4 ms·

As an aficionado of the genre, it is a real shame that stealth games have fallen out of favor with the current crop of gamers. 90s and early to mid 2000s seems

As an aficionado of the genre, it is a real shame that stealth games have fallen out of favor with the current crop of gamers. 90s and early to mid 2000s seems like was the peak for 3D games with deep storylines and pure stealth mechanics (MGS, Splinter Cell). By the time the late 2000s rolled around we started getting the watered down hybrid model aka stealth but you can play it like a FPS or TPS if you prefer. Finally in the 2010s seems like even these hybrid stealth games were on their way out for the most part. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can count the number of releases on one hand. My pet theory is that these types of games are simply too high brow for casuals who have become a larger segment of the target audience.

deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
rustyhancock 5mo ago
Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a flash in the pan (although the asymmetric horror genre continues basically dominated by dead by daylight). Yet, the sheer exhilaration I felt the first time one of the "killers" walked past me as I kneeled in a bush was quite spectacular. It's not the same as splinter cell (it's much more chaotic, you don't get to totally dominate the enemies, it definitely doesn't have that mindful quite as you systematically work your way through a level you know we' ll). But the key, I can stand in the right spot and human can't see me really is its own kind of feeling.
King-Aaron 5mo ago
Alien Isolation had a brief time in the spotlight for being a pretty serious stealth focused game.
- ehnto 5mo ago
  The whole Amnesia series, and SOMA (cannot recommend enough) also do something similar. Of course it's horror rather than tactical.
brainzap 5mo ago
a new james bond game was just released, which is based on the hitman stealth style
- philipallstar 5mo ago
  But you can punch your way out of various situations - it's "crouch near stuff until you're close enough to hit them" rather than pure stealth.
swazzy 5mo ago
Your comment reminded me of Commandos! apparently it has new releases so down the rabbit hole we go
- npodbielski 5mo ago
  Ah commandos I remember people not believing me that I cracked the last mission. Ah I would play this again. (An)using bear trap to kill every German soldier and all the backup was fun
  - x______________ 5mo ago
    (am)using
    - npodbielski 5mo ago
      I meant to write (ab)using. But autocorrect knows better.
      - x______________ 5mo ago
        While focus was on the typo, the overall bug was indeed amusing to picture.
        npodbielski 5mo ago
        It indeed was amusing!
  - carlmr 5mo ago
    Jagged Alliance 2 wasn't really as much a stealth game but had a lot of the same kind of tactical thinking to it that I liked in Commandos.
    - npodbielski 5mo ago
      Yes I finished that. Too. I played through 3 and some mods and Unfinished Business.
Hamuko 5mo ago
>Finally in the 2010s seems like even these hybrid stealth games were on their way out for the most part. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can count the number of releases on one hand. Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, Deathloop, Deus Ex, Starfield immediately come to mind. I think a lot of the open-world Ubisoft games also allow you to pick your poison too.
yread 5mo ago
I like it that you can play the way you want. And some are definitely not easier than the classics. Try Kingdom Come Deliverance (1 or 2) with the "do not kill anyone" achievement
crabmusket 5mo ago
And don't forget Thief, the king of medieval stealth punk fantasy loot games. Self promo: I wrote a tiny post about an interesting technical detail of Thief's game engine - the world is actually solid, and gameplay areas are carved out of it like caves. https://crabmusket.net/2025/the-solid-universe-of-thief-the-dark-project/ https://crabmusket.net/2025/the-solid-universe-of-thief-the-... More here: https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html#csg https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html#csg
- thaumasiotes 5mo ago
  > I wrote a tiny post about an interesting technical detail of Thief's game engine - the world is actually solid, and gameplay areas are carved out of it like caves. This is true of Unreal Tournament too. How unusual is it?
  - justsomehnguy 5mo ago
    From the second link: >> Because Quake levels started empty, Quake had invisible "exterior" surfaces that required a separate process to detect and eliminate. If the level wasn't watertight, then the exterior could be reachable and the automated tools couldn't eliminate it. In contrast, because the Thief level started solid, this was never necessary. (I think Unreal's CSG may have started as solid as well.) It's just unusual. I think C&C: Renegade should be 'solid by default' too. One of the benefits is what you don't have a problem with the edge cases with an escaped ray casts and view points - you simply don't have casts and views into the infinity.
cookiengineer 5mo ago
Anybody remember the game Project IGI (I'm Going In)? That was the original stealth game in my opinion :D ... well, apart from XIII, NOLF, Commander Keen and Agent Sam, of course. The 90s sure had some awesome games
- justsomehnguy 5mo ago
  > Commander Keen An.. interesting proposition. Wolf3D is a stealth game too then - there is an option to quietly stab some enemies from behind.
  - cookiengineer 5mo ago
    I'll never forget that secret room with the four hanging keens... :(
close04 5mo ago
> watered down hybrid model aka stealth but you can play it like a FPS or TPS if you prefer. This allows players to pick their style so hybrid games target a much larger audience. A game which allows you to go full stealth if you choose to, but also go gung-ho on your enemies makes more players happy. It's a good compromise if designed well. I was replaying Dishonored and realized that I no longer have the same amount of "disposable time" to go all stealth. But still wanted to go through the game so I put on my Rambo bandana and went to work. Realism was never a real trait of stealth games, or any game. At best we aimed at visual realism but everything else about every game is unrealistic. The health system, or enemy alert levels, even the save game system, etc. I don't see why the technical implementation of the stealth should be more realistic than "if you sit in this predetermined area you are invisible". In Splinter Cell you'd sit in unrealistically dark shadows. In The Last of Us Part II you can completely hide in grass that's not even knee high. In Mark of the Ninja you can hide behind a barrel from the player's point of view but on the side of a barrel from the enemy's point of view. Screw realism, make the game fun and it's enough.
- philipallstar 5mo ago
  Dishonoured is the king of games like this, and it more works on builds rather than moment-by-moment choices. You can't go full stealth abilities and suddenly start fighting. You have to choose. The OP is talking about "stealth" games that just have very viable fighting options as backup when you fail to stealth.
- episteme 5mo ago
  This is exactly the point OP is making, fans of pure stealth games don’t want you to be able to muscle your way through, that cheapens the experience. It doesn’t matter that you think you only have time to mindlessly mash buttons, and it’s not about being realistic, it’s about a game doing one thing very well and not making it optional, it’s a particular type of puzzle to figure out.
  - close04 5mo ago
    > fans of pure stealth games don’t want you to be able to muscle your way through Those fans don't want me to be able to muscle through, or don't want themselves to be able? The former is questionable logic at best so I'll assume the latter. The fan of stealth who plays a game that gives them the option to muscle through and chooses to muscle through is responsible for their choice. Don't blame games for giving you a choice, especially when they usually support and motivate one style or another with achievements, specialization trees, or meaningful choice-based narrative. Stealth fans aren't upset the game gives them the option of violence, as most stealth games involve quite a bit of killing and disabling. So this is a pretentious distinction and arbitrary line coming from a very small but vocal minority, like complaining you can lower the difficulty in a game. > It doesn’t matter that you think See this here? This is the problem. You insist that it doesn't matter what I think in the same breath as telling me it matters what you think. The market is telling us both which opinion mattered. People overwhelmingly chose the games that are fun and give freedom of choice, not the ones that "do one thing very well". There's room for these too but there's a reason they're not super popular or common.
Fricken 5mo ago
I've been having fun playing Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (2016). In it the player controls a team of stealthy assassins in real time who coordinate to infiltrate heavily guarded Shogunate fortresses. The characters and voice acting are quite well done. The gameplay is very tricky and fickle but I guess it's fun because yesterday I downloaded the expansion with a bunch of new level to sneak around in.
OptionOfT 5mo ago
Both Hitman and Splinter Cell both gained one of those limited-use mechanics to walk by someone and you could press a button and they wouldn't spot you. Completely ruined the immersion for me. Edit: In Hitman it was called Blend In, and in Splinter Cell it was called Mark and Execute.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

rustyhancock 5mo ago

Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a flash in the pan (although the asymmetric horror genre continues basically dominated by dead by daylight). Yet, the sheer exhilaration I felt the first time one of the "killers" walked past me as I kneeled in a bush was quite spectacular. It's not the same as splinter cell (it's much more chaotic, you don't get to totally dominate the enemies, it definitely doesn't have that mindful quite as you systematically work your way through a level you know we' ll). But the key, I can stand in the right spot and human can't see me really is its own kind of feeling.

King-Aaron 5mo ago

Alien Isolation had a brief time in the spotlight for being a pretty serious stealth focused game.

ehnto 5mo ago
The whole Amnesia series, and SOMA (cannot recommend enough) also do something similar. Of course it's horror rather than tactical.

brainzap 5mo ago

a new james bond game was just released, which is based on the hitman stealth style

philipallstar 5mo ago
But you can punch your way out of various situations - it's "crouch near stuff until you're close enough to hit them" rather than pure stealth.

swazzy 5mo ago

Your comment reminded me of Commandos! apparently it has new releases so down the rabbit hole we go

npodbielski 5mo ago
Ah commandos I remember people not believing me that I cracked the last mission. Ah I would play this again. (An)using bear trap to kill every German soldier and all the backup was fun
- x______________ 5mo ago
  (am)using
  - npodbielski 5mo ago
    I meant to write (ab)using. But autocorrect knows better.
    - x______________ 5mo ago
      While focus was on the typo, the overall bug was indeed amusing to picture.
      - npodbielski 5mo ago
        It indeed was amusing!
- carlmr 5mo ago
  Jagged Alliance 2 wasn't really as much a stealth game but had a lot of the same kind of tactical thinking to it that I liked in Commandos.
  - npodbielski 5mo ago
    Yes I finished that. Too. I played through 3 and some mods and Unfinished Business.

Hamuko 5mo ago

>Finally in the 2010s seems like even these hybrid stealth games were on their way out for the most part. Correct me if I'm wrong but I can count the number of releases on one hand. Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, Deathloop, Deus Ex, Starfield immediately come to mind. I think a lot of the open-world Ubisoft games also allow you to pick your poison too.

yread 5mo ago

I like it that you can play the way you want. And some are definitely not easier than the classics. Try Kingdom Come Deliverance (1 or 2) with the "do not kill anyone" achievement

crabmusket 5mo ago

And don't forget Thief, the king of medieval stealth punk fantasy loot games. Self promo: I wrote a tiny post about an interesting technical detail of Thief's game engine - the world is actually solid, and gameplay areas are carved out of it like caves. https://crabmusket.net/2025/the-solid-universe-of-thief-the-dark-project/ https://crabmusket.net/2025/the-solid-universe-of-thief-the-... More here: https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html#csg https://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html#csg

thaumasiotes 5mo ago
> I wrote a tiny post about an interesting technical detail of Thief's game engine - the world is actually solid, and gameplay areas are carved out of it like caves. This is true of Unreal Tournament too. How unusual is it?
- justsomehnguy 5mo ago
  From the second link: >> Because Quake levels started empty, Quake had invisible "exterior" surfaces that required a separate process to detect and eliminate. If the level wasn't watertight, then the exterior could be reachable and the automated tools couldn't eliminate it. In contrast, because the Thief level started solid, this was never necessary. (I think Unreal's CSG may have started as solid as well.) It's just unusual. I think C&C: Renegade should be 'solid by default' too. One of the benefits is what you don't have a problem with the edge cases with an escaped ray casts and view points - you simply don't have casts and views into the infinity.

cookiengineer 5mo ago

Anybody remember the game Project IGI (I'm Going In)? That was the original stealth game in my opinion :D ... well, apart from XIII, NOLF, Commander Keen and Agent Sam, of course. The 90s sure had some awesome games

justsomehnguy 5mo ago
> Commander Keen An.. interesting proposition. Wolf3D is a stealth game too then - there is an option to quietly stab some enemies from behind.
- cookiengineer 5mo ago
  I'll never forget that secret room with the four hanging keens... :(

close04 5mo ago

> watered down hybrid model aka stealth but you can play it like a FPS or TPS if you prefer. This allows players to pick their style so hybrid games target a much larger audience. A game which allows you to go full stealth if you choose to, but also go gung-ho on your enemies makes more players happy. It's a good compromise if designed well. I was replaying Dishonored and realized that I no longer have the same amount of "disposable time" to go all stealth. But still wanted to go through the game so I put on my Rambo bandana and went to work. Realism was never a real trait of stealth games, or any game. At best we aimed at visual realism but everything else about every game is unrealistic. The health system, or enemy alert levels, even the save game system, etc. I don't see why the technical implementation of the stealth should be more realistic than "if you sit in this predetermined area you are invisible". In Splinter Cell you'd sit in unrealistically dark shadows. In The Last of Us Part II you can completely hide in grass that's not even knee high. In Mark of the Ninja you can hide behind a barrel from the player's point of view but on the side of a barrel from the enemy's point of view. Screw realism, make the game fun and it's enough.

philipallstar 5mo ago
Dishonoured is the king of games like this, and it more works on builds rather than moment-by-moment choices. You can't go full stealth abilities and suddenly start fighting. You have to choose. The OP is talking about "stealth" games that just have very viable fighting options as backup when you fail to stealth.
episteme 5mo ago
This is exactly the point OP is making, fans of pure stealth games don’t want you to be able to muscle your way through, that cheapens the experience. It doesn’t matter that you think you only have time to mindlessly mash buttons, and it’s not about being realistic, it’s about a game doing one thing very well and not making it optional, it’s a particular type of puzzle to figure out.
- close04 5mo ago
  > fans of pure stealth games don’t want you to be able to muscle your way through Those fans don't want me to be able to muscle through, or don't want themselves to be able? The former is questionable logic at best so I'll assume the latter. The fan of stealth who plays a game that gives them the option to muscle through and chooses to muscle through is responsible for their choice. Don't blame games for giving you a choice, especially when they usually support and motivate one style or another with achievements, specialization trees, or meaningful choice-based narrative. Stealth fans aren't upset the game gives them the option of violence, as most stealth games involve quite a bit of killing and disabling. So this is a pretentious distinction and arbitrary line coming from a very small but vocal minority, like complaining you can lower the difficulty in a game. > It doesn’t matter that you think See this here? This is the problem. You insist that it doesn't matter what I think in the same breath as telling me it matters what you think. The market is telling us both which opinion mattered. People overwhelmingly chose the games that are fun and give freedom of choice, not the ones that "do one thing very well". There's room for these too but there's a reason they're not super popular or common.

Fricken 5mo ago

I've been having fun playing Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun (2016). In it the player controls a team of stealthy assassins in real time who coordinate to infiltrate heavily guarded Shogunate fortresses. The characters and voice acting are quite well done. The gameplay is very tricky and fickle but I guess it's fun because yesterday I downloaded the expansion with a bunch of new level to sneak around in.

OptionOfT 5mo ago

Both Hitman and Splinter Cell both gained one of those limited-use mechanics to walk by someone and you could press a button and they wouldn't spot you. Completely ruined the immersion for me. Edit: In Hitman it was called Blend In, and in Splinter Cell it was called Mark and Execute.