1 Cup of body hiding
This is a super simple ingredient that most stealth games completely fumble. If you’re going to let the player quietly dispatch their enemies, let them hide them somewhere they won’t be found. The absence of this feature breaks what can otherwise be a perfectly surgical infiltration.
Some games have the right idea in this area, but take only a half-measure that is tolerable at its best. I’m looking at games that let you move bodies, but don’t supply boxes or lockers to hide them, like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Other games let you move bodies, but the experience is clumsy and can give you away by knocking stuff over if you’re not careful (Dishonored 2, and yes, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided again).
Then there are the games that do this so well you just wanna kiss ’em. This honor goes to the likes of Hitman (2016), any given Metal Gear Solid game, and Mark of the Ninja. They all make it easy to knock a guard out, drag them to a box/locker/closet, and tuck them in for the long-haul. Or in the case of MGSV, strap a balloon to their chest and kidnap them into indentured servitude.
Disguises, diced and pre-seasoned
Disguises in stealth games add an entirely new layer of delicious deceit to NPCs. It is forever satisfying to hide in plain sight wearing the clothes of somebody who’s sleeping in a locker three floors down.
No game goes harder with the fun of disguises than Hitman, a series that made its name being a game about stealth in plain sight. This year’s Hitman has seen that concept taken further and stronger than ever before, and the result is one of the best stealth games ever made. But that begs the question: why don’t more games implement disguises?
Some games have more non-direct ways of hiding in plain sight that still qualify as disguises, like donning a cardboard box in Metal Gear Solid or possessing guards in Dishonored, but almost any stealth game could be made more interesting with the added fun of a deceptive costume. It’s by no means a make-or-break mechanic, but one that should be explored further.
