Here’s the thing: I love stealth in games. I love crouching behind walls, chucking bottles to lure guards away, and fantasizing that I’m some elite operator on a ghost mission. In reality, I’m more like a raccoon in a trench coat who knocks over every trash can on the way to the objective.
I mess up stealth the way toddlers mess up finger painting, enthusiastically, and with complete disregard for the end result. But I keep trying, because the high of pulling off the perfect silent takedown is too good to give up. These are the games that made me question all of that.
Most of Sniper Elite lets you play to your strengths. You find a good perch, line up your shot, and watch in satisfaction as your target crumples in dramatic slow motion. Then stealth comes along and takes all of that away. Suddenly, you’re stuck sneaking through tight city streets with limited tools and a lot of consequences.
If you get caught, the mission doesn’t just go loud, it kicks you back to the last checkpoint, which often feels like it was set during a previous war. It’s a major tonal shift in a game built around planning and precision, and for players who aren’t exactly stealth experts, it can feel like a punishment. By the end of the game, I didn’t feel like an elite anything. I felt like a girl hiding in a closet, praying the patrol path didn’t include opening it.
I want to believe I’m good at stealth in The Last of Us Part 2. I really do. The game encourages patience and careful movement; everything I tell myself I’m capable of. But the reality is less elegant. The Seraphite encounters, in particular, are rough. You’re crawling through dense brush while enemies whistle to each other and dogs track your scent across the map.
The tension is incredible, but so is the stress. I’ve spent more time hiding in the grass during this game than actually moving forward. It’s a great system for people who can stay calm under pressure. I, however, usually throw a bottle in the wrong direction and watch the entire camp descend on me like I had just kicked a beehive.
WHERE TO PLAY
Look, I knew what I was signing up for. Splinter Cell is stealth at its purest. Sam Fisher moves like a pro, and the game offers a solid toolkit for players who know what they’re doing. The problem is, I don’t. Or at least, I thought I did, until I got spotted crouching in the dark, thirty feet away from anyone, with no clear reason why. Once the alarm sounds, you’re pretty much done.
The enemy becomes hyper-aggressive, reinforcements show up instantly, and every attempt to recover just digs the hole deeper. What frustrates me most is how often I felt like Ishouldhave succeeded. I was being careful. I was following the rules. But the enemies in Blacklist sometimes act like they’ve got motion sensors and a direct feed to my controller. I respect the system, but it made me feel like I was sneaking through a minefield in clown shoes.
I’ve always liked the idea of stealth in Assassin’s Creed games. The hoods, the rooftops, the hidden blades, it all feels built for it. But Unity made me question that belief. Its stealth system looks impressive at first, especially in crowd-heavy city scenes. But once you’re inside a building and trying to sneak past guards, the cracks show. Cover is awkward to use, enemies seem to notice you from impossible angles, and once you’re caught, escape options are limited.
One guard spots you from across the room, and suddenly half the palace is on high alert. The game wants you to feel like a master assassin, but for me it often felt like I was playing dress-up in a costume I didn’t earn. Every mission that relied on stealth became a guessing game of which bug or clunky mechanic would trip me up first.
Little Nightmares isn’t exactly a stealth game, but it plays like one. You’re small, fragile, and always being hunted by things that are grotesque, loud, and disturbingly fast. The stealth is basic. Hide, stay quiet, and move carefully, but it’s made tricky by the floaty platforming and physics-based movement. I can’t count how many times I tried to tiptoe past a chef or janitor, only to accidentally knock over a spoon and get snatched like a misplaced toy.
It’s intense, and it absolutely nails the feeling of helplessness. But for someone who struggles with precision under pressure, it often felt less like gameplay and more like trial and error. There’s definitely satisfaction in slipping past a monster unnoticed. But more often than not, I found myself repeating the same sequence five times because I mistimed a jump or bumped into a chair I didn’t see. It’s stealth with a horror filter, and a hefty side of frustration.
GTA and stealth go together about as well as dynamite and glassware. But Rockstar gave it a shot with the Diamond Casino Heist, and the Silent & Sneaky approach somehow sounded doable. So I tried it. And I regretted it almost instantly. The prep work is long and tedious, the mechanics aren’t built for precise sneaking, and your success often hinges on teammates who may or may not be following the same plan.
The heist can fall apart from a single misstep. One mistimed takedown, one camera slightly off your radar, one friend deciding to ‘wing it.’ When everything clicks, it feels great. But most of the time, it doesn’t click. It explodes. And you’re left wondering why you didn’t just pick the aggressive entry and call it a day. For someone who already struggles with stealth alone, adding three wildcards into the mix was a recipe for disaster.
Of all the games on this list, Life Is Strange is the least likely to feature a stealth section, and maybe that’s part of why it didn’t work. During Episode Three, Max and Chloe sneak into the school pool after hours, and when it’s time to leave, you suddenly have to avoid getting caught by David, the security guard. The game shifts into a short stealth sequence that feels completely out of sync with everything before it.
The movement is clunky, the AI is unpredictable, and the tone shift is jarring. I love this game for its emotional depth and character work. So being asked to navigate lockers and avoid flashlights felt less like tension and more like a sudden genre switch. It’s not a long scene, but it stuck with me, mostly because it reminded me how badly I do under pressure, even when the stakes are just two teenagers sneaking out of a pool. I love Max and Chloe, but next time, maybe just fast-forward the sneaking and let me get back to the teenage angst.
