I think is a fair compromise between consumers and developers that don't want to focus so much time and energy making unique and fully drawn out mechanincs in multiple playstyles but not forcing the player to play a certain way either. The tagging allows players that don't want combat to have more control over their play experience by knowing as much info before going in as possible to avoid combat they don't like by getting surprised. Likewise it is an option so for people like you that hate this trend you can still choose not to do it and go in blindly. So I am not to sure of your hatred of it because it actually does not effect you one bit. Just don't tag them, problem solved for you. It allows players choice though so I am all for it.
That "leaning over the edge" gadget is some OP stone age technology.
Dishonored is one of my favourite games of all time, but MAN that Dark Vision system annoyed the hell out of me, for exactly the reason you said here: it's so useful you'll always want it on, the penalty for using it is negligible, and it makes the (gorgeous) game world look awful. They nerfed it a bit in Dishonored 2 to help fix this problem, but they didn't go far enough IMO.
For positivity's sake: I love how many different variants there are on the simple teleport "Blink" between the series' four protagonists Corvo, Emily, Daud, and Billie. Corvo has a simple short-range teleport, but the other three have equivalent powers with other features.
Daud has a Blink that stops time while he's aiming it, letting you make tactical decisions in tight spots.
Emily's Far Reach is a teleport and also a "grab", that gives it interesting uses that regular Blink doesn't have.
Billie's Displace lets you jump to a preset marker, potentially letting you teleport a lot further, but requiring set-up to use. That forces you to plan ahead, but also lets you do a lot of very interesting plays the others can't do.
I played through all of Dishonored 1 without using Dark Vision exactly for the reasons you described, and had no trouble completing the game (on my first and only playthrough). Had a ton of fun too.
One of my favorite stealth mechanics in video games is getting close to an enemy and holding them up by aiming at their back in Metal Gear Solid. The fifth one in the series actually lets you interrogate and command the enemies to lay down, making it harder for all of that process to be seen by other parties and simultaneously improving the stealth gameplay overall.
-"Were are your friends?"
Lil'MIster MIke spit it out
6:15 when you make that episode PLEASE include Aragami in your research. that game's design was all about that, and it was amazing!
Perfect timing, as usual, just 100% finished the enemy stealth ai in my game and I was just thinking what to add to the player! đ
What engine you using?
@@xantishayde-walker4593 unity. I know it doesn't look as good as unreal, but it's easier to code
In a stealth game I really like... the alarms.
It feels extra satisfying to sneak about unnoticed and take out enemies one by one *WHILE* everyone is running around on high alert screaming.
Another incredible video, thanks ;) but I noticed a little mess at 9:33, in fact, ennemies with hat are getting distracted by rock, but less time than the other and the most important thing to know is that they dont move to your position if you make a sound, they will always stay where they are so you can't abuse of some capacity.
I got Watch Dogs 2 recently, and I love the three different playstyles that are available through the different items in the game.
1. Ghost: This player relies on stealth to move around the environment, and will typically stick to suppressed weapons or a melee takedown.
2. Trickster: This player will use the 2 RC devices provided to them to move around the level without putting themselves in any danger. The biggest thing they have to worry about is a cooldown on their eyes and ears.
3. Aggressor: This guy goes in guns blazing, killing anybody and everybody until it's safe to go forth.
Had so much fun in that game playing non violently, mucking about with the RCs, fits the laid back West Coast vibe. Actually bugged me when the other characters went psycho, it's like they had been transplanted from another game.
â@@jontspam4134 On my 2nd playthrough I attempted a non-lethal run.
It worked great! Until I accidentally ran somebody over.
@@cityuser Manslaughter is still not murder!
Jont Spam w- well technically your not wrong
My favorite stealth move is the blink of Dishonored. The amount of freedom you get with that move is awesome.
I'm really enjoying that you're doing this School of Stealth series. It's a favourite genre of mine so seeing it here is great. Love the channel. Keep up the good work.
Ooooh i saw that short Tenchu Stealth Assassins grappling hook. Damn i loved that game. I beat every level on every layout on Grand Master and im proud of it even now 22 years later. Good memories.
A remade Tenchu with reworked A.I. on modern gaming hardware wouldn't make my week, It would make my decade...
I love Love LOVED the Tenchu series!
My favorite stealth game mechanic is when a guard makes a hard turn around a corner, totally blinding them self to what they are walking in to. My friend does security patrols, and he makes very wide turns around corners so any ambushes aren't in his face before he sees them.
Oh, mechanical for the player... In The Blackout Club, ANY disturbance increments a 'Sin' counter. each offence by a different amount; whether that be you KO a guard, distract them, get heard or spotted. Eventually, you will accumulate enough 'Sins' to summon a near invisible humanoid after you. This enemy will rarely ever disengage, and can see you in the dark, so you need to be extra stealthy and ready to bounce as soon as he enters the room. So many games have units forget your existence after a minute, some have the guards stop the hunt, but remain permanently on guard; However, i have rarely had a game where Spotted = Reinforcements!
3:05 Ohh, I always thought the mood grenades in MGS4 were pretty cool. Admittedly some of them were pretty OP, but the fact that you can use them to make your enemies sad, angry or very happy and play around with them was amazing. Glad to see someone actually did something cool with that idea.
Just recently I finished Thief The Dark Project and one of my favorite things ever was the Rope Arrow and how it makes you feel as if you were "hacking" the game somehow. It feels rewarding finding that spot where you can use it to your advantage and skip maybe a part of the level or put yourself in a better position.
I loved this video for answering a âgripeâ I had with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I just wanted to stealth takedown every guard possible and could not understand why an enhanced super-cop could only take down 3 guys and then wait for his battery to slowly recharge automatically to let you takedown another. It didnât work thematically but I can see how unlimited takedowns would create the Arkham problem. Thanks Mark!
The pagers in PAYDAY 2 really do help against the "kill everyone" strategy.
Sadly, stealth as a whole isn't too good in that game.
Holy fuck that was annoying, it was either try to stealth with only knocking out 5 or so guards or take on a fucking army worth of armoured swat members
Stealth was questionable but they certainly had the vibe down.
I really appreciate grapple tools in stealth games. On one hand, they let you feel free when you zip over enemy heads. On the other hand, they make this little heart stopping moment in the middle where getting caught feels certain.
I love that you used the Splinter Cell Double Agent menu theme in the intro and near the end of these videos. Such a memorable song. This is a really enjoyable mini series as someone who's big on stealth games.
Re: shutting down your best moves so you didn't stick to optimal strategies: I liked the too-few points in the Arkham games where they'd rig the inexplicably convenient gargoyles with explosives so grapnelling between them was an emergency exit rather than your primary means of transport.
For a favorite mechanic I'd probably have to go with manipulating enemies movement or killing/disabling them at a predetermined spot using traps (Shadow Tactics excel at both).
One I'm not fond of is limited usage of stuff. It's not a good thing, but I'm a compulsive item hoarder. This isn't too damaging when it comes to RPGs, but I've been playing Dishonored 2 and having a blast with it & I basically never use a health or mana potion except when I find one. I know this causes me to play suboptimally ad makes the game WAY harder than it should be, but it's not easy to stop. Especially with the mana as it will not regenerate even a little bit on its own.
Stealth games are my favorite. Thank you for making this video, Mark! I really enjoy them.
My favorite stealth game mechanic would be light and shadow system. Just like how it was in old Thief games. It is great at keeping the tension that even when you're in shadows, you might still be seen depending on how shadowy it is. It's sad to see most modern stealth games just implement simple binary system of you are either can be seen or completely invisible.
Gotta say, I think this is the first video on youtube that I watch where sections in the video are marked in the time bar. Had no idea it was even a feature, so kudos for pushing this stuff which makes videos way more watchable!
1:45 That is straight of Sun Tzu's The Art of War. The classic "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Sun Tzu didn't invent that, it was well known at his time, but we bloody sure remember it today because of him. Yet, there is a third point on his book that people often miss: know your environment. And of course, you can know it by shaping it too, just as yourself, and even your enemy by means of the controlling what information (true and otherwise) they have access to - knowing by shaping it is never off the table. To Sun Tzu, "all warfare is deception", and I think The Art of War is very applicable to stealth games, worth considering that lens moving forward. Or any game that involves planing ahead really. To quotethe man one last time "Victorious warriors win first (preparing and planing) and then go to war (the execution of the plan, which was already logically drafted to win), defeated warriors go to war first then seek to win".
I really want to see a game thatâs Titanfallâs movement meets thief core loops
more games need titanfall's movement in general tbh, titanfall 2 nailed its movement almost perfectly
@@BobTheBob9 I played a lot of it purely for the joy of grappling and wallrunning
As a fan of Splinter Cell and Metal Gear, this series is giving me an eargasm with each episode; I love the choice of music and sound effects.
The parts where you point out the good and bad implementation of certain mechanics is by far the most interesting way to conclude what you teach in the first part of the videos. Thanks for this wonderful series!
Last time I was this early Sam Fisher still had the split jump
*Cries*
More games need something like that or something like it, it seems situational but also useful in hiding where there is nowhere to hide
I really like camoflauge mechanics specifically in metal gear solid 5 as you cant easily change your camouflage during missions, so you need to have an understanding of what camo would be helpful in the area the mission takes place in.
Honestly once I got wet-work I was fine, it works anywhere, most guards hardly notice you even in Afghanistan on a clear day so you can get really close even though you stick out like a sore thumb
Great video. This is the second time I'm commenting this, but if exceptional stealth games are being mentioned, Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus deserves mention. I literally bet you can't think of another game like it that combines stealth from a solo perspective (with no upfront combat capabilities), with saving others. Looking up those games is so worth anyone's time it's implored me to write basically the same thing twice in hopes that it could get some credit.
Just wanted to say thank you for making this series! Stealth games are one of my favorite genres and it makes me happy to see someone sparking some good discussion about them!
The interesting thing about Assassin's Creed eagle, and by extension the drone from Watch Dogs 2, is that while it can tag any enemies you see, the kicker is that it HAS to be seen by the player while flying around. I've had plenty of interesting moments where I used the eagle to scan a bunch of enemies in a base, but while I'm sneaking in, I suddenly found out about more soldiers inside that my eagle didn't see. Similarly, while the eagle does show you all the enemies, it's up to the player to actually formulate the plan of execution which can be different depending on their play-style. And sometimes during the game, the plan has to change midway if you accidentally get spotted, or like I mentioned, running into a guard my Eagle didn't pick up.
I just played AC Odyssey, but in my experience, the opposite is true: All I ever had to do for any base was just activate eagle, skimm once roughly over the base from one position and 98% of the enemies where tagged. I never hat to bother to actually look for enemies or 'hitting' them with my circle. I would have LOVED it the way you are describing it.
@@Moosbett also if I remember correctly there is a skill that upgrades the eagle to tag enemies easier without much effort.
The Eagle has a ever shrinking and expanding circle which doesn't go static until all the intresting objects in an area are found.. So unless a enemy spawn after you enter a area you shouldn't miss marking any enemy provided you did a good job tagging everything
If you look at the reticle while sweep scanning the enemy base, you will see that the reticle pulsates a little, that means that theres an enemy nearby the reticle that you haven't tagged. This system basicly made it possible to tag every enemy even if there are behind walls and can't be seen by the eagle.
âThese games donât usually give you machine guns thoâ
*laughs in Splinter Cell Blacklist
Great series elegant design. So much attention to detail and beautiful explanations. Great work, hope to see them coming for many years
I loved the mechanics in Heat Signature. As you pick more and more audacious missions you have to adopt to enemies having more defences and the whole game is built on improvisation with found items. I loved combining different kinds of teleporters to swiftly infiltrate the enemy ship.
Half my memory of playing the first dishonored is hearing "enhanced eyes" whispered in my ear every 30 seconds.
(No idea if that's actually what is said, it just sounds like that to me)
Sounds more like "yachts dies" to me
Iâve heard itâs supposed to be âbehind the liesâ
I always hear, "that's nice." But I think enhanced eyes makes way more sense.
I always hear it as "eyes is nice". Lol
He's not actually saying anything, just a sound
I liked the point you made about balancing the gadget mechanics. For me it was Horizon Zero Dawn, that game became completely ruined by lack of balance.
Specifically it was the whistle mechanic, which would attract enemies within hearing range. Which was fine and dandy, until you got the upgraded whistle, which would then only attract the one single nearest enemy no matter what.
Combine that with the mechanic of perfect stealth while in a bush + instant lethal takedowns from stealth. And suddenly every human encampment in the game was ruined. You could just sit in a bush outside the encampment and whistle out every single enemy one by one for an instant kill.
Really ruined the game, they failed at preventing players from optimizing their own fun out of the game.
I love how you divided the video in multiple segments so that, when I hover the mouse on each part, I can see which type of stealth gadget you're talking about. You really put a lot of effort into your videos!
11:06 How was the Mr. Freeze boss fight not used for this point, lol.
To keep with his "joke" about the Batman games
@@OhNoTheFace he does show that Batman did correctly that in stealth sections you are weak to Force. He isn't unfair to Batman
Playing MGSV in these days. Can't agree more. Just waiting or crawling around is not the way to enjoy it. Using everything and just experimenting is way more better.
Once you've unlocked all the overpowered abilities you might come around and start thinking that waiting and crawling around is the most exciting way to play the game.
Perfectly timed set of videos as I just started planning out game design for a stealth game i've been brainstorming for the last couple of months. Thank You!
By far, my favourite stealth mechanic is the Blink in Dishonored, that you mentioned.
That ability is the perfect balance of being always useful without feeling overpowered, it feels sooooooo great â€ïž
"Dominant Strategy" is a term used in formal Game Theory. Economic interactions can be described as two or more players each picking an option without seeing the other's choice, with all the choices determining the outcome. When any player can pick one option that gives the best possible outcome regardless of the other player's choice, the game collapses into a single outcome, unless one player makes a dumb choice and gets punished. Dominant strategies are poisonous for a game intended to have interesting variety.
I think it's kind funny you used Tomb Raider as the "negative" example for that one bit, since that's my favorite stealth game I've ever played!
I like the stealth so much in that game because you're not trying to get through the level without being seen, but trying to take down as many guards as you can before you get caught in a gunfight, thereby increasing your odds. It's a lot like Far Cry in that way, but more fleshed out as there some cool stealth gadgets. (Smoke bombs, tree snare, Vision boosting plants, booby trapping bodies)
I hope you do an episode on this kind of stealth aspect in the future
(It also helped that I played on a difficulty that made saves MUCH more scarce and enemies were hyper lethal.)
I wouldn't consider Tomb Raider as a stealth game. It's not because a game has some stealth mechanics that it makes it automatically a stealth game. Besides from what I've seen from the game, AI looks very dumb.
But if you like this kind of gameplay then you should like games like Uncharted 4 and Splinter Cell Conviction which have the same kind of mechanics were you can at some moments sneak through and take downs enemies before going full guns blazing once you get detected.
And I wouldn't call them stealth games either, neither having some real stealth aspect. This kind of gameplay came from the previous console generation and it was clearly designed to make stealth more accessible to players who didn't like it or weren't used to it.
@@LuckyBide disagree, but I didn't ask for your opinion! I played it through like a stealth game so it's a stealth to me :)
@@ellie8674 Well that's what the comment section is meant for, talk and share opinions. If you don't want people to answer you then don't post comments.
I respect your opinion and everyone has his own little definition of stealth but when we see it from an objective point of view, it is not a stealth game :)
You are getting better and better with all those visual effect that adds so much value to your videos !
It's really really good ! Chapeau
I love the terror mechanic is Mark of the Ninja. I just like how
many ways youâre able to scare the gaurd. I also like how its a double edge sword that makes the gaurds more aware of your presence
One of my favourite perks in Fallout 4 is the one where you can intimidate human enemies into surrendering. This is great because it provides roleplaying opportunities and alternatives to straight up murder that create interesting outcomes.
For example, I found 3 raiders. Intimidated 2, then ordered them to fight the third. The third died. I then took the ammo of the remaining 2 and forced them to fight for my amusement. The victor had the honour of being my temporary companion until I forced him to assault a different enemy stronghold with some equipment I gave them.
My character was roleplaying as a stealth character who doesn't get his own hands dirty to avoid leaving evidence. Kinda like a CIA agent using a local foreign militia to dethrone a dictator without making it obvious the US was helping.
What are you doing praising Fallout 4 in 2020 for? It's all but outlawed at this point.
(but yeah I loved intimidate too)
That sounds cool. Never played Fallout 4 for more than a few hours but I still play NV from time to time and it annoys me how after aggroing an enemy you have to kill them. It bothers me even more that they start yelling desperate stuff at low HP like "I surrender" or "please forgive me" or whatever, but if you stop shooting them they'll just wait a moment and start shooting you again.
It's so easy to min-max in that game and become incredibly overpowered to the point where enemies don't really pose any threat, so I'd really want to roleplay a sort of "turn the other cheek" holier than thou character who gives mercy to the pathetic NPC's rather than killing everyone in my way , but you can't do that, as they keep shooting you with their rusty pistol that doesn't even do any damage. More games should have a mechanic where the opponent recognizes your superior combat abilities and surrenders.
I love the energy dependent Invisibility and Silent Movement gadgets from Deus:Ex. Those fall in multiple of the mentioned categorys.
I'm now programming my first platformer which I've always wanted to do but never had a reason to until I watched all your videos a few times and I really feel determined to make something unique.
Thanks for all the great lessons. Also you have the best mike I have ever heard
Just wanna say I appreciate the use of the new timestamp function, amazing video as always! The work you put in really can't be understated
"Enemies wearing straw hats simply can't be distracted. I don't know the logic behind that, simply VIDEO GAMES."
Wow. Just wow.
They can be distracted by throwing a rock, just not as long as a regular guard. The true difference is with the sake bottle: you can place it on the ground and a regular guard will see it and go "yum yum sake", and break its patrol/leave its post to pick it up. On the other hand, a straw guard will say that only a peasant would go pick it up. So it's not just "video game logic" ;)
@@kielklie4218 Yeah the idea is that they're more highly trained guards, which is why they "never leave their posts" as the game puts it. The straw hat is obviously a gameplay mechanic to help identify them at a glance, but in the lore it's not the hat that's making them immune to distractions. The hat is more like a status symbol of the professional guards as opposed to the peasants who are put on patrol.
Loving this series.
If people want some extra sneaky reading there used to be a website called sneakybastards.net, it had some wonderful articles on stealth games and even a few issues of a magazine, you can still view it on the wayback machine and I highly recommend it.
Love this miniseries! Thanks for making it. Stealth is near my most favorite genre of game so it's fun and interesting to learn more about how they work, with am added bonus of finding out about other stealth games I hadn't heard of before
This guy never ceases to amaze me
"Split jump in Chaos Theory" that you sadly use once in the entire game
Once in the penthouse, and maybe twice in the bank.
I think that it would be interesting to cover why some games make you *want* or *usher* you towards using most of their weapons
Eg. God of war
Early on, you fight fire enemies with your *ice* axe meaning that it causes extra damage and is more effective
Also early on, you donât have any weapons to kill Ice enemies effectively (or at all) as the leviathan axe is geared towards ice. This forces you to use your bare hands to kill them
Later, you get the blades of chaos allowing you to kill ice enemies more effective but the game makes you switch between the in encounters as there are constantly different types (fire, ice, poison etc.) of enemies in different encounters.
They can also be used for other things in the world (like the âglooâ cannon from prey) Eg. The leviathan axe which can freeze gears in place allowing for gates and traps to be frozen open and the blades of chaos which can harness the power of the winds of hell and burn down hell bushes.
But thatâs just a side note.
My favorite's gotta be the rope arrows in Thief. I wish something like this was done more in video games.
Similar to that last note, about making sure things aren't always the same. In Alien Isolation, the Alien will learn and adapt to any strategy you use too often. It will learn to push through the flamethrower blast, it will learn not to rush towards the noisemaker, etc.
What abt the Skyrim stealth greatsword
Please talk about Assassins Creed when you do touch on Fighting in Stealth Games