8 Stealth Video Games Where Stealth SUCKS

Don't feel bad if you don't even remember Left Alive - the 2019 stealth-action game largely sold on the involvement of Metal Gear Solid character designer Yoji Shinkawa. It was widely panned by critics for almost everything that wasn't Shinkawa's design work, and perhaps most of all its deeply infuriating stealth mechanics.

First and foremost, it's a stealth game without the ability to carry out stealth takedowns, while the enemy AI pinballs between utterly idiotic and bafflingly astute, and even the basics of player movement feel clunky and awkward.

Beyond this, the head-scratchingly high level of challenge even on lower difficulties and poor checkpoint placement eventually prompted Square-Enix to release a patch introducing "Casual Mode," which de-emphasised stealth in favour of more straightforward action gameplay. That says it all really.

Pre-release many were expecting a B-list riff on Metal Gear Solid's best-of-class stealth gameplay, but this doesn't even muster the merits of the D-list. 

It's as though all the time and money was spent convincing Shinkawa to lend his paintbrush to the project, before the most banal, scarcely functional gameplay was crudely piped around it in the last few months before launch.