Stealth-Based Game

When Hide-and-Seek gets deadly serious.

"Hiding from your enemies? That's not a game!"

— Anecdotal response to Hideo Kojima's proposal for the original Metal Gear

In most video games, the player's character is powerful enough to mow down enemies left and right. They don't have to worry about setting alarms off, or enemy reinforcements being summoned (true, there are occasionally levels where you have to be a bit careful, but those are specifically scripted).

In a Stealth-Based Game, the player's character is simply too weak to survive a head to head confrontation with his enemies most of the time. Either it's too easy to die (many of the enemies can even be Instakill Mooks), you can't carry enough ammo, enemies are either too powerful for a direct confrontation or outright invincible, or there is some other reason. Just running away from enemies like in Pac-Man isn't enough to count as a stealth-based game; you need to be actively hiding from them.

Whatever it is though, they've got to be careful, stick to the shadows, kill silently, and only when necessary. And they better hide the bodies well because someone is going to stumble over them otherwise.

The different types of stealth used can be broken up as such, though many are often hybrids.

• Line-of-sight breaking: Horizontally or vertically, stay out of view.
• Moving through shadows: Avoiding the light, creating darkness to move through.
• Hidden in plain sight: As part of the crowd or as part of the scenery.

Games in this genre may feature Optional Stealth, where playing it stealthily is encouraged but not strictly necessary.

The Ur-Example of the genre is Manbiki Shounen (1979). The Trope Maker is Metal Gear (1987), the first popular stealth-action game with over a million copies sold. And the Trope Codifier is Metal Gear Solid, which was the first 3D stealth game, having debuted in 1996 before releasing in 1998. The Metal Gear series is the Genre Popularizer, with its creator Hideo Kojima being the leading pioneer of the genre.

A sub-genre of Action-Adventure, as not only this involves active hiding, but the stealth itself is often puzzle-like, requiring knowledge of one's environment and enemy patterns for survival. For gameplay of this sort in other Video Game Genres, see Stealth-Based Mission.

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Games in this genre:

• 005: An Arcade Game released by Sega in 1981, this was one of the first stealth games.

• Doomy In The Roomy
• 007: From Russia with Love zigzags in and out of the genre. It's generally easier and more efficient on the on-foot levels to play it this way, but the vehicle levels are more of a blast-everything-in-sight type deal.
• 2Dark
• Affordable Space Adventures is one where you must avoid detection from alien robots while riding a completely safe spaceship.
• Alien: Isolation: Trying to fight the Alien head-on means certain death in this game, and fighting lesser enemies such as Working Joes or hostile survivors usually costs more resources than it's worth, so much of the gameplay is spent in and out of hiding.
• Alpha Protocol: The game is designed so that the player can play it as a stealth game, a shooter or a hybrid. Note that trying to completely focus on stealth will end badly when you come up against the mandatory boss fights. At least some combat ability is necessary.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent is, alongside Slender, the Trope Codifier of the Invincible Boogeymen horror game.
• Ape Escape allows you to sneak up on many of the monkeys you're required to catch by crawling around and staying out of sight. Stealth isn't required, and it's possible to play the game like a standard action platformer. However, if a monkey sees you, they'll try to run away so keeping yourself hidden is often ideal.
• Aragami
• Around the Clock at Bikini Bottom
• The Art of Theft
• Assassin's Creed series:
  • Assassin's Creed
  • Assassin's Creed II
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
  • Assassin's Creed: Revelations
  • Assassin's Creed III
    • Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
    • Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry
  • Assassin's Creed Rogue
  • Assassin's Creed: Unity
  • Assassin's Creed Syndicate
  • Assassin's Creed: Chronicles
  • Assassin's Creed Origins
  • Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
  • Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
• Basingstoke: A mix of stealth and Survival Horror.
• Batman: Arkham Series - Though instead of normal stealth, it's more of a Rocket-Tag Gameplay spin on stealth the developers call 'Predator'. If the enemies get the drop on you, it's bad news for you, but if you get the drop on them, it's bad news for them.
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum
  • Batman: Arkham City
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
    • Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate
  • Batman: Arkham Knight
• BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2 - In this DLC, you play as Elizabeth, who takes hits harder than Booker, and ammo and health are very scarce, leading to an increased emphasis on stealth.
• Boiling Point: Road to Hell is one of the first open-world first person shooters (predating Far Cry 2 by a few years), but the scarcity/expense of resources and quickness in which you die both heavily encourage stealth, especially in the early parts of the game.
• The Blackout Club - A cooperative multiplayer survival horror game that is centered around sneaking around to do missions.
• Bonanza Bros. - a mix of Stealth and Run & Gun Side-Scrolling Shooter elements.
• Bramble: The Mountain King
• Budget Cuts - One of the first virtual reality stealth games, if not the first notable one.
• Burgle Bros. is a map exploration game where the players are members of a team trying to pull off a heist without getting caught. Together, they must explore the building (represented by a grid of initially face-down tiles for each floor), find and crack all the safes, and escape to the roof.
• The Burgle Cats
• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth doesn't give you any weapons for about the first 1/3rd of the game, mandating stealth against your pursuers. Even after acquiring firearms, scarce health and ammo heavily encourage a stealthy playstyle.
• Castle Wolfenstein - one of the first.
• Chameleon
• The Church in the Darkness
• City Shrouded in Shadow
• The Classroom Trilogy, Flash games where the objective is to cheat on tests without getting caught.
• The Clue!
• Cold War
• Cold Waters: You play as a US Submarine in either 1964 or 1986 and your job is to sink as many Soviet ships and submarines as possible. If they detect you, expect numerous inbound torpedoes in short order.
• Commandos: A game series where in each game a group of soldiers are controlled from an aerial view. Each soldier is extremely fragile, and the maps are filled to the brim with enemies, making clever use of each soldier's special abilities to avoid detection central to the gameplay. Most stealth is in the form of line-of-sight breaking.
• Conflict Series: The games have the option for players to sneak up on enemies and take them out while they're not detected.
  • Conflict: Desert Storm
  • Conflict Desert Storm II: Back To Baghdad
• CounterSpy: Though fighting your enemies head on is an option, the game discourages this unless the room is full of enemies. Being seen will simply raise the overarching DEFCON, which will lead to a Timed Mission, which will lead to a Game Over.
• Courage's Curse
• Covert Action: Drawing attention to yourself (e.g. visiting lounges for hints within the city) will cause hitmen to chase after you on the road or an ambush, although this will give a location of one of the safehouses. In a building, getting spotted will raise the alarm and cause guards to converge on your location although you can mitigate it by getting a disguise.
• Crysis, a hybrid of this and First-Person Shooter.
• Dark: A vampire stealth game.
• Dave.EXE
• Death to Spies: A World War II game where you need to infiltrate enemy locations to complete tasks. Stealth is handled by wearing enemy uniforms, and trying to complete objectives. The stealth portion is difficult as there's bound to be at least one person specifically watching over the only route to the objective, who is likewise being watched. The ideal rank is based on factors concerning combat (using non-noisy weapons), aggression (kill as few as possible), noise (minimize alarms or spread of information), professionalism (using non-cold weapons, or mis-using hot-weapons depending on uniform), and precision (accuracy; only a factor for professionalism).
• Data Jack is about playing as a cyberpunk hacker, combat is discouraged by healing costing money and dangerous foes.
• Deceit: A game where two Infected players have to drink blood without being spotted by the other 4 players who are the Innocent players, as well as potentially sabotage objectives by the innocents that would allows them to acquire useful gear. The innocent players do not know who is infected, hence why the Infected stealthily accomplishing their objectives is paramount lest the infected being voted out. Also, during the night, Infected can transform, thought it is recommended to only do so while out of the line of sight of other players to avoid being identified by your soon to be victim who could communicate their identity before they kill him.
• Deceive Inc.
• Desperados: A Wild West clone of Commandos; the player views the game from above, and must carefully navigate a group of outlaws, each with their own special abilities, through hostile territory without drawing too much notice.
  • Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
  • Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge
  • Desperados III
• Desperate Escape
• Deus Ex franchise: Every game in the franchise can be played as a full-out stealth game, as a shooter, or a hybrid. The games encourage at least some stealth, however. The games in this franchise include:
  • Deus Ex
  • Deus Ex: Invisible War
  • Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
  • 2027: All but a necessity, due to the high weapon damage of the game.
  • The Nameless Mod
• Devillish Series a Flash game series where the objective is controlling the titular character and doing various mischiefs without getting caught.
• Dishonored: A first-person series that allows the player to sneak or fight in close combat, and which provides many viable options for close combat, but which heavily encourages sneaking through the game's Karma Meter. Heavily inspired by Deus Ex, in that exploration is possible and multiple paths are usually available through a level. Sneaking is done by breaking line-of-sight and staying in shadows.
  • Dishonored
  • Dishonored 2
  • Dishonored: Death of the Outsider
• Disney's Hide & Sneak
• Dynamite Jack
• ECHO
• ENIGMA: An Illusion Named Family: Yoo Minhyuk must constantly hide from the killer stalking around his family's mansion.
• Entry Point (Roblox): There are benefits for playing stealthy, and there also exists a gamepass that includes 3 missions that must be cleared in stealth.
• Far Cry, a hybrid of this and First-Person Shooter. More so than its Spiritual Successor, Crysis, due to the scarcity of health and armor and absence of Regenerating Health.
• Fear Effect doesn't force you to be stealthy, but it will almost certainly be preferable to attempting to use the control system in a real firefight. There are also a handful of missions where guns are not an option, and the emphasis is timing your movements to evade detection.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach: In contrast to other installments in the franchise, Security Breach is free-roam with many of the mechanics centered around moving around the Pizzaplex without drawing attention to yourself, such as hiding inside a friendly animatronic, using various ways of stunning and distracting enemies, and using the series' trademark cameras, this time accessible on a Gadget Watch, to plan out a path in advance.
• Geneticognito
• Get Even (2017): Partly crosses with Psychological Thriller and First-Person Shooter. Combat is viable but heavily negatively affects your Karma Meter.
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Gloomwood
• GoldenEye (1997) and GoldenEye (2010) (have elements of it)
• Gorky Zero
• Gunpoint: A future-noir themed 2D puzzle-platform game involving rewiring buildings and evading guards.
• Headhunter: An action adventure game that takes many cues from Metal Gear Solid. While your characters can defend themselves if they're caught by enemies, it's more preferable to kill them undetected. Some of the first game's L.E.I.L.A. tests require you to reach the end of the level without being seen.
• Hello Neighbor: A stealth horror game where you avoid your neighbor while trying to get inside his basement.
  • Hello Neighbor: Hide & Seek
• The Hidden: Source, a Half Life multiplayer mod.
• El Hijo - A Wild West Tale
• Hitman: Here the emphasis is strictly on the use of disguises and not appearing suspicious; as noted in the description, you're generally operating in a crowded area until you reach your target. Entries in the franchise include:
  • Hitman: Codename 47
  • Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
  • Hitman: Contracts
  • Hitman: Blood Money
  • Hitman: Absolution
• World of Assassination Trilogy:
  • Hitman (2016)
  • Hitman 2
  • Hitman 3
• Invisible, Inc.: You can take out guards by killing them or knocking them unconscious, depending on your equipment, but it's usually better to avoid it unless necessary. Guards are fitted with heartrate monitors that increase the security level if they die, and KO'd guards will wake up in a few turns and start searching for you.
• It Steals is a horror game where you are pursued around a maze by several different Eldritch Abominations. Stealth is essential to keep the monsters from detecting you, as you can only drive them off a limited number of times. Some are also faster than you are, so you aren't even able to run away.
• Judgment
  • Lost Judgment
• K Hawk Survival Instinct
• The Last of Us
• Legacy of Kain has occasional elements (in Soul Reaver and its sequel, you can get a one-hit kill if you catch an enemy unawares), but it's most prominent in Blood Omen 2, which lets Kain turn invisible when he's in mist, and has a whole stealth kill system associated with it.
• In Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares II, you play as small children in a giant-scaled world with (almost) no way of fighting back against the game's many monstrous enemies. Consequently, much of the games are spent observing their patterns and powers and hiding from them or running to places where you can hide.
• Lucius
• Lugaru
• Lupin III: Released by Taito for arcades in 1980, this was one of the first stealth games. Lupin III was inspired by Manbiki Shounen and in turn went on to influence Metal Gear.
  • Lupin III: A tabletop game, from the perspective of the thief players.
• Manbiki Shounen: Released in 1979, Manbiki Shounen (Shoplifting Boy) was the Ur-Example of the genre.
  • Manbiki Shoujo: Released in 1980, Manbiki Shoujo (Shoplifting Girl) was the sequel to Manbiki Shounen.
• Manhunt: Controversial series by Rockstar that implements a score system that gives more points the bloodier and gorier the method you kill enemies as they are hunting you down. The first game has a kidnapped death row inmate promised freedom in exchange for playing the lead role in a snuff film director's latest movie; the second is about a pair of insane asylum escapees trying to recover their memories of a secret mind control project and their roles in it.
• Quantum Replica is this combined with Adventure and Shooter elements.
• The Mark of Kri and Rise of the Kasai are a mix of this and Hack and Slash. The games don't force you to be stealthy, and you're tough enough to fight your way through, but stealth is usually the preferred choice and generally makes things easier.
• The Mark, an espionage-themed FPS.
• Mark of the Ninja: A 2D platformer where the player character is a ninja. Stealth comes from breaking line-of-sight, staying in shadows and making as little noise as possible.
• Merry Gear Solid: A series of games parodying the Metal Gear game series.
• Messiah: Action-Adventure where the player character, a small cherub, possesses various people to blend in. The stealth mechanics primarily rely on the player hiding in plain sight, as a result, although on higher difficulties, targets can only be possessed when their backs are turned, necessitating line-of-sight breaking as well.
• Metal Gear: The Trope Maker, Trope Codifier and Genre Popularizer of the genre. Created by Hideo Kojima, who is considered the father of the genre.
  • Metal Gear: The Trope Maker. This game set the template for the stealth-action genre, and was the first popular stealth game, the first to sell over a million units.
  • Snake's Revenge: A non-canon sequel to the first game
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake
  • Metal Gear Solid: The Trope Codifier. It was the first 3D stealth game, having debuted at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show and E3 1997, before eventually releasing in 1998.
  • Metal Gear: Ghost Babel: Non-canon
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
  • Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
  • Metal Gear Solid V
    • Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
    • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
• Miasmata
• Missleman Spy Strike 2, where half the levels are stealth based.
• Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, a class-based Stealth-Based Game.
• Mr. Hopp's Playhouse
  • Mr. Hopp's Playhouse 1: Ruby must be quiet and avoid stepping on any toys in order to evade Mr. Hopp who's coming after her.
  • Mr. Hopp's Playhouse 2: Serving as Prequel to the first game, Esther must evade the Three Curses who's taking over the orphanage where she lives and occasionally patrolling matrons by hiding and being quiet.
• Neighbours From Hell, in a manner of speaking
• Not the Robots, where you play a robot that hides from other robots in an office complex.
• Nothing to Hide is an inversion, an "anti-stealth" game in which the protagonist must remain in sight of the cameras at all times on pain of receiving a fatal dose of tranquilizer darts.
• Obusite
• Octodad
• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus
• Of Guards And Thieves
• Of Orcs and Men: Styx's main gameplay style. The sections when you control him by himself are pretty much a straight stealth game.
  • Styx: Master of Shadows on the otherhand goes for full stealth-based gameplay.
  • Styx: Shards of Darkness
• Operation Flashpoint, some of the time. Regular infantry assaults are usually preceded by stealthy crawling and maneuvering towards the target.
  • ARMA as well.
• Outlast has no combat mechanics, and the player's only options are to run or hide.
• Party Hard
• Penumbra
• Perfect Dark, in many levels
• Persona 5 adds new sneaking and cover mechanics to the series as part of its focus on thieves.
• Phantom Doctrine: Turn based spy game, basically XCOM with Hitman style infiltration.
• A Plague Tale: Innocence
  • A Plague Tale: Requiem
• The Precursors
• Prince of Persia, specifically, The Two Thrones; others are straight Cinematic Platformers
• Project I.G.I. is an espionage game in which ammo and health are limited, but also mixes in action segments were stealth isn't a factor.
• Qasir al-Wasat
• The Quest for Glory series:
  • Quest for Glory I (1989 as Hero's Quest; 1990 re-release with new name)
  • Quest for Glory II (1990)
  • Quest for Glory III (1992)
  • Quest for Glory IV (1993)
  • Quest for Glory V (1998)
  • Hero-U (2013) (Set in the same setting but not a direct sequel)
• Red Ninja: End of Honor
• République
• Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood (another stealth RTS in the vein of Commandos)
• Rogue Ops
• Roombo: First Blood
• Saint Hazels Horsepital has you play as a horse trying to evade doctors, with absurd comedy elements.
• Second Sight
• Serial Cleaner
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: A stealth-strategy game set in a fantasy version of The Golden Age of Piracy.
• Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun: A stealth-strategy Spiritual Successor to the Commandos games set in Edo period Japan.
• Shadwen
• Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf
• Shinobido: Way of the Ninja
• Signal Ops
• Siren 1
  • Siren 2
  • Siren: Blood Curse
• Sly Cooper series
  • Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
  • Sly 2: Band of Thieves
  • Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
  • Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time
• The Sniper Elite series - Get to a vantage point(s), do a specific objective to cripple the Nazi's and/or eliminate the target(s), defend your position, and get the hell out of dodge. Unlike many of the games in the stealth genre, there was no way to take out enemies non-lethally, merely incapacitate them, until the fifth entry on this list... though there isn't much point since you're in a war zone.
  • Sniper Elite
  • Sniper Elite V2
  • Sniper Elite III
  • Sniper Elite 4
  • Sniper Elite 5
• Sniper: Ghost Warrior, similar to the above Sniper Elite.
  • Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2
  • Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3
  • Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts
  • Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2
• Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley
• Solarix
• Splinter Cell
  • Splinter Cell
  • Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
  • Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  • Splinter Cell: Double Agent
  • Splinter Cell: Conviction
  • Splinter Cell: Blacklist
• Spy Chameleon RGB Agent - Use the colors of the Xbox controller (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue) to clear each room and steal whatever the mission requires.
• Spy Fiction (2003)
• Stealth Bastard
• Stolen
• Strange Terror From Beyond The Stars!
• Strange Terror From The Deep
• The Swindle
• Syphon Filter
• System Shock
• Tenchu: The first 3D stealth game to be released, as it was released a few months before Metal Gear Solid and Thief. It's notable for its more accurate depiction of a true ninja and for popularizing the stealth kill.
• Terminal 7: Source mod based on a Vinesauce skit (starting around 3:35).
• Thief: This game was the earliest first-person stealth game, releasing just months after Metal Gear Solid. This game really requires stealth over combat, more so than Metal Gear Solid.
  • Thief: The Dark Project
  • Thief II: The Metal Age
  • Thief: Deadly Shadows
  • Thief (2014)
• Thief Simulator: The players as a thief must avoid police and residents.
• This War of Mine
• Timelie: A puzzle-based stealth game, where the player must manipulate the timeline to slip past the guard robots.
• Tiny Heist: A stealth roguelike made by Terry Cavanagh.
• Tomb Raider (2013)
  • Rise of the Tomb Raider
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Trouble in Terrorist Town: A gamemode for the popular game Garry's Mod, this game has you thrown into a mix of Counter-Strike and Clue, where one-fourth of the players have to dispose of the non-traitors. The "Innocent"'s don't know who is friend, and who is foe.
• UnMetal
• Untitled Goose Game, which has been described by several reviewers as Hitman with waterfowl.
• Velvet Assassin
• The Very Organized Thief (stealth, 2013)
• Volume
• Wails For Freedom: A stealth horror game where the player needs to avoid ghosts while trying to escape.
• Watch_Dogs is a combination of this and Third-Person Shooter.
  • Watch_Dogs 2 follows up the style of its predecessor.
  • Watch Dogs: Legion continues like the previous entries.
• Werthit
• We Happy Few
• Witchkin
• Yandere School
• Yandere Simulator

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