Hide And Seek: Why Stealth Mechanics Need A Shake Up

Stealth has become a commonplace aspect of many games, with an increasing number of titles using it as an important mechanic. It’s an effective way to create tension and make the protagonist seem like less of an indestructible killing machine, with titles such as The Last of Us, Tomb Raider and even the recent BioShock Infinite DLC, Burial At Sea, using it to great effect.

I don’t like it; I never have. It just seems to me like a way to break immersion by making you repeat a section over again once you’ve been caught by the enemy forces, having to often repeat a large, difficult section due to the nature of the system. There’s no easy way to put checkpoints in a stealth game, and it’s often a section-by-section approach, which can often lead you to being reset quite far back.

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Playing Tomb Raider over the last few days, I’ve began to realise the reasons that I’m not a fan of sneaking around: the first time I’m taking on an area, it’s absolutely fine; I get into a rhythm of meticulously taking out enemies, and slowly weave my way through the forces to the invisible finishing line, enjoying it as I go.

But when I get close to that line, only to get spotted by a guard or fumble and make a few mistakes, which often leads to a restart, I lose all excitement for what I’m doing. I now have to go slow, again, through the enemy forces, doing the easy kills quietly and wasting my time until I get to the exciting bit again, where I have to do a bit of problem solving once more.

So, do I want a stealth game without the danger of being caught and forced to restart the section? Absolutely not – a huge part of stealth gameplay is the risk, and the reward is all the better when you’ve slaved through an extremely hard section. The same goes for tough sections of shooters: the bigger the challenge, the better the sense relief and the bigger the smile on your face when you’ve completed it.

Perhaps what I need is a stealth game that doesn’t follow the same path, but then again I’d get a bit annoyed by the environments being the same. Procedural generation, then? No, that probably wouldn’t work. It’s at this point in my thought process that I realise that these games aren’t the problem, but rather I’m the one with the problem.

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I’m honestly just being lazy. I should just play the section again, taking what I’ve learned from my failures into account, and eventually get through to the other side, with a sigh of relief as I progress to the next section without worrying about having to play the same bit again.

The biggest problem with this affliction is that most of the best story-focused game incorporate stealth in one way or the other. It can be optional, such as it is in Tomb Raider, be a central mechanic, as Metal Gear Solid shows, or be the only way to get through some sections, as with The Last of Us, which you’ll need to sneak through due to the clickers being able to take you out as soon as they make contact and ammo being extremely limited.

Except that I simply cannot enjoy the story when I’m being forced to do sections repeatedly with my only reward being a cutscene. As much as it might be a great feeling when I finally take that last guard out unnoticed, it’s more of a pain when I can’t take him out, and that’s one thing that will lead me to prematurely ejecting the disc from the machine I’m playing the game on.

I know that when I was playing and got deeper into The Last of Us, I really enjoyed getting through the harder rooms, but soon after I was finished, these sections seem extremely irritating and mundane. So, for now I’ll just have to put up with the increasing focus on stealth in many games – it’s just yet another form of challenge, and many others enjoy it – and maybe it’ll eventually grow on me. Or maybe someone will come up with a solution as, after all, the games industry is full of surprises.

20 Comments

  1. The problem with videogame stealth is,to the uneducated it seems wildly unrealistic,this is only the case because they haven’t seen or heard the crouching masses as they procure biscuits and other sundries.I mean we all do tend to ‘reset’ after accepting we probably assumed there were more biscuits than there actually was.
    Seriously though just how far ahead was Dues Ex 1 in this regard?Good read btw.

  2. One of the best stealth mechanics of the last while is, in my opinion, Dishonored. Unlike Assasin’s Creed and similar titles it does not put you in a fail state for getting seen, and you can easily upgrade powers and weapons to adapt to a hostile and overwhelming enemy force even if your main focus has been on stealth abilities. Your stealth weapon of choice, the crossbow, also becomes an explosive death-dealer should the need arise, or you can possess an enemy quickly and escape that way. More games need to be adaptable and offer emergent problem solving situations rather than forcing you to stealth-or-die.

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