The Oddworld games deserve every ounce of praise they get. I was glad to see them being preserved in remakes by Just Add Water, and their influence on 2D Stealth was greater than critics tend to give them credit for.
I was always impressed, also, with the video of the blind player who was able to finish Abe's Odyssee because of how good its sound design was. I don't think a lot of games have had that since.
@@will_wmgc That does sound amazing. Reminds me of a comment on another stealth game video, where they said that Thief's sound design allows the player to hear through doorways. Sounds really interesting, and makes me wonder if there isn't more gameplay opportunities for sound design. Maybe the player could reduce their vision for increased hearing ability. I also saw a video, I think by Generals Gentlemen how certain units in Company of Heroes 2 have different engine noises that can identify them through the fog of war. Though I think the latter channel is too focused on competitive players, they have interesting ideas about rts games.
I really appreciate your channel so much! It's nice to see someone take some time on a genre that is well loved and try to classify it. As well as give your own analysis on how game developers can advance it further with the approach of mechanics and aesthetic.
this day CANNOT get any better i befriended a kid for a video request he'll make for me. BlackNerdComedy immortalized my comment on his latest video. and i spent my entire evening helping a streamer play twilight princess with a priceless ending!! and now...........like its my fucking birthday.... the most aspiring stealth youtuber is uploading my favorite part of his stupendous series!!! *am i awake?* or is it the hype blinding me?!
i know this is coming out of the blue left field. but will you include Batman Begins The Game? that was my very first stealth game experience, and it paved my interest for Metal Gear,Hitman and so on sure it has combat..........but theres alot of opportunities to start mandatory conflicts WITH stealth, or bait chase and take out one after the other alert guard,ending a mandatory battle without taking damage, thats a nifty trick too, but basically if anyone's got a gun, youre made of paper. AND IT ACTUALLY WAS THE FIRST BATMAN GAME WITH STEALTH,GOON FEAR PRESSURE METERS AND COOL GLIDING BEFORE ARKHAM ASYLUM so it is indisputable
As a general rule of this channel, as long as a game contains systemic stealth-based gameplay and a 'stealth narrative', it's worth analysing. I'm always on the lookout for candidates, so thank you for bringing Batman Begins to my attention!
Fuckin' Brilliant video! You've covered one of my favorite, as well as a very overlooked topic in gaming history. > I've yet to play MG2, but I've played *Metal Gear Ghost Babel* on GameBoy Color, and it's simply amazing. (Wish you would've touched upon that) > I think it's time for me to give Abe's Odyssey a a go. It's been on my Steam Library for too long. > Ah! *Commandos*. How much I love you. The OG save-scumming, the video game. Played so much of the original, and Beyond Call of Duty in my childhood. I did play 2, and some parts of 3 later on, and they were still very good too (yes I liked 3 too, though it's my least favorite). Really hoping, you'd talk about *Shadow Tactics* in your part 3.
Thank you! I'm going to cover Ghost Babel in the next video, as it almost completely owes its existence to the popularity of Metal Gear Solid. Shadow Tactics and other recent 2D Stealth games will likely get their own dedicated videos, as this 3-part episode is focused on how 2D Stealth gradually found its audience as a sub-genre. Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks again for watching!
How about The Great Escape (1986) for another early one? I'd say AO built off of Flashback there, which has a minor stealth element in that you could distract enemies with thrown objects. But the comparison is interesting.
Interesting! I'll check that out, maybe include it in a future video for the Proto-Stealth decade :) Definitely, AO was evocative of Flashback as well as the early Prince of Persia
While it is interesting to learn about old stealth games, I feel that Commandoes is so different from rts games it deserves its own genre; real time tactics. Games where the player controls multiple characters, but does not build more and doesn't have a base or economy to manage while fighting. Instead they generally have much more involved statistics for units, such as ammo or morale, or, from what I've heard of Commandoes, disguising and staying out of sight. There's some overlap between the genres, such as Dawn of War 2, where the player has one build queue throughout the game, or Praetorians, also by Pyro, but so much of games like StarCraft or Age of Empires is based on the economy and production, I'd argue getting rid of it is a pretty big change. As you said there are no strongholds you can build, or massive army to command. Have you seen Game Maker's Toolkit's latest video on enemy detection in stealth games? It might be old hat for you, but it brings up some interesting ways to change the mechanics. Also several comments noted that conventional stealth games have pretty thick guards. They find a dead body of one of their comrades, with stab wounds no less, and after about ten minutes of searching under every barrel, box and bench decide that the killer must've fled the scene and go back to business as usual. Commandos sounds very different, with permanent alert, not to mention reinforcements coming in. On one hand it may be more realistic, on the other I have to say it doesn't sound like the most fun gameplay, at least for less skilled players. Have you heard anything about Odd World's worldbuilding? I remember once hearing that one of the games has a sapient carnivore species with no manipulators, so they intimidate dexterous species into making things for them. Sound interesting.
It's tempting to put Commandos 1, 2 and 3 in their own subgenre, for sure, along with Desperadoes, Shadow Tactics and (soon) Partisans, and maybe a few others like Phantom Doctrine or Invisible Inc. My next video will look at this idea, but for now I'll say my definition of Stealth Genre Games is more generous than most and I've covered this in other pieces before. I haven't seen GMTK's latest video yet. He's got some good stuff on Stealth; probably more helpful to devs than my opinion pieces, definitely better produced! I always find it interesting to read or hear people talk about 'realism' in enemy A.I. What I think they're really after is immersion. If players can buy into the idea that they're in command of an elite squad of operatives, who have to work together to overcome a Nazi garrison, it's fair to say the developer succeeded at something, right? Same goes for being trapped in a space refinery with a xenomorph. Or infiltrating a bank vault without setting off security. When we play stealth games we're engaging with layered systems, some of which are more nuanced than others, but that narrative thread of being someone who's doing something in a place they shouldn't be is a powerful piece of the experience. So much so, we can forget how dumb/unforgiving the A.I. is. And the oddly convenient level designs...
@@StealthDocs I think my reason for seperating real time strategy and real time tactics comes from back when MOBAs were a new thing and many of their fans were claiming they were the future of the rts genre. Mainly because they started as a mod to an rts and have a top down view. Thing is they seem to lack the majority of features people associate with an rts, you don't build a base or even any units, instead you have one character with several abilities and that's it. One might argue that there is an economy in gold gained from neutral creeps and exp which is "spent" to get new abilities. Thing is, such a definition would mean such games as Diablo or Path of Exile are rts as well; they have a top down perspective and the player gains money and exp from killing enemies. By the above definition they'd be rts games, even though they lack a majority of the mechanics we associate with the genre. You can't "rush" in Diablo because killing enemies and getting resources are joined at the hip; every enemy killed gets you some loot. And MOBAs seem to share a whole lot more with games like Diablo than Age of Empires; the majority of players are represented by a single character and so can't spread their forces and are as effective with one hp as 100. Since damaging the enemy automatically gives economic rewards there is little to any choice between economy and damage dealing. In short DotA changed WarCraft 3 from an rts to an action rpg. Similarly, Commandos has no in mission economy for the player to manage, nor unit creation. You start out with x troops and that's it. If my time playing Total War has taught me something, it's that this is a huge shift. Because the player can't build units you have to be much more efficient with what units you do have. You can't use economic power to make up for bad tactics. I think, while these genres are certainly related, the lack of an economy while fighting makes rtt separate.
Agreed! I'd only add that many modern video games - including those I'd call Stealth Games - don't exclusively 'belong' to a single genre. A lot of the time they'll contain elements and expressions from a range of genres, but consistently express themselves in a certain way that makes us think, "Aha, you're *this* kind of game." It's all very subjective, though. We can draw a couple of parameters to define a 'genre', if we like, but how well a game might fit into those parameters will depend on how they connected with the player in that specific way.
@@StealthDocs I would say there is a moderate level of subjectiveness. There are games that have similar mechanics and thematic elements, which we can classify as a discreet genre. For example, Splinter Cell and Thief both encourage the player to stay out of sight and deny information to the enemy AI. Then there are games such as Doom 2016 or gears of war, where the vast majority of options a player has involve making their presence know to the enemy, generally via bullets to the face. The former two games have a lot more similarities to each other than either has to the latter two, just as the latter two are markedly similar to each other. While there are games that are pretty near equidistant between the shooter and stealth categories (such as Dishonored) that doesn't mean said categories are indistinguishable. Just because you can mix dirt and water to make mud does not mean humans can survive on an earthworm diet. Just because Modern Warfare 2 has the occassional fixed turret the player can set up does not turn it into a tower defense game. I think part of my reasoning is from my background in rts games and how many people shove MOBAs in that slot as though camera angle and where a genre came from matter more then foundational game mechanics.
Well made video. I've been waiting for your videos for a while now. Perhaps you can include the AC Chronicles series in your 2D stealth games. I find it as a more stealth focused series than the main Assassin's Creed series. Also I just like to ask. When playing stealth games, do you restart a level or a previous load upon alerting an enemy? I'm asking because I feel divided in this subject. I want to not reload and just go with it but I feel uncomfortable when I alert enemies thus compelling me to reload.
I'm considering the AC Chronicles series for an appearance, that's for sure. That's an interesting topic you've raised, possibly worthy of its own video, because it comes down to principles of game design. When developers have included a save-game mechanism to help players 'cope' with failure and retry challenges, it's what I'd consider to be a sensible design choice. Imagine having to repeat your progress through an ENTIRE mission, all because you messed something up. Not having the option to save progress in this regard would be ridiculous, since it's always possible to ignore this option and set your own rules to create a more 'hardcore' experience. I also suspect there's a narrative component at work with what you (and many of us) feel when we get detected. Our characters are set up as these ultimate sneaky badasses, then we cock up the gameplay and they look like amateurs. That 'feels' wrong in a narrative sense, doesn't it? The Assassins Creed series even goes so far as to add a fail state where the game says 'your character didn't mess this up, try again': the ever-popular "de-synchronisation". Hmm. Now I'll have to do a video on this. Thanks for adding to my workload! In the meantime, if you want a game that makes you live with the consequences of failure in a meaningful, but not-too-punitive way, I'd suggest trying The Swindle if you haven't already. It's got a rough learning curve, but a damned solid experience.
+Stealth Docs +Stealth Docs I see. I guess it is true that the uncomfortable feeling when alerting enemies roots to the game's narrative. Thanks for the input, very informative. I'll be looking forward to the video regarding this topic. Also, The Swindle is on my wishlist, I'll grab it as soon as it goes on sale.
The TH-camr Razzy produced a video on save states in highly systemic games (such as Prey 2017 or Dishonored) tht goes over the same question. Is it better to have a player live with the consequences of a bad choice and improvise or should they reload. Here it is th-cam.com/video/YqW9X3AIoeA/w-d-xo.html
Interesting point, but I doubt many of the nuances would survive the transition, especially when it came to the boss fights and moving through 'tiers' of the game environment. Is there a mod that lets players tackle Metal Gear Solid as a '2D' game? Perhaps from a top-down perspective? I'd be interested to see how well it held up under those conditions. I'd argue that, by opening up the game space into three dimensions and perceiving it as an object or series of objects in three dimensions (rather than as a flat space which happens to have 3D objects in it), the player's actions of moving through that space and engaging with its components become 3D actions by necessity.
I never played the game, so I cannot fully judge, just keep in mind that polygons do not lead to 3D gameplay and there are sprite games with 3D dimensions of gameplay, like many top-down adventures and especially isometric platformers. Wonder if there is an isometric stealth game. I also wanted to recommend Konami's Grinch on the GBC to you, as it is a 2D stealth game. www.hardcoregaming101.net/grinch/grinch.htm
Oh, I've definitely noted the difference between 2D and 3D gameplay, irrespective of the graphics being used. There are indeed isometric stealth games; one of them is featured in this video. :)
A common criticism of MGS is that thanks to top down view, simplified level design and vision cones it can be played just by looking at the radar, making it almost a 2D game.
![2D Stealth [Part 2] | Stealth Game History](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XpemMQjPfcI/mqdefault.jpg)
![2D Stealth [Part 2] | Stealth Game History](/img/tr.png)
![2D Stealth [Part 3] | Stealth Game History](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BiMFujXGEuk/mqdefault.jpg)
It's brilliant to see Oddworld get some recognition here. It was one of the first games I ever played and probably why I enjoy stealth so much now!
The Oddworld games deserve every ounce of praise they get. I was glad to see them being preserved in remakes by Just Add Water, and their influence on 2D Stealth was greater than critics tend to give them credit for.
I was always impressed, also, with the video of the blind player who was able to finish Abe's Odyssee because of how good its sound design was. I don't think a lot of games have had that since.
@@will_wmgc
That does sound amazing. Reminds me of a comment on another stealth game video, where they said that Thief's sound design allows the player to hear through doorways. Sounds really interesting, and makes me wonder if there isn't more gameplay opportunities for sound design. Maybe the player could reduce their vision for increased hearing ability. I also saw a video, I think by Generals Gentlemen how certain units in Company of Heroes 2 have different engine noises that can identify them through the fog of war. Though I think the latter channel is too focused on competitive players, they have interesting ideas about rts games.
@@adams13245 sound is definitely underutilized in games imo, which is why it's such a big deal when a game does it right!
I really appreciate your channel so much! It's nice to see someone take some time on a genre that is well loved and try to classify it. As well as give your own analysis on how game developers can advance it further with the approach of mechanics and aesthetic.
Thank you! I've been a bit quiet lately, but will return to video making as soon as I can. IRL stuff, you know? :)
this day CANNOT get any better
i befriended a kid for a video request he'll make for me.
BlackNerdComedy immortalized my comment on his latest video.
and i spent my entire evening helping a streamer play twilight princess with a priceless ending!!
and now...........like its my fucking birthday....
the most aspiring stealth youtuber is uploading my favorite part of his stupendous series!!!
*am i awake?*
or is it the hype blinding me?!
The hype is real! I hope it's not blinding, though. Might make it difficult to watch this.
Great research work, thank you! Watching the next episodes right now.
i know this is coming out of the blue left field.
but will you include Batman Begins The Game?
that was my very first stealth game experience, and it paved my interest for Metal Gear,Hitman and so on
sure it has combat..........but theres alot of opportunities to start mandatory conflicts WITH stealth, or bait chase and take out one after the other alert guard,ending a mandatory battle without taking damage, thats a nifty trick too, but basically if anyone's got a gun, youre made of paper.
AND IT ACTUALLY WAS THE FIRST BATMAN GAME WITH STEALTH,GOON FEAR PRESSURE METERS AND COOL GLIDING BEFORE ARKHAM ASYLUM so it is indisputable
As a general rule of this channel, as long as a game contains systemic stealth-based gameplay and a 'stealth narrative', it's worth analysing. I'm always on the lookout for candidates, so thank you for bringing Batman Begins to my attention!
thank you so much! you wont be disappointed with my inclusion/suggestion
Great video!
Fuckin' Brilliant video! You've covered one of my favorite, as well as a very overlooked topic in gaming history.
> I've yet to play MG2, but I've played *Metal Gear Ghost Babel* on GameBoy Color, and it's simply amazing. (Wish you would've touched upon that)
> I think it's time for me to give Abe's Odyssey a a go. It's been on my Steam Library for too long.
> Ah! *Commandos*. How much I love you. The OG save-scumming, the video game. Played so much of the original, and Beyond Call of Duty in my childhood. I did play 2, and some parts of 3 later on, and they were still very good too (yes I liked 3 too, though it's my least favorite).
Really hoping, you'd talk about *Shadow Tactics* in your part 3.
Thank you! I'm going to cover Ghost Babel in the next video, as it almost completely owes its existence to the popularity of Metal Gear Solid.
Shadow Tactics and other recent 2D Stealth games will likely get their own dedicated videos, as this 3-part episode is focused on how 2D Stealth gradually found its audience as a sub-genre.
Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks again for watching!
How about The Great Escape (1986) for another early one?
I'd say AO built off of Flashback there, which has a minor stealth element in that you could distract enemies with thrown objects. But the comparison is interesting.
Interesting! I'll check that out, maybe include it in a future video for the Proto-Stealth decade :)
Definitely, AO was evocative of Flashback as well as the early Prince of Persia
While it is interesting to learn about old stealth games, I feel that Commandoes is so different from rts games it deserves its own genre; real time tactics. Games where the player controls multiple characters, but does not build more and doesn't have a base or economy to manage while fighting. Instead they generally have much more involved statistics for units, such as ammo or morale, or, from what I've heard of Commandoes, disguising and staying out of sight. There's some overlap between the genres, such as Dawn of War 2, where the player has one build queue throughout the game, or Praetorians, also by Pyro, but so much of games like StarCraft or Age of Empires is based on the economy and production, I'd argue getting rid of it is a pretty big change. As you said there are no strongholds you can build, or massive army to command.
Have you seen Game Maker's Toolkit's latest video on enemy detection in stealth games? It might be old hat for you, but it brings up some interesting ways to change the mechanics. Also several comments noted that conventional stealth games have pretty thick guards. They find a dead body of one of their comrades, with stab wounds no less, and after about ten minutes of searching under every barrel, box and bench decide that the killer must've fled the scene and go back to business as usual. Commandos sounds very different, with permanent alert, not to mention reinforcements coming in. On one hand it may be more realistic, on the other I have to say it doesn't sound like the most fun gameplay, at least for less skilled players.
Have you heard anything about Odd World's worldbuilding? I remember once hearing that one of the games has a sapient carnivore species with no manipulators, so they intimidate dexterous species into making things for them. Sound interesting.
It's tempting to put Commandos 1, 2 and 3 in their own subgenre, for sure, along with Desperadoes, Shadow Tactics and (soon) Partisans, and maybe a few others like Phantom Doctrine or Invisible Inc. My next video will look at this idea, but for now I'll say my definition of Stealth Genre Games is more generous than most and I've covered this in other pieces before.
I haven't seen GMTK's latest video yet. He's got some good stuff on Stealth; probably more helpful to devs than my opinion pieces, definitely better produced!
I always find it interesting to read or hear people talk about 'realism' in enemy A.I. What I think they're really after is immersion. If players can buy into the idea that they're in command of an elite squad of operatives, who have to work together to overcome a Nazi garrison, it's fair to say the developer succeeded at something, right? Same goes for being trapped in a space refinery with a xenomorph. Or infiltrating a bank vault without setting off security.
When we play stealth games we're engaging with layered systems, some of which are more nuanced than others, but that narrative thread of being someone who's doing something in a place they shouldn't be is a powerful piece of the experience. So much so, we can forget how dumb/unforgiving the A.I. is. And the oddly convenient level designs...
@@StealthDocs
I think my reason for seperating real time strategy and real time tactics comes from back when MOBAs were a new thing and many of their fans were claiming they were the future of the rts genre. Mainly because they started as a mod to an rts and have a top down view. Thing is they seem to lack the majority of features people associate with an rts, you don't build a base or even any units, instead you have one character with several abilities and that's it. One might argue that there is an economy in gold gained from neutral creeps and exp which is "spent" to get new abilities. Thing is, such a definition would mean such games as Diablo or Path of Exile are rts as well; they have a top down perspective and the player gains money and exp from killing enemies. By the above definition they'd be rts games, even though they lack a majority of the mechanics we associate with the genre. You can't "rush" in Diablo because killing enemies and getting resources are joined at the hip; every enemy killed gets you some loot. And MOBAs seem to share a whole lot more with games like Diablo than Age of Empires; the majority of players are represented by a single character and so can't spread their forces and are as effective with one hp as 100. Since damaging the enemy automatically gives economic rewards there is little to any choice between economy and damage dealing. In short DotA changed WarCraft 3 from an rts to an action rpg.
Similarly, Commandos has no in mission economy for the player to manage, nor unit creation. You start out with x troops and that's it. If my time playing Total War has taught me something, it's that this is a huge shift. Because the player can't build units you have to be much more efficient with what units you do have. You can't use economic power to make up for bad tactics. I think, while these genres are certainly related, the lack of an economy while fighting makes rtt separate.
Agreed! I'd only add that many modern video games - including those I'd call Stealth Games - don't exclusively 'belong' to a single genre. A lot of the time they'll contain elements and expressions from a range of genres, but consistently express themselves in a certain way that makes us think, "Aha, you're *this* kind of game."
It's all very subjective, though. We can draw a couple of parameters to define a 'genre', if we like, but how well a game might fit into those parameters will depend on how they connected with the player in that specific way.
@@StealthDocs
I would say there is a moderate level of subjectiveness. There are games that have similar mechanics and thematic elements, which we can classify as a discreet genre. For example, Splinter Cell and Thief both encourage the player to stay out of sight and deny information to the enemy AI. Then there are games such as Doom 2016 or gears of war, where the vast majority of options a player has involve making their presence know to the enemy, generally via bullets to the face. The former two games have a lot more similarities to each other than either has to the latter two, just as the latter two are markedly similar to each other. While there are games that are pretty near equidistant between the shooter and stealth categories (such as Dishonored) that doesn't mean said categories are indistinguishable. Just because you can mix dirt and water to make mud does not mean humans can survive on an earthworm diet. Just because Modern Warfare 2 has the occassional fixed turret the player can set up does not turn it into a tower defense game. I think part of my reasoning is from my background in rts games and how many people shove MOBAs in that slot as though camera angle and where a genre came from matter more then foundational game mechanics.
12:30 oh dear, here it comes!
Well made video. I've been waiting for your videos for a while now. Perhaps you can include the AC Chronicles series in your 2D stealth games. I find it as a more stealth focused series than the main Assassin's Creed series.
Also I just like to ask. When playing stealth games, do you restart a level or a previous load upon alerting an enemy?
I'm asking because I feel divided in this subject. I want to not reload and just go with it but I feel uncomfortable when I alert enemies thus compelling me to reload.
I'm considering the AC Chronicles series for an appearance, that's for sure.
That's an interesting topic you've raised, possibly worthy of its own video, because it comes down to principles of game design. When developers have included a save-game mechanism to help players 'cope' with failure and retry challenges, it's what I'd consider to be a sensible design choice. Imagine having to repeat your progress through an ENTIRE mission, all because you messed something up. Not having the option to save progress in this regard would be ridiculous, since it's always possible to ignore this option and set your own rules to create a more 'hardcore' experience.
I also suspect there's a narrative component at work with what you (and many of us) feel when we get detected. Our characters are set up as these ultimate sneaky badasses, then we cock up the gameplay and they look like amateurs. That 'feels' wrong in a narrative sense, doesn't it?
The Assassins Creed series even goes so far as to add a fail state where the game says 'your character didn't mess this up, try again': the ever-popular "de-synchronisation".
Hmm. Now I'll have to do a video on this. Thanks for adding to my workload!
In the meantime, if you want a game that makes you live with the consequences of failure in a meaningful, but not-too-punitive way, I'd suggest trying The Swindle if you haven't already. It's got a rough learning curve, but a damned solid experience.
+Stealth Docs +Stealth Docs I see. I guess it is true that the uncomfortable feeling when alerting enemies roots to the game's narrative. Thanks for the input, very informative.
I'll be looking forward to the video regarding this topic.
Also, The Swindle is on my wishlist, I'll grab it as soon as it goes on sale.
The TH-camr Razzy produced a video on save states in highly systemic games (such as Prey 2017 or Dishonored) tht goes over the same question. Is it better to have a player live with the consequences of a bad choice and improvise or should they reload.
Here it is
th-cam.com/video/YqW9X3AIoeA/w-d-xo.html
I few idea for 2d stealth game
It's not like Metal Gear Solid is very three dimensional in its gameplay. You could jsut play it top-down. Polygons do not mean the gameplay is 3D.
Interesting point, but I doubt many of the nuances would survive the transition, especially when it came to the boss fights and moving through 'tiers' of the game environment. Is there a mod that lets players tackle Metal Gear Solid as a '2D' game? Perhaps from a top-down perspective? I'd be interested to see how well it held up under those conditions.
I'd argue that, by opening up the game space into three dimensions and perceiving it as an object or series of objects in three dimensions (rather than as a flat space which happens to have 3D objects in it), the player's actions of moving through that space and engaging with its components become 3D actions by necessity.
I never played the game, so I cannot fully judge, just keep in mind that polygons do not lead to 3D gameplay and there are sprite games with 3D dimensions of gameplay, like many top-down adventures and especially isometric platformers. Wonder if there is an isometric stealth game.
I also wanted to recommend Konami's Grinch on the GBC to you, as it is a 2D stealth game.
www.hardcoregaming101.net/grinch/grinch.htm
Oh, I've definitely noted the difference between 2D and 3D gameplay, irrespective of the graphics being used. There are indeed isometric stealth games; one of them is featured in this video. :)
A common criticism of MGS is that thanks to top down view, simplified level design and vision cones it can be played just by looking at the radar, making it almost a 2D game.