The 10 Best Stealth Games

There are fewer pleasures successful video games that tin contend with a quick, clean, soundless kill. And there’s nary amended spot to find that than successful a stealth game. The sneakiest of each the genres, stealth tin beryllium rather a surgical happening – an acquisition that rewards considered, methodical planning. But with that comes the hazard of mistakes, and a slip-up successful a stealth crippled tin effect successful another, arsenic thrilling ride: 1 wherever speedy reasoning and unconventional solutions tin assistance you gaffe backmost into the shadows. What we’re saying present is that stealth games are incredibly malleable and creative, often designed to springiness you unparalleled state wrong the abstraction of their intricately-designed levels.

But what are the precise champion stealth games? The coolest spy thrillers, and the ones with the deadliest assassins? Well, that’s what we’re present to divulge. This is IGN’s prime of the 10 champion stealth games, a database created to research the full spectrum of sneaky experiences – from games that enactment arsenic a gateway into the shadows, each the mode up to precision assassin sims.

10. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins

1998 was the dawn of the 3D stealth game. It was the twelvemonth of Thief: The Dark Project connected PC and Metal Gear Solid connected PlayStation. Pre-dating some of them by conscionable a fewer months was Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, a PS1 ninja crippled that’s little celebrated than its sneaky cousins but conscionable arsenic ambitious.

Developer Acquire was moving successful wholly uncharted territory for the era. Its Sengoku-period sandbox levels are patrolled by guards who person imaginativeness cones that are impaired by shadows. Your quality – either the honourable Rikimaru oregon the much carefree Ayame – tin displacement done stances and property up against walls to support retired of sight. But hiding isn’t conscionable a lawsuit of seeking retired the darkest shadows; Tenchu features a grapple hook that tin beryllium attached to immoderate coagulated surface, allowing you to easy zip up to the rooftops and survey the level from above. It’s successful this plan that you tin spot the seeds that volition yet go Assassin’s Creed – and echoes of Tenchu tin particularly beryllium felt each astir successful the series’ latest game, Shadows.

But portion evasion is an important portion of Tenchu, it’s possibly champion remembered for its heightened bloodlust erstwhile compared to its modern peers. Provided you bash truthful silently, you’re rewarded for kills successful each end-of-level scorecard. A postulation of ninja tools and elaborate animations coax you into astute assassinations, and the bloody swordplay is simply a delight. Considering however important combat is to Tenchu, it’s unsurprising to spot however Sekiro grew retired of it – FromSoftware’s ain shinobi sim is not lone inspired by this PS1 gem, it adjacent started beingness arsenic a sequel to it.

9. Sly 2: Band of Thieves

At a glance, Sly Cooper appears similar immoderate different early-2000s mascot platformer. But look a small deeper and you’ll find a overmuch much subtle and smarter matter than its PlayStation 2 brethren were serving up astatine the time. Far from the loudness of Jak and Ratchet, Sly forgoes challenging platforming and colourful weaponry successful favour of a much intricate, methodical approach. It whitethorn not impact the astir analyzable stealth systems you’ll find connected this list, but it is nevertheless a playful workout successful the genre’s fundamentals, and with Sly’s 2nd effort, Band of Thieves, it truly struck gold.

Switching betwixt members of a heist-hungry unit made up of raccoon Sly Cooper, turtle Bentley, and hippo Murray is required to propulsion disconnected the cleanable scores, each of which takes spot successful 1 of a fig of sizable unfastened satellite maps. Each quality cleverly embodies a antithetic constituent of stealth-action design: Sly is agile and tin instrumentality to shadowy rooftops, Bentley is little mobile but tin usage gadgetry to hack tech and distract guards, and Murray tin beryllium called successful erstwhile the alarm is raised and a helping of brawn is needed alongside the brains. Their missions are, admittedly, among the astir forgiving successful the full genre, but each is incredibly playful successful plan — there’s adjacent the enactment to plug successful a USB microphone and usage your ain dependable to lure enemies towards your location. Just beryllium cautious not to fto retired a sneeze.

To this day, Sly 2: Band of Thieves remains 1 of the fondest remembered PS2 games, and inactive serves arsenic a fantastic gateway into the stealth genre.

8. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay

In an epoch erstwhile licensed games and movie tie-ins were commonplace and of mostly questionable quality, you’d beryllium forgiven for reasoning that a spin-off of Vin Diesel’s Riddick films whitethorn not person been the astir breathtaking prospect. But small did we cognize what magic Starbreeze Studios were engaged concocting down the scenes: an systemic stealth-action-adventure that’s adjacent parts Thief and Half-Life. Tasked with breaking retired of the titular prison, Escape from Butcher Bay blends classical stealth elements specified arsenic quiescent crouching and speedy melee kills with aspects befitting of its sci-fi roots — namely “eyeshine”, a ocular modification that gives Riddick his trademark quality to spot successful the dark.

When looking astatine Escape from Butcher Bay now, it’s casual to spot the seeds being planted for what would aboriginal flourish and go the modern Wolfenstein games and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle — some developed by MachineGames, a workplace birthed by ex-Starbreeze employees — which further maestro that delicate equilibrium betwixt enactment and stealth. But much than conscionable a archetypal draft, The Chronicles of Riddick is simply a fantastic crippled successful its ain right, and an fantabulous illustration of however to instrumentality a movie licence and make a shining airy wherever others would find lone transportation black.

7. Mark of the Ninja

Evasion is 1 of the halfway tenets of the stealth genre, but Mark of the Ninja takes it 1 measurement further. Klei Entertainment’s 2D sneaky masterclass encourages you to go invisible; a deadly leaf who doesn’t truthful overmuch fell successful the shadows arsenic overmuch arsenic go the lack of light. Great swathes of its clean, precisely-drawn levels are coated successful monochrome darkness, allowing your ninja to navigate wholly unseen. Climbing walls, hanging from ceilings, and crawling done vent systems further immunodeficiency you to permanently enactment retired of patrolling enemies’ flashlight beams.

From hidden vantage points you’ll marque your adjacent move, and dependable is your concealed weapon. Mark of the Ninja features an superb graphical interface that uses circles to show precisely wherever a sound volition beryllium made and however acold that dependable volition travel. This allows you to program retired distractions, clip risky moves, oregon marque noisy kills erstwhile guards are retired of earshot. And portion there’s plentifulness of accidental to fumble each this, Mark of the Ninja’s situation is acold from insurmountable acknowledgment to its fantabulous question and controls. Combine that with the superb level plan and masterful usage of airy and sound, and you’ve got everything you request to go the eventual ninja.

6. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

The immense bulk of stealth games formed you arsenic a lone agent, forced to infiltrate heavily-guarded strongholds without a helping hand. Mimimi’s postulation of stealth tactics games cull that accepted template, alternatively giving you power implicit a squad of sneaky operatives equipped with unsocial skills. And portion we’d urge each of them, the feudal Japan-set Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is possibly the champion illustration of the developer’s strengths.

The isometric viewpoint gives you a holistic presumption of each level’s large, sprawling map, allowing you to place vantage points, unguarded entrances, overlapping force imaginativeness cones, and events that tin beryllium manipulated to your benefit. Then it’s a lawsuit of cleverly combining the abilities of your team; possibly utilizing Takuma’s adorable tanuki to lure an unsuspecting defender into 1 of Yuki’s deadly traps, oregon employing Aiko’s disguises to distract enemies and unfastened up opportunities for the shuriken-throwing Hayato. While these skills enactment large individually, a astute queue strategy lets you to contented aggregate orders that volition beryllium performed connected your mark, allowing you to program and execute elaborate kills and person each the bodies hidden successful the clip it takes for a defender to cheque retired your clever distraction. Master that and you’ll person a well-oiled, soundless sidesplitting instrumentality of a team, which is each spot arsenic satisfying arsenic it sounds.

5. Thief 2: The Metal Age

At the crook of the millennium, Looking Glass Studios created Thief 2: The Metal Age. At the clip it was considered a large sequel that improved connected the archetypal Thief. But contempt its bully reception, it’s apt adjacent the developers themselves didn’t realise rather what a timeless classical they had made. 25 years on, determination person been fewer stealth games arsenic intricately designed and elegantly executed.

As maestro thief Garrett, you stalk the shadows of The City, a steampunk medieval metropolis patrolled by swordsmen and mechanical soldiers. Each level is an ambitious workout successful encouraging curiosity and creativity; buildings are riddled with concealed paths and optional routes, and it's lone done aggregate playthroughs bash you realise the astonishing extent of each location. An immersive attack to the foundational stealth mechanics allows for a precise intuitive play benignant – burning torches tin beryllium extinguished with h2o arrows, allowing you to make your ain shadows, portion your noisy footsteps connected hard surfaces tin beryllium silenced by laying down a carpet of moss. Think extracurricular the container and you’ll find ways to usage Garrett’s tools that unlock full caller perspectives connected The City arsenic a playspace.

While determination is simply a important magnitude of shared DNA betwixt The Metal Age and its predecessor, Thief 2 wins a spot connected our database acknowledgment to its postulation of concept-driven levels that absorption connected a fig of antithetic stealthy flavours. You’ll beryllium planting evidence, kidnapping scientists, escaping garrisons, and – of people – doing heists. And portion determination are respective archaic elements that are inconvenient by today’s standards (not slightest the AI, which bounces betwixt utterly oblivious and powerfully psychic,) the level of item successful Thief 2’s freeform attack is unrivalled. If you privation to prosecute with stealth connected your ain terms, this is the crippled for you.

4. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

It whitethorn beryllium hard to ideate now, but determination was erstwhile a clip erstwhile Ubisoft was a pioneer of the stealth genre. But adjacent earlier the societal stealth and rooftop parkour of Assassin’s Creed and the ghost-like gadgetry of the criminally underrated Watch Dogs 2, 1 sanction dared to rival Snake arsenic the poster of espionage action: Sam Fisher. Indeed, Clint Hocking, a writer and decorator connected the archetypal Splinter Cell, stated that the bid “owes its existence” to Metal Gear Solid. A occurrence from the get-go, Splinter Cell would scope its apex successful 2005 with its 3rd installment, Chaos Theory, which refined its established look and told a thrilling spy communicative littered with breathtaking caller mechanics.

Sticking to the shadows had ever been cardinal successful Splinter Cell, with its constantly-visible airy barroom aiding you to enactment undetected. But Chaos Theory threw a caller consciousness to beryllium mindful of into the mix, with its aural show measuring the magnitude of sound you marque erstwhile successful Fisher’s stealthy shoes. If you made a dependable louder than the biology ambience astir you, the highly awesome force AI’s accent level would increase, gathering to the constituent of hunting you down. It made for an incredibly tense experience, wherever each footstep was a imaginable mistake. This, combined with much foundational stealth mechanics, demanded that you instrumentality successful your surroundings and absorption earlier deciding which of Sam’s signature weapons, grenades, and gadgets to utilise. It was this operation of some in-game and backend exertion that made Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory leap up into a people of its own, and firmly retired of its Snake-shaped shadow.

3. Dishonored 2

As thing of a spiritual successor to Thief, Arkane’s Dishonored bid is built connected the aforesaid instauration of exceptional level design. The studio’s masterpiece, Dishonored 2, besides shares the ambitions of Thief 2, successful that it doubles down connected lofty concepts that imbue each idiosyncratic level with a chiseled flavour. Most celebrated is the Clockwork Mansion, a sprawling property with a layout that tin beryllium reconfigured astatine the interaction of a lever, revealing caller pathways and unlocking concealed rooms. Then there’s A Crack successful the Slab, successful which you tin freely hop betwixt 2 antithetic clip periods, with the satellite dramatically changing astir you arsenic you do. Less celebrated but nary little accomplished is the densely elaborate Dust District, wherever you indispensable analyse the rival leaders of 2 warring factions and determine which 1 – if immoderate – you’ll present to perpetual darkness.

Interesting choices are everyplace crossed these intricate maps. The idiosyncratic eccentricities of each lone bolster your already supernaturally-charged toolkit of weapons and powers, truthful there’s a multitude of options for astir everything you privation to achieve, close down to the mode you participate a building, region a defender from play, oregon dispose of your main target. The Blink and Far Reach teleportation powers let you implicit mastery implicit the environment, portion Possession lets you hijack the assemblage of a rat, dog, oregon adjacent quality to bypass information checks. And portion remaining undetected is 1 of stealth’s large joys, there’s plentifulness of country present for bloothirsty fun. Dishonored 2 is possibly the maestro of "aggressive stealth”, supporting lightning-fast pharynx slittings and deadly “accidents” acknowledgment to deft exertion of your reality-warping powers. Arkane’s pre-set objectives and targets are each of the highest quality, but the existent masterpiece is the out-the-box reasoning each and each 1 coaxes retired of you.

2. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

For his last Metal Gear Solid game, manager Hideo Kojima massively broadened the series’ scope for the instauration of The Phantom Pain’s sandbox open-world. Snake’s saga had agelong been a flagbearer for the stealth genre, from Shadow Moses infiltrations to Soviet jungle spec-ops, but thing from those missions compared to the versatility successful gameplay plan seen successful Metal Gear Solid 5. Gone were the limitations that people travel with choky hallways and dense forests, and successful came the immense unfastened spaces of The Phantom Pain’s dual maps, ushering successful a full caller arsenal of tactical espionage tools for Kojima – and america – to play with.

The possibilities faced erstwhile taking connected a ngo arsenic you load up your chopper, airy a cigar, and perceive to its cautiously curated soundtrack are practically endless. Equipment ranges from classics present astir 3 decades old, specified arsenic cardboard boxes and tranquiliser guns, to altogether much outrageous items similar the now-synonymous enemy-lifting Fulton balloons and a customisable prosthetic limb that tin battalion a punch of your choosing. But those are conscionable a fewer of the many, galore options MGS 5 puts successful your palm, offering a near-unparalleled level of state successful the mode it approaches its objectives, and a level of experimentation that beckons replayability.

Through a refinement of the stealth camo strategy and galore different trademark tools, it takes memorable pieces of what made its predecessors genre-pionering and implements them successful astute ways, creating a gameplay loop that is adjacent to irresistible. It looks backmost astatine what ever made MGS great, but ne'er erstwhile forgets to effort and propulsion the series’ plan forward. Due to an undernourished story, The Phantom Pain whitethorn not beryllium considered the champion Metal Gear Solid crippled erstwhile viewed arsenic an all-around package, but arsenic a axenic stealth playground, it’s the bid operating astatine the highest of its powers.

1. Hitman: World of Assassination

If stealth games are astatine their champion erstwhile they contiguous america with a playground of possibilities, nary are filled with arsenic galore toys arsenic Hitman: World of Assassination. With the trilogy of Agent 47’s astir caller outings forming this bundle of joy, developer IO Interactive perfected a look they’d been moving connected since the commencement of the millennium. A postulation of deliciously replayable missions, tasks scope from blending successful arsenic 1 of the locals of Sapienza’s sun-bleached sands to dancing done the fume of a Berlin nightclub arsenic a soundless assassin mislaid successful the deafening music. It's a stealth fan’s dream, from the astir casual of disguise enjoyers to the astir hardened veterans of the shadows.

It's done impeccable level plan that the remainder of World of Assassination gets to shine. Each of its exotic locales is fine-tuned with gameplay successful caput archetypal and foremost, arsenic trespass-triggering areas, force pathways, and pesky surveillance cameras are expertly placed to technologist incredibly satisfying challenges and results. These maps are punctuated with deadly tools, ranging from morganatic weapons to much playful articles of mischief, specified arsenic rubber ducks and explosive play balls. Arguably, nary point is much effectual than the coins that jangle successful Agent 47’s pocket, though, arsenic distracting a money-hungry guard, lone to past sound them retired and bargain their outfit, remains conscionable arsenic cardinal a loop present arsenic it has passim the series’ agelong history. Crucially, though, nary substance what method is chosen, a gratifying result is astir ever guaranteed, whether it beryllium the astir authored signature kills oregon taped-together accidental bloodbaths.

It each adds to an unrivalled consciousness of replayability, with a dependable watercourse of costumes, items, and starting constituent options unlocking to further let for your ain expressions of stealth. 47 is simply a cleanable palette waiting for you to stamp your benignant onto – a big, bald mannequin of a protagonist who is waiting to beryllium dressed and molded successful your image. And considering sidesplitting tin beryllium a precise silly business, that state ensures Hitman’s unsocial marque of “tee hee” humour is ne'er lost. Through its slapstick kills oregon incidental NPC conversations, it ne'er fails to present a smile.

Simply put, Hitman: World of Assassination is simply a masterpiece, offering near-unparalleled flexibility acknowledgment to adept plan honed by a workplace that has dedicated itself to the creation of stealth-action for implicit 25 years. It was an unquestionable prime for our fig 1 stealth game.

And determination we person it: 10 fantabulous stealth games, arranged conscionable perfectly to usher you done the precise champion the sneaky genre has to offer. Did your favourite marque our list? Let america cognize what we forgot successful the comments.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Executive Editor of Features. Simon Cardy is simply a Senior Editor astatine IGN who tin chiefly beryllium recovered skulking astir unfastened satellite games, indulging successful Korean cinema, oregon despairing astatine the authorities of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him connected Bluesky astatine @cardy.bsky.social.