I mostly blame ubisoft for this one, ngl. In the pursuit of their one true game they pioneered the merging of genres - not in an additive way so we'd have new combinations, but a destructive way. Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Farcry and Assassin's Creed had clear boundries at their inception. Today, you'd forgive people for not being able to tell them apart by anything other than the camera perspective and whether or not it looked vaguely historical.
Why do people consider a Kojima-free Konami game to have the slightest chance in hell of being remotely vaguely MGSish? People having faith in franchise names ONLY and 100% ignoring the reality behind those names are why shit companies like Konami get away w/ taking huge shits on the gaming industry and getting rewarded for doing so. If MGSurvive and the MGS Remakes taught you *nothing* and you buy MGS Delta on Day 1, you are part of the problem.
@@6ch6ris6 Good. I wish more people were, like you, capable of learning the painfully obvious. Konami has been one of the worst publishers for like 15 years and people *STILL* have faith in them. It's disgusting.
@@yondie491 That's why I said IF it is a success. I'm with low expectations. Just gonna wait for the reviews on the final game and if it's good, I get it.
@@harpsdesire4200 been loving Gloomwood. Gives me that old Deus Ex, immersive sim/stealth feel. But with a much more oppressive atmosphere. Oh and there’s a mod for Thief called The Black Parade which is just excellent. Almost feels like a true sequel and not just a mod.
Kojima announcing the next new Stealth Action game should have probably been mentioned too. We might get a revival faster than we expect! Even if Konami themselves fail the remake, Kojima will probably at least give us something of an experience, will it be good or bad though, time will tell.
"Even if Konami themselves fail the remake, Kojima will probably at least give us something of an experience" Sounds like you have more faith in Konami than Kojima? 1 - Konami *WILL* fail cuz they don't give a shit 2 - Kojima will....... make something interesting. Whether it's "stealth" or not is an entirely different thing, depending entirely on if you think "run around in a box" is actually stealth.
The best example that I can think of selling stealth as cool was in COD Ghosts intro; the team is visually depicted as smoke and sand killing the enemy without beeing seen.
Refreshing to see someone talk about these games this way. Listening to some old waypoint radio pods, and they had similar discussions surrounding the 'immersive sim' around ~2017. Large scale triple a games have become so ambitious that things like systemic interaction and coherent worlds are just natural options in the behemoth scale games' tool box. I also like to imagine there's a ripe world of stealth to be further explored, but its hard to believe that the historically and increasingly risk averse world of triple A could generate it. The only exception might be Kojima Productions 'Physint'. They are a brand onto themselves and if they can make Death Stranding; a walking sim, into a game that sells well over 5 million copies I can see them having faith in taking a punt on new ideas.
Im still so fucking pissed ubisoft teased Splinter cell for a couple years, only to not announce anything at E3 2018, meaning they likely cancelled an SC project
Great video! I've been feeling exactly the same about the genre for a while and I'm so glad to see the topic get discussed. Here's hoping that the stealth game resurgence comes soon!
One thing that disappoints me with "modern" stealth games is how enemies typically have very limited and simple patrol routes. Developers tend to not put much effort into their behavior. Whereas in the classic Thief games (the ones made by LGS) the enemy patrol routes were often relatively complex and lengthy.
I feel like we'll eventually get a bonafide, AAA stealth game that becomes a huge hit and tells the industry that the market is still perfectly open to the genre. AAA spent an entire console generation trying to gaslight people into thinking Survival Horror was a relic of the past that no Real Gamer™ would want to play anymore, but then Resident Evil 7 came along and showed the audience never left.
after the mess that was the sequels and redfall,dishonored is better off in IP hell till the day someone makes an homage to the gameplay and it's world's atmosphere. until then it will be my fav game of all time
Let's remember how Immersive Sims were about to do a comeback, with games like Prey, Dark Messiah, the Dishonored Trilogy (yes, I believe they are in that spectrum), the Deus Ex Human prequels, Weird West, Cruelty Squad and the System Shock Remake. At the end it wasn't a huge resurgence and mostly the indie scene carried those ideas, but there was a small influx of interesting ideas getting more into the mainstream. I think stealth could see something similar, for better or worse. And yeah, I could also include Bioshock Infinite with its two DLCs, but I'm not sure if it carries enough to be an Immersive Sim.
SLY COOPER MENTIONED I can't wait for the future where we see a resurgence of pure stealth games. I think the last great one was probably Styx: Shards of Darkness, and that was 7 years ago. There are some great more stealth-focused games that I had fun with, where stealth is a mechanic rather than the genre, like Sniper Elite 4 and 5, as well as indie games like the upcoming Gloomwood, and Shadow Gambit. But something about a new, full-fledged, large scale stealth game is just an intoxicating thought.
@@trippymartian8847 well, Death of The Outsider came out like 6 and a half years ago, so you could maybe say is recent... Nevermind, 6 years just feel like yesterday.
I would argue that the Stealth genre, while being anything but new, as it reaches back to the early 80s, remains in many ways one of the most niche, and yet in others, one of the most pervasive sub-genres of Action-Adventure. This is because there are still very few games with stealth as their primary element of gameplay. As you pointed out, Stealth as a mechanic has instead been co-opted by many other Action-Adventure games. After 1998, often referred to as the "Year of Stealth" due to the release of three of the most seminal stealth titles: Tenchu, Thief, and Metal Gear Solid, many games started introducing stealth as a (often poorly implemented) small aside to their typical gameplay. Even the genre codifier, the Metal Gear series, tends to spend just as much time being a Boss Rush or otherwise typical Action game as it does a Stealth experience, even in the titles with the largest stealth focus like Snake Eater and The Phantom Pain. This means that, outside of a few niche titles and series, Stealth has never fully blossomed into its own genre, but has instead been reduced to a mere mechanic to be clumsily used and tossed aside in favor of the "real gameplay" as soon as one is spotted, but those few niche titles, which I would call Pure Stealth games, do still exist. What characterizes them from other games with stealth elements is not only that the primary objective is to remain unseen, but that being caught will come with harsh penalties, either in the form of an instant failure state, or more often, engaging in combat that is realistically unwinnable. This relative weakness of the player character means that remaining unseen is the only viable option of progression. For example, there is a dramatic difference between playing a game like Thief: The Dark Project, and a game like Assassin's Creed. In Thief, even taking on one enemy can often result in your death. In AC, even the early games before the combo killing got really out of hand in III, you still mow your way through a dozen or more guards and barely break a sweat. Sure, AC does have some occasional insta-fail stealth missions, but they're far from the norm. Point being that, even during the golden age of stealth in the early oughts, I think it's still up for debate whether many of those games were stealth games, or just, games that had stealth.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles was heavily focus on stealth and it was super fun and engaging, to run throughout the hole game as a shadow, invisible to your enemies in a new way. Im mentioning this cause it was released when assassins creed had already fell into the nowadays stealth mechanics, but by being so out of the box, Chronicles delivered an example of stealth focused game
alright so I'm no game designer, but I'm going to throw out some wild opinions with very few qualifications, as if I know what I'm talking about Stealth isn't (or shouldn't be) "about" crouching, hiding in tall grass, and waiting out patrol routes. Stealth isn't something the player does. It's an interaction they have. Just like in DnD, the stealth check is meaningless without the perception check to contest it. Stealth isn't about hiding. It is (or should be) about detection. It is (or should be) about engagement. Then on top of that (what a lot of games in almost all genres fail to realize), is that games need fun movement. Consider how sword play has evolved in Elden Ring since Skyrim, but how little their stealth has advanced in comparison. I think putting more emphasis and design and systems in "detection and engagement" will be what makes stealth better. There needs to be tool kits. More advanced forms of "throw pebble" and "smoke grenade", and less "safe patch of grass" and "wait behind this corner". More "pick up and hide the body" and less "I'll find whoever did this.... must have been the wind". More trap setting. More aerial maneuvers. More climbing up walls, hanging from ceilings, dropping on people, or even multiple viable strategies to ghost the level. Anyway I'm not an aficionado but those are some thoughts
Go play AC games especially mirage and wait for a few months AC codename red will have new stealth mechanics like going prone, blowing the torches to weak enemy's vision and detection and weather effects on stealth like in foggy weather enemy's will have less vision in comparison to clean weather also there will be new detection system and your footstep sound will also be accountable for detection if Ubisoft did it right then this game will be a banger
That's pretty much original Thief, which gave you a real map which you needed to understand and a lot of stuff to take into account, such as light and sound you make when moving.
Trouble is, we already have all of that. You've basically just described CT (and to a lesser extent, DA). Stealth in the 2000s was "stay undetected", and stealth now is "stay undetected"; there's only one definition of stealth and the diversity in the genre comes from the way you achieve that goal. All those big stealth franchises went away because they stagnated: innovation stopped, iteration slowed, and developers and players wanted something new. New technology could be enough to sustain interest for a while--prettier graphics (specifically more detailed shadows for SC), updated controls and systems--but it's fundamentally the same game. You got bored of it once already, chances are now you'll get bored faster. What the genre needs is innovation in fundamental design; something OTHER than disguises, lights, crowds, or camouflage. If you're still designing off of an established game's established gameplay loop, no amount of lateral iteration will save your game from becoming an 'inoffensive trip down memory lane'.
More importantly, what they could do is design the stealth mechanics in such a way that they stem from the game world feeling like they belong in this specific story. Like, how instead of "throwing a rock", you can achieve a similar result by "hacking a billboard" which remains in tune with the character being a hacker and makes it more interesting and immersive. Instead of "hiding in tall grass", one may have to resort to "wearing a disguise".
The most interesting fusion of action and stealth could have been the original concept for Splinter Cell Conviction. It was supposed to combine social stealth with third person shooting and a cool melee system where you could use objects in the environment like chairs, etc. Look it up, there's footage of it. It was like a Jason Bourne game where you had to evade police, create diversions in the open, hide in the crowds. Then they cut it all and made a Gears of War game with stealth elements and a little bit of AC-like parkour.
Little sad the Styx games never got a mention in this vid. Two games that where really punching up. The second one even let you play the whole thing in co-op
You missed 2 franchises that might not spring to mind as stealth, Sniper Ghost Warrior the 2 contracts and 3 to a certain extent, and the Sniper Elite game in general and in particular 4 and 5 can be played without killing anyone but the specific target, My first playthru was on the realistic setting and nothing but pistols and knives and as little killing as possible. You can still play that way, in games but they are not always marketed like that. One thing I have always wished for is non lethal takedowns, that way if they get found an alert sounds and the things that should happen. That is something I'd like to see, like a officer doing rounds notices a soldier missing and he calls in people to search they find the body and revive him and ask what happened, then the entire area is after you for the rest of the map.
The two “A Plague Tale” games are great stealth games. They contextualize the need for stealth in a way many other games dont by making you play as a teenage girl up against trained soldiers. You will most likely die if you fight them straight on.
The best part about it being that the options you have for eliminating guards are unique from other games, and feel impactful. Like, whenever I put out a guard's flame just so the rats could eat him, it does feel a little sad.
If you want to make yourself Mr Stealth RUclipsr(which I think is a good idea, as it doesn't seem very saturated). I think a great video that could get a lot of attention is reviewing what made Thief Gold one of the greatest stealth games of all time. Not my words - Yahtzee Croshaw, who has really only had good things to say about Thief Gold, Silent Hill 2, and Dark Souls.
Hey Jay, I’d love to see you discuss how Assassin’s Creed games portray/utilize history within their settings. I feel like these games frequently oscillate between Disney theme park rides and “serious” historical reconstructions, but (more than that) I find the franchise’s mentality, “history is our playground,” to be something worthy of unpacking by way of its varying implementation across the franchise. I deeply admire your writing, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this subject.
I think online gaming is what killed a lot of the great things we loved in the 90s (if you've been gaming that long.) See how EA, 2K, and Rockstar have shifted all their focus on online gaming and making money off it. Also, Ubisoft making Assassin's Creed less about stealth gaming and more about open world with some stealth starting with Assassin's Creed III has lead to what we're seeing. I know Unity's problems at launch, but it turned out to be one of the last great stealth games once it was patched up. I can't remember anything better since...
I think A Plague Tale Innocence is one of the games that did it for me. It's highly stealth-focused, has linear levels and it's mechanics don't feel like most game mechanics. I played it with immersive HUD on, and had a really fun time figuring out the levels like I did playing Splinter Cell games back then.
I always wanted to see an expansion on the multiplayer concept from Batman Arkham Origins. The idea of Two teams with guns attacking each other (either TDM style or with some kind of objective) with a third team using stealth to take out everyone else…. To me the gameplay possibilities there are very exciting. Plus in that mode you could play as the bosses which were Batman villains which just made everything even more hype. Imagine a Metal Gear/ military shooter inspired hybrid with maybe even a dynamic territory system like helldivers…. (Same way that you are fighting for planets in galactic conquest you could instead have warehouses or bases in a region that different factions each try to take over to gain territory) To me that would make for a pretty hard to pass up AAA multiplayer experience. People who want to focus on running and gunning could have a progression system similar to older call of duty games while the players that love stealth could have a dedicated stealth system completely different from the rest of the game so as not to feel like just a mechanic. Kinda a crazy vision but I could see it selling like crazy if it was done right.
"Games that once would have been linear action games now let you customise character builds down to the stat percentage" and that is mostly a bad thing, diluting design so you get watery semi-stealth or whatnot.
Stealth games took a massive hit when open world games became popular. Far cry 3 really kick started the ubisoft open world formula every game uses, at the time the stealth was interesting since it was fitting for the setting and prepared the player with the skills to fight outside of stealth. Now almost every open world game is just rebranded far cry
I really think that Watchdogs was a missed opportunity. Seriously, environmental stealth through cameras, computers, exploiting people's personal information etc made stealth amazing. Having someone get a phone call from someone that seems to be their daughter, or distract them with ear piercing noise etc. My point is, real stealth (like Hitman) takes commitment to the genre. You really have to ask yourself "How do we make a strategic game where stalking, killing, and manipulating enemies is fun?" It's hard to answer, but I hope we get an excellent stealth game.
My opinion: most of the stealth games are b-tier games, which isn't a bad thing. Whole stealth experience is based on the clever game design and map layout. Which goes against of modern approach of just throwing money at games until they look the best. Those kinds of games need a dedicated game-designer and a lot of testing, but also some fresh ideas. In this creatively bankrupt industry it is really unlikely.
I’ve actually just restarted Days Gone on hard and I’ve been relying a lot more on the crossbow, rock, and other stealth tools and tactics. It’s thrilling as heck!!
The greatest stealth game is in its prime right now. Forget about single player games with braindead AI, Hunt : Showdown tests your sneakiness against other players. The greatest audio design of any game.
This has happened to all my favorite genres and even other genres ive been interested in. Aaa industry has homogenized them. Now the only options are old greats (im late to the party on those) and indies that get the gameplay right but sometimes miss the polish of the old greats. Now i just struggle with finding out which are the best of the greats of the genres that i need to play.
I'm putting all my hype on the games of the last five years on the assassin's creed red project. The creator of chaos theory in the director's chair, a completely new nextgen engine with a redesigned movement system, especially the ability to crawl like in TLOU-2
AC was mostly action adventure to begin with. Origins and Odyssey may had a more fleshed out (and far better) combat systems, but the content was designed to be tackle as stealthy as you want it, with some narrative exceptions.
Hoping for a new video soon, your narration and script really felt like some of the most well done in the space. Also, surely is hard thanks to the algorithm, but I would love more videos about other games like with Armored Core or Tsushima (Especially Armored Core to know how 6 ranks for you)
great video!!! i'm mostly familiar with triple a games and the homogenized stealth but i think a huge part of what makes stealth systems in these games so weak is the lack of a challenging detection system. uncharted 4 actually challenged me with its stealth and i normally avoid stealth due to time constraints and boredom. we need better level design and good detection systems for better stealth in our big games.
i just wanna be a sneaky guy, with a sneaky moveset. i really hate how stealth in modern games is just crouch and throw a distraction. imagine a game with the social stealth of hitman, the speed of classic assassins creed, and the depth of MGS 5.
Yeah, would be nice to hear about other stealth games for a change. I really like Styx: Master of Shadows where not being seen pretty much equals staying alive. And Mark of the Ninja is one of my favourite games. AC series' importance for the stealth genre is overblown and I'm really tired of those games since AC: Odyssey. There was no really good AC game ever produced. All of them have serious flaws here and there.
One minor thing to note is that Dishonored isn't exactly dead, and I very much doubt Arkane and Bethesda are willing to abandon the IP. The Kaldwin saga ended with Death of The Outsider, and the devs mentioned the series is on a break. We'll probably see a new Dishonored in a few years, maybe after the Blade game is released.
Perhaps not, I’d love to see a new Dishonored, but it’s worth noting that even if there is a new entry in a few years we will have still gone at least a decade without an entry, longer if you count mainline and not just Death of the Outsider given that Dishonored 2 is already 8 years old
I remember playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and thinking, "Why the hell does my Medieval Knight game have stealth mechanics?" Not that I didn't love the game (it absolutely took over my life when I played it) but it just felt out of place, as if the devs felt like the absolutely needed a stealth system because it's in literally every other game nowadays.
cuz stealth is, and should be, possible if you are simply wearing cloth clothing and it's dark outside? The stealth sub-feature of KCD was great (for modern gaming)
WOW blacklist sold 2 million copies between the 360, ps3, wiiu, AND PC? No way. That number HAS to be undercounted. 2 million copies in how many years?
We really don’t have a way to definitively say truth be told, we only have the numbers as of the last time Ubisoft reported. We do know that Ubisoft was expecting 5 million at the point where 2 million was the figure. As of last report it is also worth noting that Chaos Theory, one of the most highly regarded stealth games of all time, only sold 2.5 million as a 2005 game.
I wonder if Blacklist would've done better if it wasn't relegated to the older generation. Black Flag did really well, like you said, but it was also on 2 different generations of hardware. If you compare Blacklist to Assassin's Creed Rogue, which was also only available on PS360 (until the remaster), you see it doing comparable numbers.
It’s also worth remembering that Rogue came out the same year as AC Unity which got 90% of the marketing. Rogue was marketed as a side game from the start, while Blacklist was the first and only Splinter Cell of the 2010s
Not everything has to be a AAA franchise with a multi-decade long history. There’s plenty of stealth games with varied mechanics. And those indies? They’re often retired/fired game devs that were responsible for your favorite games to begin with.
I'm three months late, but if you were to make a stealth game, what would the core mechanics/gameplay look like? I missed out on this golden age and wonder how you would innovate a game like one of the ones you're waiting for.
2025 - 26 will be a huge revival for stealth games. MGS Delta and Master Collection 2 will come out (which is even more more important than Master Collection 1 because it will finally free MGS4 from the PS3 jail which means an absurd amount of people will experience it for the first time), and we'll get a glance at Kojima's new stealth IP. Other companies will look at the chance and make their own stuff to get a piece of the pie while it's still fresh.
Big fan, live the content. As soon as you said they didn't know how to market stealth I just knew the Blacklist trailers would come into play. They did try though, making two gameplay trailers showing stealth and action. I reckon it was a compromise with marketing since the devs put the effort. However the action trailer turned off so much of the audience that it invariably hurt the sales
Love your channel! Great script and narration, and i really respect your criterion on this topics. I've been watching several of your videos. Hitman and AC were games of my chilhood and adolescence, and now the Stealth Genre is my favourite, along with Immersive Sims.
The only game that I felt was a really good stealth game recently was the last of us part 2. It’s strange to me that people don’t regard that game as a stealth game cause its majority stealth and it has some really cool in depth mechanics that made it feel really unique to me. The only thing I really didn’t like is the forced detective vision that every game must have nowadays. If you use it often it makes stealth really tedious and takes out any unpredictability which I feel is where the game excels
out now : cruelty squad, gloomwood, aragami 2, metro exodus, deus ex manking divided, the chameleon, dishonored 2, echo, filcher, hitman reboot, no sun to worship, oddworld soulstorm, shadow tactics, sekiro, sniper elite 5, styx shards of darkness, system shock remake, weird west, ghost recon wildlands. generation zero upcoming : mgs delta, deep state, samurai unicorn, peripeteia you want more stealth ? support it then, most of those games didn't sell that well
It's not that Companies doesn't know how to sell Stealth games, It's just that they don't care and are too lazy about it. It's kinda simple really, There aren't enough AAA Stealth games purely because it's a niche genre that doesn't make enough money. and corporate AAA companies ALWAYS prioritize trend,money,sales and profit over creativity and original ideas which is why we're getting more indie games focused primarly on steath where as in AAA games it's just another generic feature. Even Hitman despite being the only of the few modern AAA Stealth game plagued with so many issues. Here's hoping Kojima's stealth espionage focused game is solid and since there is no stupid Konami tearing his ear drums..I feel like it's gonna be interesting
I love stealth games, still playing the first 3 Thief and the first 3 Splinter Cell games. And the 2000 Deus Ex. Mimimi gave us 3 stealth games before closing down and that's exactly why it did close down. They made their games 2000% stealth. There is no other way to get through them. No choice. Desperados 2 was a masterpiece. You can play in bird's eye view OR switch to 3rd person shooter, according to the needs of each mission.
This is why I think stealth has become a feature: perfect stealth the way the leaders MGS and Splinter Cell did it is boring. You ghost your way to an objective and never interact with enemies. You ignore the wonderful alert system that MGS has built that has multiple ways to interact. You don't use most of the arsenal provided to you and if the game has great combat you ignore that. Why not just let it be a feature at this point? Infiltration stealth played perfectly is not marketable in today's audience so most games instead do the stealth around until you get detected then it's party time where the combat may or may not be great. This is why Arkham's predator mode succeeds. Enemies have guns and you don't making head on fighting impossible but the objective is still to take them out. Hitman on the other hand succeeds by brute forcing quality. Implementing several ways to kill targets. Designing maps with multiple pathways and difficult vantage points. You can't sell 6 levels as a AAA game and tell players to replay them again in 2024. As much as it's about disguises it does share the MGS or Thief lineage games of infiltration, when playing suit only it actually does work fairly well for most maps. It does have one advantage in that the objective isn't go here but instead kill these guys which allows for more creativity.
You do interact with the enemies though by avoiding them using your tools/gadgets and managing their bodiies if you decide to not ghost - ghosting isnt the norm, its the peak of skill in the genre.
it was funny hearing Jade Raymond justifying the more actiony elements in Splinter Cell as an attempt to sell Assassin Creed numbers only for Blacklist to not only sell far less than expected, it ended up selling less than the first entry.
Personally, I just want to play a third person spy game as a hot lady in a catsuit with an intriguing story. Sadly,stealth games with female protagonists are locked behind the PS2/1 era and the closest thing today are resident evil 4 remake dlc,re2R/6 ada section, cyberpunk 2077 phantom liberty, and mass effect 2 (kind of)
Stealth, good stealth games, take patience, are usually fairly slow and require both creative and critical thinking to successfully complete missions in the best way possible. The new generation of gamers are not capable of any of that. My generation perfected the Splinter Cell Bank Heist.
I'm glad that you're not worried, I'd like to share your sentiment but... I really don't know. The way that most gamers behave today, how they approach games in general, makes me think that stealth games will never return to their prime.
The truth is you never know. But like I said, horror seemed like it was getting replaced with high octane action and it re-entered the public sphere. RPGs had to be watered down to sell in the 2010s and suddenly you can’t pick up a game without RPG mechanics it feels like. What is popular is always changing and sometimes it just takes one good game to boost a genre back up and convince studios to take chances.
you need to look at Hunt Showdown. PvPvE FPS with a very systemic stealth system. Definitively hardcore and difficult to learn, but totally worth it. Been playing it as my main game since 2018 or so. Oh and the game has the best audio system ever. Truly amazing with headphones.
In my mind the single greatest Stealth Action of the past decade is Sekiro and I'm not even sure this was an intentional creative choice but it just sort of happened and was amazing.
The stealth and AI are too underdeveloped in Sekiro to be considered a stealth title. Just baiting enemies out of their mini boss area to kill them after loosing interest, or hanging at the edge of an area, only for enemies get obliviously close and do nothing, is enough IMO. The less we talk about the very limited stealth tools and how passive enemies are when you throw a pot to their face, the better. Dishonored is a better balance of action and stealth, but mostly because it takes inspiration of the Immersive Sim "genre".
i would die for a new splinter cell. I loved blacklist and it might have been the only splinter cell game i ever played but i just loved the setting and style of the game and got so many fond memories of both the single and multiplayer that i probably would be one of the first people to buy a new splinter cell just to relieve some of that nostalgia i have considering this game
I agree creative wise developers are good people and will innovate the stealth genre as always. But Business wise? Corporations are scum. Hearing the news that Embracer Group eating up Deus Ex just to cancel it 2 years later is pathetic. These out of touch old greedy business man control everything about the game from its microtransactions to its advertising and development. Developers cant do much if they dont get permission or funding from publishers. The news i heard was the final straw. I just want a Publisher company to go bankrupt so that many dev teams can just be their own publisher. Full independence. Only once that future is possible will developers have full freedom to passionately make games they actually want instead of being forced by stupid businessmen to clone dark souls, assasins creed or zelda.
Pretty much now everything is full rpg because player like grinding and spending hundreds of hours in games not caring about story or characters at all. You can add detective games alongisde this category that is dead for long time as well…
Frogwares still seems to be making some good detective games with recent Sherlock Holmes games. They even announced a sequel to the Sinking City just recently.
I mean just look at some of the videos put out by Stealth game BR, Volound or Clockner where they play Dishonored. This is how you SELL a stealth game.
I never understood how on planet earth was Sly Cooper ever considered a stealth game, the first game was a Crash Bandicot 3 clone with a stealth component and the sequels were just platformers with light stealth and with lots of mini games, this isn't *bad* by any means but its just going to give people the wrong impression when playing the games. I know I did when I played Sly 1 for the first time and recall shutting the game off when it starts with you dodging laser pistol shots. As for the genre itself, I felt the stealth genre never really had a chance to prosper when Deus Ex from 2000 had a run and gun component to hide how poor the stealth mechanics were, it was just a poor man's Thief but more devs ripped off the former than the latter. One of the reasons why Deus Ex was made was because Warren Spector couldn't brute force his way through Thief. Dishonored has very poor stealth mechanics that is inferior to Thief's in just about every way. The genre itself is a hard sell as is, the reason pure stealth games could be made back then was because games were cheaper to make and didn't require as much to break even, you could make AA stealth games but you aren't going to win over normies if your game coming out now looks like a PS2 game. No company now wants to make a big budget stealth experience where you get chastised for not being able to run and gun. You might be right that someone might innovate but that is going to take awhile.
I like the video but disagree with your conclusion, there are a lot of generes that are missing, and there is no clue they will comeback, like 3D platformers, Adventures point and click, immersive Sims and others, you can say that happened some bangers to the geners in the last few year's, but isn't nearly compared to the revive of JRPGs, there are every year a lot of new games with diferentes mechanics, styles, ideas, with high quality and production values, this isn't happening to stealth, 3D platafomrs or others, we are just getting the short end of the stick, paxionate developer's try to do something great with little resources, like in indie ceneri or low budget product like was AC mirage, or remakes of classic we have no information enough to even say the game actually exist or can be good, the stealth is in life suporte and needs a banger fast, without it will become just a feature like interaction in the cenari for the character saiy something, like happened to adventures point and click.
They're just hiding
Keeping us waiting.
😂I can already tell that this will be that one comment with disproportionately more likes than the others
@@Erika-gn1tv Keeping us waiting, huh?
In plain sight, even...
They gave their lives; not for honor, but for us.
I mostly blame ubisoft for this one, ngl. In the pursuit of their one true game they pioneered the merging of genres - not in an additive way so we'd have new combinations, but a destructive way. Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Farcry and Assassin's Creed had clear boundries at their inception. Today, you'd forgive people for not being able to tell them apart by anything other than the camera perspective and whether or not it looked vaguely historical.
I hope stealth as a whole makes a comeback if MGS Delta is a success. Wanna see the Snakes, Sam Fisher and 47 back shoulder to shoulder.
And Garret.
I will not support Konami ever again.
Why do people consider a Kojima-free Konami game to have the slightest chance in hell of being remotely vaguely MGSish? People having faith in franchise names ONLY and 100% ignoring the reality behind those names are why shit companies like Konami get away w/ taking huge shits on the gaming industry and getting rewarded for doing so.
If MGSurvive and the MGS Remakes taught you *nothing* and you buy MGS Delta on Day 1, you are part of the problem.
@@6ch6ris6
Good.
I wish more people were, like you, capable of learning the painfully obvious. Konami has been one of the worst publishers for like 15 years and people *STILL* have faith in them.
It's disgusting.
@@yondie491 That's why I said IF it is a success. I'm with low expectations. Just gonna wait for the reviews on the final game and if it's good, I get it.
Ironically all the best modern stealth games are hard to find, comfortably hiding in their niches.
Any examples?
@@harpsdesire4200 been loving Gloomwood. Gives me that old Deus Ex, immersive sim/stealth feel. But with a much more oppressive atmosphere.
Oh and there’s a mod for Thief called The Black Parade which is just excellent. Almost feels like a true sequel and not just a mod.
@@Macapta thanks for the suggestions
Kojima announcing the next new Stealth Action game should have probably been mentioned too. We might get a revival faster than we expect! Even if Konami themselves fail the remake, Kojima will probably at least give us something of an experience, will it be good or bad though, time will tell.
"Even if Konami themselves fail the remake, Kojima will probably at least give us something of an experience"
Sounds like you have more faith in Konami than Kojima?
1 - Konami *WILL* fail cuz they don't give a shit
2 - Kojima will....... make something interesting. Whether it's "stealth" or not is an entirely different thing, depending entirely on if you think "run around in a box" is actually stealth.
are you referring to death stranding 2 ?
@@yondie491 bruh is this sarcasm because clearly heh as more faith in kohima instead of konami from that statement
@@dishansinghmehta8891I'm sure cerb appreciates you white knighting for them
@@dishansinghmehta8891 Kojima announced a new stealth espionage game with sony collabration. It's called physint.
The best example that I can think of selling stealth as cool was in COD Ghosts intro; the team is visually depicted as smoke and sand killing the enemy without beeing seen.
Going Dark in CoD MW 2019 is the best CoD mission ever.
Apart from Hitman games, we haven't been getting that many stealth games recently.
Refreshing to see someone talk about these games this way. Listening to some old waypoint radio pods, and they had similar discussions surrounding the 'immersive sim' around ~2017. Large scale triple a games have become so ambitious that things like systemic interaction and coherent worlds are just natural options in the behemoth scale games' tool box. I also like to imagine there's a ripe world of stealth to be further explored, but its hard to believe that the historically and increasingly risk averse world of triple A could generate it. The only exception might be Kojima Productions 'Physint'. They are a brand onto themselves and if they can make Death Stranding; a walking sim, into a game that sells well over 5 million copies I can see them having faith in taking a punt on new ideas.
"It's only me..." - Sam Fisher
Im still so fucking pissed ubisoft teased Splinter cell for a couple years, only to not announce anything at E3 2018, meaning they likely cancelled an SC project
It wasn't even him lmfao. The only one who could've said that with any legitimacy was Agent 47
Ubisoft: I hate Konami like the cool kids.
aaand then he was gone.
That line is hilarious now that Metal Gear came back before Splinter Cell
I honestly don't get how you don't have, like 10x the views. Keep it up, enjoying your content greatly
That’s very kind of you, thank you! I have fun making these so I’m happy anyone’s watching at all
Great video! I've been feeling exactly the same about the genre for a while and I'm so glad to see the topic get discussed. Here's hoping that the stealth game resurgence comes soon!
Thanks for watching!
One thing that disappoints me with "modern" stealth games is how enemies typically have very limited and simple patrol routes. Developers tend to not put much effort into their behavior. Whereas in the classic Thief games (the ones made by LGS) the enemy patrol routes were often relatively complex and lengthy.
I feel like we'll eventually get a bonafide, AAA stealth game that becomes a huge hit and tells the industry that the market is still perfectly open to the genre. AAA spent an entire console generation trying to gaslight people into thinking Survival Horror was a relic of the past that no Real Gamer™ would want to play anymore, but then Resident Evil 7 came along and showed the audience never left.
Dishonored 1 is my favorite stealth game. I miss that game.
Still hoping there will be another game. Can't wait to high chaos my way through it.
We'll have to wait and see what Blade is like. Hopefully it's a stealth focused game@@akechijubeimitsuhide
after the mess that was the sequels and redfall,dishonored is better off in IP hell till the day someone makes an homage to the gameplay and it's world's atmosphere.
until then it will be my fav game of all time
@@brunaogemeplay2439 What are you on about? Dishonored 2 was fantastic.
@@immortalsun it wasn't for me
Let's remember how Immersive Sims were about to do a comeback, with games like Prey, Dark Messiah, the Dishonored Trilogy (yes, I believe they are in that spectrum), the Deus Ex Human prequels, Weird West, Cruelty Squad and the System Shock Remake. At the end it wasn't a huge resurgence and mostly the indie scene carried those ideas, but there was a small influx of interesting ideas getting more into the mainstream. I think stealth could see something similar, for better or worse.
And yeah, I could also include Bioshock Infinite with its two DLCs, but I'm not sure if it carries enough to be an Immersive Sim.
SLY COOPER MENTIONED
I can't wait for the future where we see a resurgence of pure stealth games. I think the last great one was probably Styx: Shards of Darkness, and that was 7 years ago. There are some great more stealth-focused games that I had fun with, where stealth is a mechanic rather than the genre, like Sniper Elite 4 and 5, as well as indie games like the upcoming Gloomwood, and Shadow Gambit. But something about a new, full-fledged, large scale stealth game is just an intoxicating thought.
I was gonna mention the dishonored games but… man my timeline is off
ghost of tsushima isnt pure stealth, but its definitely a very solid experience
@@trippymartian8847 well, Death of The Outsider came out like 6 and a half years ago, so you could maybe say is recent... Nevermind, 6 years just feel like yesterday.
@@enman009 oh god
Im simple man
I hear Sly Cooper mentioned
I give like
Splinter cell chaos theory is my absolute favourite stealth game! The bank heist level (chefs kiss)
I would argue that the Stealth genre, while being anything but new, as it reaches back to the early 80s, remains in many ways one of the most niche, and yet in others, one of the most pervasive sub-genres of Action-Adventure. This is because there are still very few games with stealth as their primary element of gameplay. As you pointed out, Stealth as a mechanic has instead been co-opted by many other Action-Adventure games.
After 1998, often referred to as the "Year of Stealth" due to the release of three of the most seminal stealth titles: Tenchu, Thief, and Metal Gear Solid, many games started introducing stealth as a (often poorly implemented) small aside to their typical gameplay. Even the genre codifier, the Metal Gear series, tends to spend just as much time being a Boss Rush or otherwise typical Action game as it does a Stealth experience, even in the titles with the largest stealth focus like Snake Eater and The Phantom Pain.
This means that, outside of a few niche titles and series, Stealth has never fully blossomed into its own genre, but has instead been reduced to a mere mechanic to be clumsily used and tossed aside in favor of the "real gameplay" as soon as one is spotted, but those few niche titles, which I would call Pure Stealth games, do still exist. What characterizes them from other games with stealth elements is not only that the primary objective is to remain unseen, but that being caught will come with harsh penalties, either in the form of an instant failure state, or more often, engaging in combat that is realistically unwinnable. This relative weakness of the player character means that remaining unseen is the only viable option of progression. For example, there is a dramatic difference between playing a game like Thief: The Dark Project, and a game like Assassin's Creed. In Thief, even taking on one enemy can often result in your death. In AC, even the early games before the combo killing got really out of hand in III, you still mow your way through a dozen or more guards and barely break a sweat. Sure, AC does have some occasional insta-fail stealth missions, but they're far from the norm.
Point being that, even during the golden age of stealth in the early oughts, I think it's still up for debate whether many of those games were stealth games, or just, games that had stealth.
Assassin's Creed Chronicles was heavily focus on stealth and it was super fun and engaging, to run throughout the hole game as a shadow, invisible to your enemies in a new way.
Im mentioning this cause it was released when assassins creed had already fell into the nowadays stealth mechanics, but by being so out of the box, Chronicles delivered an example of stealth focused game
alright so I'm no game designer, but I'm going to throw out some wild opinions with very few qualifications, as if I know what I'm talking about
Stealth isn't (or shouldn't be) "about" crouching, hiding in tall grass, and waiting out patrol routes.
Stealth isn't something the player does. It's an interaction they have. Just like in DnD, the stealth check is meaningless without the perception check to contest it. Stealth isn't about hiding. It is (or should be) about detection. It is (or should be) about engagement. Then on top of that (what a lot of games in almost all genres fail to realize), is that games need fun movement.
Consider how sword play has evolved in Elden Ring since Skyrim, but how little their stealth has advanced in comparison.
I think putting more emphasis and design and systems in "detection and engagement" will be what makes stealth better. There needs to be tool kits. More advanced forms of "throw pebble" and "smoke grenade", and less "safe patch of grass" and "wait behind this corner". More "pick up and hide the body" and less "I'll find whoever did this.... must have been the wind". More trap setting. More aerial maneuvers. More climbing up walls, hanging from ceilings, dropping on people, or even multiple viable strategies to ghost the level.
Anyway I'm not an aficionado but those are some thoughts
Go play AC games especially mirage and wait for a few months AC codename red will have new stealth mechanics like going prone, blowing the torches to weak enemy's vision and detection and weather effects on stealth like in foggy weather enemy's will have less vision in comparison to clean weather also there will be new detection system and your footstep sound will also be accountable for detection if Ubisoft did it right then this game will be a banger
@@RAFAY_SHEIKH_47 That sounds awesome but i do NOT trust Ubisoft. Ill believe it when they show a real gameplay trailer.
That's pretty much original Thief, which gave you a real map which you needed to understand and a lot of stuff to take into account, such as light and sound you make when moving.
Trouble is, we already have all of that. You've basically just described CT (and to a lesser extent, DA). Stealth in the 2000s was "stay undetected", and stealth now is "stay undetected"; there's only one definition of stealth and the diversity in the genre comes from the way you achieve that goal. All those big stealth franchises went away because they stagnated: innovation stopped, iteration slowed, and developers and players wanted something new. New technology could be enough to sustain interest for a while--prettier graphics (specifically more detailed shadows for SC), updated controls and systems--but it's fundamentally the same game. You got bored of it once already, chances are now you'll get bored faster. What the genre needs is innovation in fundamental design; something OTHER than disguises, lights, crowds, or camouflage. If you're still designing off of an established game's established gameplay loop, no amount of lateral iteration will save your game from becoming an 'inoffensive trip down memory lane'.
More importantly, what they could do is design the stealth mechanics in such a way that they stem from the game world feeling like they belong in this specific story. Like, how instead of "throwing a rock", you can achieve a similar result by "hacking a billboard" which remains in tune with the character being a hacker and makes it more interesting and immersive. Instead of "hiding in tall grass", one may have to resort to "wearing a disguise".
the genre just needs a banger, and other studios will follow like bees, because they all work like a hive with no vision
oh wow i wrote that before watching the whole video and you just came to same conclusion :D
Considering all the souls clones yeh
exactly that flew first in my mind yesterday when ive made that comment@@billyboleson2830
Hitman was a banger. I don’t know why none of the other companies took note
The most interesting fusion of action and stealth could have been the original concept for Splinter Cell Conviction. It was supposed to combine social stealth with third person shooting and a cool melee system where you could use objects in the environment like chairs, etc. Look it up, there's footage of it. It was like a Jason Bourne game where you had to evade police, create diversions in the open, hide in the crowds. Then they cut it all and made a Gears of War game with stealth elements and a little bit of AC-like parkour.
Perfectly stated. it is a feature now not a genre. wow perfectly stated.
Little sad the Styx games never got a mention in this vid. Two games that where really punching up. The second one even let you play the whole thing in co-op
also, Aragami and Ereban
Well, the mecha space combar genre is making a comeback with armored core 6 so I think you are onto something with the last point.
You missed 2 franchises that might not spring to mind as stealth, Sniper Ghost Warrior the 2 contracts and 3 to a certain extent, and the Sniper Elite game in general and in particular 4 and 5 can be played without killing anyone but the specific target, My first playthru was on the realistic setting and nothing but pistols and knives and as little killing as possible. You can still play that way, in games but they are not always marketed like that. One thing I have always wished for is non lethal takedowns, that way if they get found an alert sounds and the things that should happen. That is something I'd like to see, like a officer doing rounds notices a soldier missing and he calls in people to search they find the body and revive him and ask what happened, then the entire area is after you for the rest of the map.
A short one.
My stealth poison was Dishonored, great game.
I see especial potential in coop stealth and "social stealth"
Maybe even PvP.
The two “A Plague Tale” games are great stealth games. They contextualize the need for stealth in a way many other games dont by making you play as a teenage girl up against trained soldiers. You will most likely die if you fight them straight on.
The best part about it being that the options you have for eliminating guards are unique from other games, and feel impactful. Like, whenever I put out a guard's flame just so the rats could eat him, it does feel a little sad.
If you want to make yourself Mr Stealth RUclipsr(which I think is a good idea, as it doesn't seem very saturated). I think a great video that could get a lot of attention is reviewing what made Thief Gold one of the greatest stealth games of all time. Not my words - Yahtzee Croshaw, who has really only had good things to say about Thief Gold, Silent Hill 2, and Dark Souls.
Hey Jay, I’d love to see you discuss how Assassin’s Creed games portray/utilize history within their settings. I feel like these games frequently oscillate between Disney theme park rides and “serious” historical reconstructions, but (more than that) I find the franchise’s mentality, “history is our playground,” to be something worthy of unpacking by way of its varying implementation across the franchise. I deeply admire your writing, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this subject.
I think online gaming is what killed a lot of the great things we loved in the 90s (if you've been gaming that long.) See how EA, 2K, and Rockstar have shifted all their focus on online gaming and making money off it. Also, Ubisoft making Assassin's Creed less about stealth gaming and more about open world with some stealth starting with Assassin's Creed III has lead to what we're seeing. I know Unity's problems at launch, but it turned out to be one of the last great stealth games once it was patched up. I can't remember anything better since...
The reality is that this and many other niche genres have been mixed together in the new hodge podge typical Open World AAA title.
I think A Plague Tale Innocence is one of the games that did it for me. It's highly stealth-focused, has linear levels and it's mechanics don't feel like most game mechanics. I played it with immersive HUD on, and had a really fun time figuring out the levels like I did playing Splinter Cell games back then.
I always wanted to see an expansion on the multiplayer concept from Batman Arkham Origins. The idea of Two teams with guns attacking each other (either TDM style or with some kind of objective) with a third team using stealth to take out everyone else…. To me the gameplay possibilities there are very exciting. Plus in that mode you could play as the bosses which were Batman villains which just made everything even more hype. Imagine a Metal Gear/ military shooter inspired hybrid with maybe even a dynamic territory system like helldivers…. (Same way that you are fighting for planets in galactic conquest you could instead have warehouses or bases in a region that different factions each try to take over to gain territory) To me that would make for a pretty hard to pass up AAA multiplayer experience. People who want to focus on running and gunning could have a progression system similar to older call of duty games while the players that love stealth could have a dedicated stealth system completely different from the rest of the game so as not to feel like just a mechanic. Kinda a crazy vision but I could see it selling like crazy if it was done right.
"Games that once would have been linear action games now let you customise character builds down to the stat percentage"
and that is mostly a bad thing, diluting design so you get watery semi-stealth or whatnot.
I don’t know why ur vids aren’t getting as much views rn, keep making them, you’re awesome!
They’re fun to make! Views are nice sometimes but I just enjoy making the videos and chatting with you all
Stealth games took a massive hit when open world games became popular. Far cry 3 really kick started the ubisoft open world formula every game uses, at the time the stealth was interesting since it was fitting for the setting and prepared the player with the skills to fight outside of stealth. Now almost every open world game is just rebranded far cry
I really think that Watchdogs was a missed opportunity. Seriously, environmental stealth through cameras, computers, exploiting people's personal information etc made stealth amazing. Having someone get a phone call from someone that seems to be their daughter, or distract them with ear piercing noise etc.
My point is, real stealth (like Hitman) takes commitment to the genre. You really have to ask yourself "How do we make a strategic game where stalking, killing, and manipulating enemies is fun?"
It's hard to answer, but I hope we get an excellent stealth game.
My opinion: most of the stealth games are b-tier games, which isn't a bad thing.
Whole stealth experience is based on the clever game design and map layout.
Which goes against of modern approach of just throwing money at games until they look the best.
Those kinds of games need a dedicated game-designer and a lot of testing, but also some fresh ideas. In this creatively bankrupt industry it is really unlikely.
Assassin's Creed is not a stealth game series.
AC1 and 2 are, after that theyre action games.
I’ve actually just restarted Days Gone on hard and I’ve been relying a lot more on the crossbow, rock, and other stealth tools and tactics. It’s thrilling as heck!!
The greatest stealth game is in its prime right now. Forget about single player games with braindead AI, Hunt : Showdown tests your sneakiness against other players. The greatest audio design of any game.
That isn't Thief 2.
@@lawrence4301 Bamboozling other players equates to infinite shenanigans. Fooling people through audio queues and mind games never gets old.
This has happened to all my favorite genres and even other genres ive been interested in. Aaa industry has homogenized them. Now the only options are old greats (im late to the party on those) and indies that get the gameplay right but sometimes miss the polish of the old greats.
Now i just struggle with finding out which are the best of the greats of the genres that i need to play.
I'm putting all my hype on the games of the last five years on the assassin's creed red project. The creator of chaos theory in the director's chair, a completely new nextgen engine with a redesigned movement system, especially the ability to crawl like in TLOU-2
I’ve heard rumors of light source manipulation too, which would be exciting if true
I definitely agree that stealth is more of a mechanic. Even with AC games recently, stealth seems to have taken a backseat to open combat.
Mirage?
AC was mostly action adventure to begin with. Origins and Odyssey may had a more fleshed out (and far better) combat systems, but the content was designed to be tackle as stealthy as you want it, with some narrative exceptions.
@@shira_yone Yeah, that games truly commits to stealth. By far the most stealth focused game in the series.
Hoping for a new video soon, your narration and script really felt like some of the most well done in the space. Also, surely is hard thanks to the algorithm, but I would love more videos about other games like with Armored Core or Tsushima (Especially Armored Core to know how 6 ranks for you)
I appreciate that, thank you! I try to make a video every month and I haven’t missed a month yet, so I’ll have something out hopefully by the 16th.
great video!!! i'm mostly familiar with triple a games and the homogenized stealth but i think a huge part of what makes stealth systems in these games so weak is the lack of a challenging detection system. uncharted 4 actually challenged me with its stealth and i normally avoid stealth due to time constraints and boredom. we need better level design and good detection systems for better stealth in our big games.
as of today, Helldivers 2 has confirmed Stealth Mechanics to be implemented in the future.
so the genre isn't dead, it is just niche now.
i just wanna be a sneaky guy, with a sneaky moveset. i really hate how stealth in modern games is just crouch and throw a distraction. imagine a game with the social stealth of hitman, the speed of classic assassins creed, and the depth of MGS 5.
I desperately want another Splinter Cell game 😢
Yeah, would be nice to hear about other stealth games for a change. I really like Styx: Master of Shadows where not being seen pretty much equals staying alive. And Mark of the Ninja is one of my favourite games. AC series' importance for the stealth genre is overblown and I'm really tired of those games since AC: Odyssey. There was no really good AC game ever produced. All of them have serious flaws here and there.
im still confused why haven't got a new Predator stealth Action genre game.
Exactly
Stealth was/is my favorite genre in gaming and I can't wait for its inevitable resurgence!
Still waiting for a true successor to Dishonored and Deus Ex
But Dishonored 2 was great.
@@immortalsun It was
Stealth is my favourite genre. I wish we’d get more games like Dishonored and Metal Gear Solid V. Or better yet, more games in this series.
I actually kind of like tailing missions in the AC games.
Your support group peers thank you for sharing.
*to your credit, maybe it the imagined voice with which I read this.
Also: yes they are cool. 😎
I like the style of the video and the calm voice. Keep it up and nice tastes!
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it
One minor thing to note is that Dishonored isn't exactly dead, and I very much doubt Arkane and Bethesda are willing to abandon the IP. The Kaldwin saga ended with Death of The Outsider, and the devs mentioned the series is on a break. We'll probably see a new Dishonored in a few years, maybe after the Blade game is released.
Perhaps not, I’d love to see a new Dishonored, but it’s worth noting that even if there is a new entry in a few years we will have still gone at least a decade without an entry, longer if you count mainline and not just Death of the Outsider given that Dishonored 2 is already 8 years old
I remember playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance and thinking, "Why the hell does my Medieval Knight game have stealth mechanics?" Not that I didn't love the game (it absolutely took over my life when I played it) but it just felt out of place, as if the devs felt like the absolutely needed a stealth system because it's in literally every other game nowadays.
cuz stealth is, and should be, possible if you are simply wearing cloth clothing and it's dark outside?
The stealth sub-feature of KCD was great (for modern gaming)
I'd much rather a stealth game than a game that just uses stealth sometime
We are trying to build a games company that only builds stealth games. Would love your feedback a bit down the road.
WOW blacklist sold 2 million copies between the 360, ps3, wiiu, AND PC? No way. That number HAS to be undercounted. 2 million copies in how many years?
We really don’t have a way to definitively say truth be told, we only have the numbers as of the last time Ubisoft reported. We do know that Ubisoft was expecting 5 million at the point where 2 million was the figure. As of last report it is also worth noting that Chaos Theory, one of the most highly regarded stealth games of all time, only sold 2.5 million as a 2005 game.
I wonder if Blacklist would've done better if it wasn't relegated to the older generation. Black Flag did really well, like you said, but it was also on 2 different generations of hardware. If you compare Blacklist to Assassin's Creed Rogue, which was also only available on PS360 (until the remaster), you see it doing comparable numbers.
It’s also worth remembering that Rogue came out the same year as AC Unity which got 90% of the marketing. Rogue was marketed as a side game from the start, while Blacklist was the first and only Splinter Cell of the 2010s
Not everything has to be a AAA franchise with a multi-decade long history. There’s plenty of stealth games with varied mechanics. And those indies? They’re often retired/fired game devs that were responsible for your favorite games to begin with.
I'm three months late, but if you were to make a stealth game, what would the core mechanics/gameplay look like? I missed out on this golden age and wonder how you would innovate a game like one of the ones you're waiting for.
You keep forgetting Sniper Elite in your stealth videos and it breaks my heart 💔💔💔
2025 - 26 will be a huge revival for stealth games. MGS Delta and Master Collection 2 will come out (which is even more more important than Master Collection 1 because it will finally free MGS4 from the PS3 jail which means an absurd amount of people will experience it for the first time), and we'll get a glance at Kojima's new stealth IP. Other companies will look at the chance and make their own stuff to get a piece of the pie while it's still fresh.
They got absorbed by the third person open world action rpgs as a mecha- holy shit that's exactly what you were going to say
Big fan, live the content.
As soon as you said they didn't know how to market stealth I just knew the Blacklist trailers would come into play.
They did try though, making two gameplay trailers showing stealth and action. I reckon it was a compromise with marketing since the devs put the effort. However the action trailer turned off so much of the audience that it invariably hurt the sales
Love your channel! Great script and narration, and i really respect your criterion on this topics.
I've been watching several of your videos. Hitman and AC were games of my chilhood and adolescence, and now the Stealth Genre is my favourite, along with Immersive Sims.
I appreciate that, thank you, I intend to make more Hitman videos soon but let me know if there are specific things you want to see
The only game that I felt was a really good stealth game recently was the last of us part 2. It’s strange to me that people don’t regard that game as a stealth game cause its majority stealth and it has some really cool in depth mechanics that made it feel really unique to me.
The only thing I really didn’t like is the forced detective vision that every game must have nowadays. If you use it often it makes stealth really tedious and takes out any unpredictability which I feel is where the game excels
Does Sniper Elite count as a stealth game? That was the game that got me into the genre.
Also far cry can be considered a stealth game to some extent
out now : cruelty squad, gloomwood, aragami 2, metro exodus, deus ex manking divided, the chameleon, dishonored 2, echo, filcher, hitman reboot, no sun to worship, oddworld soulstorm, shadow tactics, sekiro, sniper elite 5, styx shards of darkness, system shock remake, weird west, ghost recon wildlands. generation zero
upcoming : mgs delta, deep state, samurai unicorn, peripeteia
you want more stealth ? support it then, most of those games didn't sell that well
Honestly if I had to guess I’d imagine the type people who would click on a video like this mostly do buy these games
really unfortunate that Aragami 2 sold bad but at least now there is Ereban
It's not that Companies doesn't know how to sell Stealth games, It's just that they don't care and are too lazy about it.
It's kinda simple really, There aren't enough AAA Stealth games purely because it's a niche genre that doesn't make enough money.
and corporate AAA companies ALWAYS prioritize trend,money,sales and profit over creativity and original ideas which is why we're getting more indie games focused primarly on steath where as in AAA games it's just another generic feature.
Even Hitman despite being the only of the few modern AAA Stealth game plagued with so many issues.
Here's hoping Kojima's stealth espionage focused game is solid and since there is no stupid Konami tearing his ear drums..I feel like it's gonna be interesting
We are getting Physint, an MGS3 remake (plus more MGS rereleases), and a Splinter Cell remake so I think it might be slowly returning as a genre.
I love stealth games, still playing the first 3 Thief and the first 3 Splinter Cell games. And the 2000 Deus Ex. Mimimi gave us 3 stealth games before closing down and that's exactly why it did close down. They made their games 2000% stealth. There is no other way to get through them. No choice. Desperados 2 was a masterpiece. You can play in bird's eye view OR switch to 3rd person shooter, according to the needs of each mission.
This is why I think stealth has become a feature: perfect stealth the way the leaders MGS and Splinter Cell did it is boring. You ghost your way to an objective and never interact with enemies. You ignore the wonderful alert system that MGS has built that has multiple ways to interact. You don't use most of the arsenal provided to you and if the game has great combat you ignore that. Why not just let it be a feature at this point? Infiltration stealth played perfectly is not marketable in today's audience so most games instead do the stealth around until you get detected then it's party time where the combat may or may not be great.
This is why Arkham's predator mode succeeds. Enemies have guns and you don't making head on fighting impossible but the objective is still to take them out.
Hitman on the other hand succeeds by brute forcing quality. Implementing several ways to kill targets. Designing maps with multiple pathways and difficult vantage points. You can't sell 6 levels as a AAA game and tell players to replay them again in 2024. As much as it's about disguises it does share the MGS or Thief lineage games of infiltration, when playing suit only it actually does work fairly well for most maps. It does have one advantage in that the objective isn't go here but instead kill these guys which allows for more creativity.
You do interact with the enemies though by avoiding them using your tools/gadgets and managing their bodiies if you decide to not ghost - ghosting isnt the norm, its the peak of skill in the genre.
it was funny hearing Jade Raymond justifying the more actiony elements in Splinter Cell as an attempt to sell Assassin Creed numbers only for Blacklist to not only sell far less than expected, it ended up selling less than the first entry.
Personally, I just want to play a third person spy game as a hot lady in a catsuit with an intriguing story. Sadly,stealth games with female protagonists are locked behind the PS2/1 era and the closest thing today are resident evil 4 remake dlc,re2R/6 ada section, cyberpunk 2077 phantom liberty, and mass effect 2 (kind of)
Even games that have stealth make the characters too overpowered for it have any meaning...Deus ex human revolution did it really well
HR was super biased towards stealth and it seems to be rare that a game with both action and stealth would do that.
the stealth genre pretty much stopped in the 2010's.
TF2 was released in 2008.
the TF2 spy eventually killed of the genre by portraying it as French.
Stealth, good stealth games, take patience, are usually fairly slow and require both creative and critical thinking to successfully complete missions in the best way possible. The new generation of gamers are not capable of any of that. My generation perfected the Splinter Cell Bank Heist.
The Commandos-clones are also a genre of stealth games that are eeking along on life support.
Just finished Thief 2: Metal Age and stealth fell out of fashion because the genre peaked 20 years ago.
Depends on when the Snake Eater remake comes out. That will decide quite a bit in the popular culture
I'm glad that you're not worried, I'd like to share your sentiment but... I really don't know. The way that most gamers behave today, how they approach games in general, makes me think that stealth games will never return to their prime.
The truth is you never know. But like I said, horror seemed like it was getting replaced with high octane action and it re-entered the public sphere. RPGs had to be watered down to sell in the 2010s and suddenly you can’t pick up a game without RPG mechanics it feels like. What is popular is always changing and sometimes it just takes one good game to boost a genre back up and convince studios to take chances.
@@sosaysjay I hope this is the case for stealth games, too.
you need to look at Hunt Showdown.
PvPvE FPS with a very systemic stealth system. Definitively hardcore and difficult to learn, but totally worth it. Been playing it as my main game since 2018 or so.
Oh and the game has the best audio system ever. Truly amazing with headphones.
great immersive sims are still coming out, but yes it seems like stealth is relegated to a mechanic than a genre now
In my mind the single greatest Stealth Action of the past decade is Sekiro and I'm not even sure this was an intentional creative choice but it just sort of happened and was amazing.
The stealth and AI are too underdeveloped in Sekiro to be considered a stealth title. Just baiting enemies out of their mini boss area to kill them after loosing interest, or hanging at the edge of an area, only for enemies get obliviously close and do nothing, is enough IMO. The less we talk about the very limited stealth tools and how passive enemies are when you throw a pot to their face, the better.
Dishonored is a better balance of action and stealth, but mostly because it takes inspiration of the Immersive Sim "genre".
Stealth games lost me when they either all ripped off Arkham detective vision or they went first person which i cant stand personally.
i would die for a new splinter cell. I loved blacklist and it might have been the only splinter cell game i ever played but i just loved the setting and style of the game and got so many fond memories of both the single and multiplayer that i probably would be one of the first people to buy a new splinter cell just to relieve some of that nostalgia i have considering this game
Very nicey done
I agree creative wise developers are good people and will innovate the stealth genre as always. But Business wise?
Corporations are scum. Hearing the news that Embracer Group eating up Deus Ex just to cancel it 2 years later is pathetic. These out of touch old greedy business man control everything about the game from its microtransactions to its advertising and development. Developers cant do much if they dont get permission or funding from publishers. The news i heard was the final straw. I just want a Publisher company to go bankrupt so that many dev teams can just be their own publisher. Full independence.
Only once that future is possible will developers have full freedom to passionately make games they actually want instead of being forced by stupid businessmen to clone dark souls, assasins creed or zelda.
Pretty much now everything is full rpg because player like grinding and spending hundreds of hours in games not caring about story or characters at all.
You can add detective games alongisde this category that is dead for long time as well…
Frogwares still seems to be making some good detective games with recent Sherlock Holmes games. They even announced a sequel to the Sinking City just recently.
I mean just look at some of the videos put out by Stealth game BR, Volound or Clockner where they play Dishonored. This is how you SELL a stealth game.
I never understood how on planet earth was Sly Cooper ever considered a stealth game, the first game was a Crash Bandicot 3 clone with a stealth component and the sequels were just platformers with light stealth and with lots of mini games, this isn't *bad* by any means but its just going to give people the wrong impression when playing the games. I know I did when I played Sly 1 for the first time and recall shutting the game off when it starts with you dodging laser pistol shots.
As for the genre itself, I felt the stealth genre never really had a chance to prosper when Deus Ex from 2000 had a run and gun component to hide how poor the stealth mechanics were, it was just a poor man's Thief but more devs ripped off the former than the latter. One of the reasons why Deus Ex was made was because Warren Spector couldn't brute force his way through Thief. Dishonored has very poor stealth mechanics that is inferior to Thief's in just about every way.
The genre itself is a hard sell as is, the reason pure stealth games could be made back then was because games were cheaper to make and didn't require as much to break even, you could make AA stealth games but you aren't going to win over normies if your game coming out now looks like a PS2 game. No company now wants to make a big budget stealth experience where you get chastised for not being able to run and gun.
You might be right that someone might innovate but that is going to take awhile.
The genre is alive in the indie space but outside of that i'd say its more or less disapeared as a genre.
I like the video but disagree with your conclusion, there are a lot of generes that are missing, and there is no clue they will comeback, like 3D platformers, Adventures point and click, immersive Sims and others, you can say that happened some bangers to the geners in the last few year's, but isn't nearly compared to the revive of JRPGs, there are every year a lot of new games with diferentes mechanics, styles, ideas, with high quality and production values, this isn't happening to stealth, 3D platafomrs or others, we are just getting the short end of the stick, paxionate developer's try to do something great with little resources, like in indie ceneri or low budget product like was AC mirage, or remakes of classic we have no information enough to even say the game actually exist or can be good, the stealth is in life suporte and needs a banger fast, without it will become just a feature like interaction in the cenari for the character saiy something, like happened to adventures point and click.
Last of us 2 is an incredible stealth game
I do really enjoy sneaking around in the Last of Us II
Hitman 3 is doing great but thats more indicative of the Hitman franchise not so much the Stealth genre.