Stealth games were few and far between for much of gaming’s history - until the year 1998 when three huge stealth games came out in the same year. In this video, I’ll explore the conventions that these games established, and ask why ’98 was the year stealth games got serious.
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Sources
War Stories: Thief’s intuitive stealth system wasn’t intuitive to design | Ars Technica
Looking Glass Studios Interview Series - Audio Podcast 5 - Ken Levine | Gambit
Kojima: Metal Gear Solid wouldn't exist without PlayStation | GamesRadar
House of Dreams: The Ubisoft Montreal Story | IGN
Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (Kojima Productions, 2014)
005 (Sega, 1981)
Castle Wolfenstein (Muse Software, 1981)
Metal Gear (Konami, 1987)
Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (Konami, 1990)
Metal Gear Solid (Konami, 1998)
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (Sucker Punch Productions, 2002)
Splinter Cell: Blacklist (Ubisoft Toronto, 2013)
The Swindle (Size Five Games, 2015)
The Marvellous Miss Take (Wonderstruck, 2014)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Studios, 2018)
Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (Aquire, 1998)
Thief: The Dark Project (Looking Glass Studios, 1998)
Invisible, Inc. (Klei Entertainment, 2015)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady Studios, 2009)
Dishonored 2 (Arkane Studios, 2016)
Splinter Cell (Ubisoft Montreal, 2002)
Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment, 2012)
Hitman: Blood Money (IO Interactive, 2006)
Alien: Isolation (The Creative Assembly, 2014)
Super Mario 64 (Nintendo, 1996)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (Neversoft, 1999)
Grand Theft Auto (DMA Design, 1997)
PaRappa the Rapper (NanaOn-Sha, 1996)
Alone in the Dark (Infogrames, 1992)
Tomb Raider (Core Design, 1996)
Silent Service II (MicroProse, 1990)
Snake's Revenge (Konami, 1990)
Policenauts (Konami, 1994)
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Konami, 2001)
Volume (Mike Bithell, 2015)
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware, 2019)
Wolfenstein 3D (id Software, 1992)
Doom (id Software, 1993)
Music used in this episode
special moment - Dixxy (
Invisible, Inc. soundtrack - Vince de Vera and Jason Garner (
Other credits
Castle Wolfenstein (PC/DOS) 1984, Muse Software | Major Thriftwood
Silent Service II (PC/DOS) 1990, MicroProse, MPS labs | Major Thriftwood
Policenauts - Intro (PC-98) [HQ] | Ryusennin
