Top 10 Stealth Games

There’s no better way to kick off a stealth game list than with a ninja assassin! Released for the original PlayStation, you take on the role of either Rikmaru or Ayame. Missions require you to sneak around darkly lit environments and take out your targets without being detected. An early game to feature a non-linear concept, there are several ways to accomplish your goals and kills. But, perhaps most of all, players will tell you that they remember this game for being really, really hard.

This open world stealth series makes our list for adding a social element to the stealth. As one of a long line of master assassins, you don’t hide in the shadows. Instead, you blend in with crowds or strike downward from sunlight drenched rooftops. The trick to here is executing targets without drawing attention to the kill. Of course, if you’re spotted you can always make a run for it or try hide in a bale of hay, ‘cause why would they ever look there…

Few other movie characters lend themselves so well to the stealth genre as Riddick, the Furyan convict. A prequel to the films, players follow Riddick as he acquires his eyeshine night vision, and eventually escapes from the infamous Butcher Bay prison. Brilliant use of the first person perspective and high production values create the unimaginable, a game where you play as Vin Diesel that’s actually really fun.

This stealth series revolves around Agent 47, a cloned assassin for hire. Working for the wealthy elite, players are charged with taking out their marks and contending with an agency called ‘The Franchise’. With many ways to go about your objects, you can go in with surgical precision or slaughter everyone. Of course, doing it the hard way (and that’s the stealth way, just to be clear) rewards you with special weapons and bonuses. Our favorite from the series is the 4th entry “Hitman: Blood Money” for its extremely imaginative scenarios.

Set in the plague-ridden industrial city of Dunwall, Dishonored follows a legendary bodyguard who is framed for murder and forced to become an assassin and seek revenge against those who conspired against him. The gameplay is made up of self-contained mission-focused areas with multiple paths and innumerable objectives. Hailed as the return of “smart” games for “mature audiences”, Dishonored blends tight, fluid stealth gameplay with open world variety and stunning art design.

From the nuthouse to the slums of Gotham, few games so effectively make you feel like you truly are your character, let alone a culturally icon like the Dark Knight himself. An action adventure with stealth gameplay, players must thin out resistance one thug at a time, and get to use every single one of Batman’s fancy toys to do so. There’s nothing like being the bat and watching scumbags cower in fear as you swoop in from the shadows!

One of the things about adding stealth elements to a game is that, once they’re in, your game essentially becomes a stealth game whether you like it or not. As was the case of Human Revolution, a prequel that takes place 25 years before the first game in the series. While some players may have been disappointed that this installment seemed to feature a lot more Splinter Cell than Elder Scrolls, it was an undeniably stylish and tense stealth shooter that still managed to maintain the “do-it-your-way” attitude that made Deus Ex a classic 10 years earlier.

This critically acclaimed series has you take on the role of highly trained NSA black Ops operative Sam Fisher, voiced by Michael Ironside. Dawning his iconic trifocal goggles, you crouch run your way through the shadows to keep the free world safe. To keep the stealth elements focused, ammunition is almost always in short supply and brute force is shunned. In fact, many missions begin with non-lethal weapons or restrict you from killing all together. Our favorite installment is definitely “Chaos Theory”, which is widely accepted as the apex of the series to date.

This long running action adventure series by Hideo Kojima is famous for taking the stealth genre and giving it extremely long cinematics and then concealing it under a cardboard box. As Solid Snake, and on one occasion, that blond guy, you are frequently tasked will stopping nefarious plans that almost always involve an eponymous piece of Military hardware that will bring the world to its knees. Splinter Cell should definitely look to its laurels.

Taking the top spot on our list is the series that placed us in the role of Garrett, a master thief within a medieval steam punk world. Avoiding fights has never been as fun as it was here in this self described “first person sneaker”. A major cornerstone in the genre, it is widely considered to be the first game to use light and sound as gameplay mechanics, forcing you to hide in dark corners and carefully walk on surfaces that muffled your footsteps. Add the incredibly satisfying trick arrows and the punishing level of difficulty, and you see why Thief is ultimate king of dark.

Agree with our list? Which stealth game has you holding your breath and hiding in a dark corner? For more entertaining top 10s, be sure to subscribe to Watchmojo.com.