Thought we forgot about Speak Up on Kotaku US’s Best Game Ever? We were only biding our time until commenter DocSeuss and admitted his love for the one stealth action game that got nearly everything right.
I’m done playing third-person stealth games.
I can’t do it anymore.
I want to, believe me, but… yeah. No. I can’t. I love stealth. I love the idea of stealth. I love sneaking through a level, either ghosting it or taking out everyone without being noticed. There’s a feeling of empowerment there that comes with solving the puzzle that is a good stealth level.
Look, have you ever played a game that you’ve broken? I’m talking about a game like Skyrim, where you mod a sword to have 9999 damage so it kills everything in one hit, completely removing the challenge from the game. I’m talking about cheating.
Like many of you taffers, I once believed that third person was the only way to do stealth. I thought that it was the only way to figure out whether you could move, because as soon as you get into an AI’s line of sight, they’ll notice and start looking for you, and that really makes or breaks a stealth game.
I love the genre — whether it’s Assassin’s Creed or Splinter Cell or Hitman or whatever — but little did I know that they were all doing it wrong. Harsh words, I know, but bear with me.
Recently, an old stealth game was rereleased after a thirteen-year absence from store shelves. It was called Thief, and it was developed by the guys who went on to make games like Deus Ex and Skyrim.
Unlike most stealth games, it was in first person.
How did they get around the line of sight stealth problems, you might ask? Well… they didn’t. See, line-of-sight is actually horrible. In real life, stealth doesn’t work that way. Line-of-sight is a method that’s used only because it’s incredibly simple to create. It is, in fact, rather lazy. A third person camera basically exists as a gameplay abstraction designed to keep the player from giving their position away whenever they want to see if they can move.
In real life, you could listen to the position of people, poke your head around corners without being noticed, and hide in the shadows without being seen. In a game where all stealth is based on line-of-sight, you can’t do that, so you have to be in third person, or it sucks.
…well…
What if you made a stealth game where you could listen to the position of other people, poke your head around corners without being noticed, and hide in the shadows without being seen? That would be a lot better, right?
Turns out it is.
It adds a whole new layer of challenge to stealth. It requires intelligence to play. Sound becomes a fantastic method of level navigation. It means you don’t need to cheat and look around corners unrealistically, because now you can hear guards snorting or sneezing or chatting or whistling or just even walking.
Do you have any idea how amazingly badass it is to hide in the shadows right in front of a guy, step out like Batman himself, and stab him in the face? It’s incredible! There’s no feeling like it in the world (besides being Batman!).
I can’t go back to third-person stealth after this. There’s no depth to it — not challenge beyond an arbitrary, unrealistic, and unforgiving line-of-sight issue beyond the occasional “DONT MAKE NOISE!” component.
Thief is the best stealth game I’ve ever played.
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