It’s 2024, Your RPG Doesn’t Need Stealth Sections

Summary

• Stealth mechanics in RPGs are usually half-baked and unnecessary, making gameplay slow and dull.
• Star Wars Outlaws includes forced stealth sections, which may not fit well with the bombastic nature of the franchise.
• Games should focus on one mechanic or genre instead of trying to incorporate multiple, leading to lacklustre results.

Why are RPGs obsessed with forcing stealth on you? It seems that every triple-A RPG these days has an enforced stealth section. With half-baked sneaking mechanics and enemies who spot you through walls, it seems like these mandatory sections should go the way of the underwater level and disappear.

Unfortunately, it seems like the upcoming Ubisoft RPG Star Wars Outlaws will include this dated trope. I’m tired.

We got a long, deep look at Star Wars Outlaws during the Ubisoft Forward show last week and, while I was intrigued by its premise and the fact that it’s removed from the grand tales of Sith and Skywalkers, the space travel lacked flair. Okay, I’m being kind. It looks terrible. How have we gone from instant transitions in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart to multiple loading screens to fast travel from one place to another?

However, I dove back into the trailer to learn more about the planetside gameplay, hoping for good news. The karma system seems derived from equal parts BioWare and Star Wars board game Outer Rim. Dialogue options are always a good thing, and being able to rile up the bad guys instead of acquiescing to their every request looks fun. But then there’s the stealth sections.

Protagonist Kay Vess jumps from waist-high cover to waist-high cover in order to stay out of view. She sics her pet onto another guard to smother his scream. She crouches, tiptoes, and only draws her weapon when absolutely necessary. It’s generic stealth gameplay by the book.

Of course, this could feel amazing when we actually play the game, but allow my cynicism.

I don’t have a problem with stealth, or stealth games. Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will entirely revolve around stealth, and I’m looking forward to playing it. That’s a game that will be built around its stealth mechanics, and hopefully they will be polished to perfection. I’d also love Assassin’s Creed Shadows to embrace the stealth of the series’ past with Naoe, but I worry that the ship has sailed.

The issue in most triple-A RPGs is that the stealth mechanics are half-baked. They’re put in as another thing to do, like space travel or a poker minigame. There seems to be stealth in Outlaws because the game revolves around a heist of some sort, but if the mechanics aren’t robust then the whole system will flounder.

This makes me glad for Starfield’s lack of stealth gameplay. There were options to spec into being a sneaky lil guy – Bethesda can never completely remove the stealth archer – but the systems were so unbelievably bad that there was no incentive to use them.

Unless your game is a stealth game, I don’t want it to have stealth mechanics. A crouch, a crawl, and a red alert metre above an enemy’s head just won’t cut it any more. These sections are invariably long, slow, and dull, made worse by the fact that the teams don’t have enough time to fully realise the mechanical ideas that they want to achieve.

On a more specific level, stealth doesn’t really work for Star Wars. Yes, our protagonists dress up as Storm Troopers to infiltrate a prison the size of a planet. Sure, Cassian Andor and co. perform a daring heist to steal the Death Star plans. But these aren’t subtle, tense thrillers about covering your mouth so your breathing doesn’t give you away. These are films about blasting, shooting, exploding everything in your path. My favourite Star Wars moment as a kid was Luke Skywalker taking down the AT-AT on Hoth by tying its legs up with rope. Simple. Effective. Bombastic.

Star Wars needs stealth as much as RPGs do. That is to say, either they should be built entirely around sneaking, or they should leave it well alone. I’d much prefer a focused video game that has intent than one that vaguely flaps its pixels at a dozen different mechanics and genres. Without focus, everything comes out half-baked and boring. And that’s the worst thing a game can be.

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