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Curated playlist

Stealth video games

Metal Gear Solid V was first announced as an indie game from a fake Swedish studio, and Kojima's team was behind it the whole time. Most of this list follows the Metal Gear series. The 1987 Metal Gear has Snake's own commander telling the player to switch off the console. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake has him build a flamethrower from a lighter and an aerosol can. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty marketed Solid Snake in fights that belonged to Raiden. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell adds a rule of its own: step into the light and you are dead.

  • Assassin's CreedAssassin's Creed began as a Prince of Persia sequel with the prince cut out.
  • Metal GearMetal Gear became a stealth game because its computer could not handle a gunfight.
  • Metal Gear Solid (video game)1998 video game
  • Metal Gear Solid: Master CollectionKonami pulled two Metal Gear Solid games from digital stores in November 2021. Expired licenses were the reason given.
  • Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake EaterMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater sends a soldier into the Soviet jungle in 1964, using a game that first appeared in 2004. It is a 2025 stealth action-adventure from Konami, rebuilt from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the first…
  • Metal Gear Solid: The Twin SnakesThe Twin Snakes began with a chance meeting in a Nintendo cafeteria.
  • The Last of UsThe Last of Us is a video game series from the studio Naughty Dog, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, and by early 2023 the franchise had sold more than 37 million games. It takes place in a United States ruined by a mutated…
  • Assassin's Creed IIIAssassin's Creed III went on sale in North America on the 30th of October 2012 with a secret that its own advertising kept from players. Every promotion showed Connor, a half-Mohawk Assassin. The game itself, however, opened with Haytham…
  • The Last of Us (video game)The Last of Us, a 2013 action-adventure game from Naughty Dog, ends with a man swearing to a girl that his story is true. It is not. Joel gives the oath because Ellie insists on it. Everything before that moment is a long walk toward it.…
  • Tomb Raider (2013 video game)In November 2010, Square Enix filed a trademark for a slogan, "A Survivor is Born," to promote a new Tomb Raider game. That game arrived in 2013 from the developer Crystal Dynamics, and it did not simply continue Lara Croft's story. It…
  • Metal Gear (video game)In the 1987 game Metal Gear, Snake's own commander tells the player to switch off the console.
  • Hitman (franchise)Hitman is a stealth game franchise from the Danish studio IO Interactive, and it began as a deliberately modest idea. Designer Jacob Andersen described the plan like this: "We decided to do a quick game inspired by Hong Kong action…
  • Assassin's Creed IV: Black FlagAssassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, the sixth major installment in its series, hands the player a stolen ship and a Welsh pirate named Edward Kenway. Early in the story, Edward captures a brig called the Jackdaw from a Spanish fleet and makes…
  • Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the PatriotsMetal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots reached shops on the 12th of June 2008. According to Konami, more than three million units shipped worldwide that day. Kojima Productions built the game for the PlayStation 3, and it was the sixth…
  • Assassin's Creed UnityIn the streets of Assassin's Creed Unity, a single crowd can hold up to 1000 individual characters. Each one acts on its own and reacts to its neighbors and to the player. Ubisoft Montreal built that spectacle for its 2014 entry in the…
  • Assassin's Creed IIAssassin's Creed II is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sequel to the 2007 game Assassin's Creed. Its hero is Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a young man in Renaissance Italy. His…
  • The Elder Scrolls V: SkyrimA modder made Falskaar for Skyrim as a job application to Bethesda. Bungie hired him instead.
  • The Last of Us Part IIThe Last of Us Part II is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It unfolds in a post-apocalyptic United States, four years after the studio's The Last of Us of 2013. Two…
  • Assassin's Creed (video game)Assassin's Creed, the 2007 action-adventure game from Ubisoft Montreal, almost shipped with only its main assassination missions. About five days before the team was due to send the final version off for mass production, their CEO…
  • Batman: Arkham AsylumBatman: Arkham Asylum, the 2009 game from Rocksteady Studios, once kept a single developer busy for two years on one garment, Batman's cape. Eidos president Ian Livingstone said the job involved more than 700 animations and sound effects,…
  • Assassin's Creed OdysseyAssassin's Creed Odyssey, a 2018 action role-playing game from Ubisoft Quebec, begins its family tragedy on the slopes of Mount Taygetos. A Spartan elder is about to throw an infant off the mountain. The Pythia has declared that the child,…
  • Stealth gameStealth games trace a seed to a 1979 program about a boy sneaking through a convenience store.
  • Batman: ArkhamBatman: Arkham is a video game series built on one long feud between Batman and the Joker. Its main games have sold more than 32 million copies worldwide. Eidos Interactive first published the series, and Warner Bros. Games publishes it…
  • Uncharted 4: A Thief's EndUncharted 4: A Thief's End was already in strangers' hands on the 26th of April 2016, ahead of its official launch. Amazon had begun shipping copies early. The next day, a batch bound for retail stores in the United Kingdom was stolen in…
  • Batman: Arkham CityThe blueprints for Batman: Arkham City were hidden in a secret room inside the warden's office of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the game that came before it. Rocksteady Studios planted those hints in the 2009 original while that game was still…
  • Batman: Arkham KnightBatman: Arkham Knight is a 2015 action-adventure game made by Rocksteady Studios and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It opens on Halloween night, as Gotham City's six million civilians are evacuated. Only criminals…
  • Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake EaterMetal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater sends the player up an extremely tall ladder for roughly three minutes, with a vocal theme song as the only company. Fans and critics singled out the climb as one of the series' most memorable moments. Some…
  • Tom Clancy's Splinter CellIn Splinter Cell, stepping into the light meant you were already dead.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom PainMetal Gear Solid V was first announced as an indie game from a fake Swedish studio. Kojima's team made it.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of LibertyEvery trailer for Metal Gear Solid 2 showed Solid Snake in fights that Raiden had. Players had never heard of him.
  • Sekiro: Shadows Die TwiceIn Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, you win by breaking an enemy's balance, not draining health. Then one killing blow lands.
  • Assassin's Creed OriginsAssassin's Creed Origins is a 2017 action role-playing game from Ubisoft Montreal, and the tenth major installment in its series. Its setting was a reversal. Ancient Egypt was among the places fans of the series requested most often, and…
  • Alien: IsolationAlien: Isolation is a 2014 survival horror game in which the monster hunting the player cannot be killed. Creative Assembly developed it and Sega published it. No weapon in the game ends the threat. The player can only hide, listen and…
  • Metal Gear 2: Solid SnakeIn Metal Gear 2, a cornered Solid Snake turns a lighter and an aerosol can into a flamethrower.
  • Hitman 3Hitman 3 was announced on the 11th of June 2020 at the PlayStation 5 reveal event, under the tagline 'Death Awaits'. It is a stealth game from IO Interactive, the eighth main installment in the Hitman series and the third game in the World…
  • Cyberpunk 2077Cyberpunk 2077 broke a record within hours of its midnight GMT launch on the 10th of December 2020. More than one million people played it at once on Steam, and one million viewers watched live on Twitch. Together, the figures doubled the…
  • Ghost of TsushimaGhost of Tsushima is a 2020 action-adventure game from Sucker Punch Productions, published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Its hero is Jin Sakai, a samurai defending Tsushima Island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan, which began…
  • Assassin's Creed ValhallaAssassin's Creed Valhalla nearly had a female-only Viking hero. Senior Ubisoft executives disagreed with the team.
  • Starfield (video game)Starfield is a 2023 action role-playing game from Bethesda Game Studios, and it lets the player land on more than 1,000 planets. That scale raises a few questions. Why did a studio tied to Skyrim and Fallout 4 turn its attention to space?…
  • Assassin's Creed MirageAssassin's Creed Mirage, released in 2023, started life as an expansion pack for Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Plans changed, and it grew into a standalone game. It is the thirteenth major installment in its series, yet it is deliberately…
  • Rise of the Tomb RaiderRise of the Tomb Raider, a 2015 action-adventure game from Crystal Dynamics, opens a year after Lara Croft's ordeal on Yamatai. She is an archaeologist who cannot explain the supernatural events she lived through there, and she is…
  • Indiana Jones and the Great CircleIndiana Jones and the Great Circle is a 2024 action-adventure game from MachineGames, published by Bethesda Softworks. Its mystery begins with a line drawn on a map. Scattered around the world are strange sites that, once joined, form a…
  • Assassin's Creed ShadowsAssassin's Creed Shadows is the fourteenth major game in Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed series, released in 2025 as the follow-up to Assassin's Creed Mirage. It sends players to 16th-century Japan, near the end of the Sengoku period, and hands…

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