Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided can be played as stealth games, and I really liked them. Note that they aren’t “pure” stealth games, there are some encounters where you cannot avoid fighting.
Also DE:MD kind of ends in the middle, so if you are a story player you will be frustrated to know that there seem to be no plans for the next sequel.
Yeah HR had unavoidable combat bosses in its original release. The Director’s Cut modded them all to allow for dealing with them by alternative means, such as hacking, robot/turret control and such. But because they weren’t originally designed that way it’s not the most organic, and you can’t pure stealth bypass them like the original Deus Ex.
This is going to sound snobby, but until you’ve played metal gear I don’t think you’ve experienced the pinnacle of stealth. That series basically defined (access arguably perfected) the third person stealth action genre.
If you don’t want to play them all, I highly recommend metal gear solid 3 and V. But the “demo” ground zeroes game is a great way to get a feel for the series in a more contained experience
Runner ups in my mind that others mentioned:
Splinter cell
Thief
Deus ex (you can choose stealth in this game but it isn’t specifically a stealth game imo)
Dishonored (superb)
Prey (essentially dishonored meets system shock)
You gotta go grab some metal gear, though. Oh how I wish I could experience those games for the first time again.
Thief Deus ex (you can choose stealth in this game but it isn’t specifically a stealth game imo) Dishonored (superb)
Was surprised to not find these games in the main list. Thief and Deus Ex (I play it stealthy as much as possible) have been my go to stealth games. And no matter how you try to play Skyrim it always ends with stealth archer. 😅
I fucking love those games to death, Thief was so fucking dark and gritty when it first came out and I was so scared when the guards walked past me as I was hiding in the shadows after water arrowing a torch, lol.
And Deus Ex I with it’s multiple storylines, choice making and takes on philosophy was mind blowing.
However, they’re easy to cheese by modern standards which might be to their detriment when it comes to new players. You can easily blackjack your way through Thief I.
Thief III: Deadly Shadows probably holds up the best gameplay wise, though Thief II has the best storyline imo.
Deus Ex I also has some very unfortunate voice acting choices (incl. white people putting on Asian sounding accents), which I, in the 90s, was ignorant about, but now as an adult it’s a cringy struggle to listen to, tbh.
If you want something really different but really cool you should look into Invisible Inc., rogueline turn-based tactical stealth in a cyberpunk setting. The way they handle the levels of alertness and challenge ramping up as you remain for too long and take risky actions in each level is really interesting.
I don’t know if it fits the criteria, but A Plagues Tale series are great stealth games. A little different genre compared to the others, but unique enough to shine among these others in my opinion.
It seems a little different from your usual vibe (it’s not an first/third-person shooter-y thingie; iirc it’s isometric and pixel-art?); but it’s easily the best stealth game I’ve ever played. :D
Plus one for Invisible, Inc. It’s like XCOM but spies. Such a great game from an awesome developer. One of many of their games that I’ve got every stream achievement for.
Adding on to this I heartily recommend MGS V. It is the culmination of the MGS formula in a mostly open world. While I love Kojima's bullshit, the previous MGS games had deep mechanics that you rarely got to play with because most the games were movies with an occasional game.
The story is kind of all over the place but the gameplay more then makes up for for it.
MGS1 is available on GOG, but it’s definitely got that early 3D vibe that OP doesn’t seem to like. I think it’s aged pretty well, considering it’s a PS1 title.
Mark of the Ninja is the best 2d stealth I’ve played, and also better than lot of 3d ones. The way the game used visual cues made steathing feel really fun to do.
To add a bit more about Shadow Tactics, it is a top-down 3D game where you control a crew of characters with different abilities (ninja, samurai, sharpshooter, etc.)
It is real time but you can plan actions to happen simultaneously, so it feels really cool to solve the stealth puzzles by combining the characters’ different abilities.
Also good atmosphere, voices, story, etc. Just a very good game.
I recently played through all three Thief games. Start with Thief: The Dark Project, then Thief 2: The Metal Age. Finally, Thief: Deadly Shadows is a bit controversial but i still think its worth a playthrough. Don’t bother with Thief (2014). They are old but IMHO some of the best stealth games made to this day. If you check them out, highly recommend looking up some mods. Tfix for the first game I think, and there are even some HD mods if old graphics bother you.
Also, I’ve never played them but heard the Splinter Cell games are fantastic stealth games. Might be worth a look.
To follow up on what was said above, Thief: Gold/The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age are easily two of the best stealth games out there, especially with all the work fans have done to keep the games playable and fantastic on modern hardware. Between the phenomenal level design, a unique and pretty engaging story, and all around fun game play offering tons of ways to approach situations, they're always worth a recommend from me for at least a single playthrough, easily netting 15-30 hours of game time per game. The wide variance in time spent with each is partially due to the freedom you have, but also since each difficulty step up changes your objectives for each mission, giving you further reasons to explore and have fun with the world.
Thief: Deadly Shadows is harder to recommend due to it being built with consoles in mind, but once again, with some fan patches it becomes a much better experience and can definitely be worth the time, particularly when they're all on sale for so cheap. Each of them is currently just under $1 on steam, one of the best deals you can get.
Coming from someone who bought Thief 2014 at launch (and enjoyed it), I'd recommend a skip on that one. It's not a bad game by any means, but it doesn't feel like it's nearly as good as the original 3 for a variety of reasons.
Splinter Cell also are fantastic games in the stealth genre, but I'm not familiar enough with them to speak at length on them like the Thief series.
Dishonored was the first thing that came to mind when I read the title, too. OP, if you haven’t played it, check it out!
As for others…
Skyrim and Fallout aren’t exactly deep stealth games, but stealth is hands down the most popular and arguably most fun way to play. Sneaky archer is a freaking meme.
Far Cry games all favour stealth as well. While you’re totally allowed to go in guns a blazing and it’s frankly more effective sometimes, the game does reward stealth and is clearly designed with it in mind. Silencers are magic, you can distract enemies, can lure wildlife to attack, smoke bombs, knife combos, “death from above”, etc.
The Metro series isn’t entirely stealth, but a lot of human enemy sections are meant to be done with stealth and I recall it being actually very difficult if you’re not stealthy (you die fast). I also recall the stealth feeling more realistic in terms of detection time. Finally, there’s something extra fun about being stealthy in a very dark post apocalyptic subway tunnel. Much better atmosphere for it!
As a final side note, the way OP described assassin’s Creed sounds like the older games. They might like some of the “middle” games like Unity more. The games that came just before Origins (Origins and later are very fun games, but the stealth is no longer the focus).
I don't quite remember how I played Metro 2033, but I do know that I played so much with Metro Last Light to get that stupid 'kill no humans' achievement that whenever I play it now I can practically zoom through most areas with stealth. Same way with Dishonored. Both great games, I love revisiting them from time to time.
With dishonored I wanted to be the ultimate ninja that leave no trace and had a lot of fun doing a clean hands ghost run. So challenging though, since I didn’t know if I had been detected until the end of each stage when they show you your performance.
I disliked Dishonored because the game tells you not to kill too many people or bad things will happen and then proceeds to make most of the items and abilities for killing people. You can kill some people, but it’s not clear exactly how many each level. I wasn’t really interested in spending tens of hours playing a game only to be told that I was a bad person who gets the bad ending. As a result I kept killing to a minimum and missed out on or barely used a huge portion of the items and abilities. Seemed like questionable game design.
Prey was great though. Not sure if I’d call it a stealth game, however.
The game doesn’t really want you to spare enemies. It’s just that there are 3 different ways to play the game and 3 different flavors of the story : low, mid and high chaos. I think you should feel free to massacre everyone, and then maybe start over a new game and try lower chaos !
I can only speak for the first 3 paid dlc, since I still haven’t played the castlevania one. The first 3 essentially add an alternate route to the game, so about 6ish levels and 5 bosses between them. With the exception of the queen and the sea*, the DLC content isn’t that much harder than base game stuff, and it’s all accessible in the games easiest difficulty (generally they’re easier than stuff from the free updates lol). They’re pretty good at adding a bit of extra variety in what routes you can take through the game, and add some extra items. Compared to some other games I play (stellaris), the DLC do feel pretty optional which is nice to see, and to the best of my knowledge they were also partially intended to support the creation of the free content as well.
*the bosses in that dlc are rough ngl. Queen boss fight is really fun though.
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