IGN | Not stealthy enough

[Harris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FqlpICnsLA

This one got recommended to me today, and I'm equally surprised by two things:
1) how we can get thoughtful criticism from legacy gaming media and not a hate-farming youtuber for a change
2) how much this opinion resonates with my own concerns following the 3-hour JorRaptor stream and over a dozen previews by other creators last week

We recently had a discussion related to combat started here, so for all ends and purposes you're welcome to treat this as a discussion on stealth and tools.

The gist of my impressions is while stealth in Shadows is outright revolutionary compared to something like Valhalla, it's nothing to write home about when we consider other stealth games on the market, including ones by Ubisoft itself.

Watching stealth gameplay with Naoe constantly left me wanting for more options, and the IGN guy just read my thoughts. Poison darts, disguises, traps, caltrops... where are those things? Ubisoft done it all before. Come to think of it, it done a lot of it very recently in Mirage. Of course, there's a possibility there might be more tools and stuff added later on as DLC - but then again, there might not.

I would be willing to overlook the flawed game design and inherent limitations of the warrior character and do a full playthrough as an assassin (like I imagine many here would), but I feel this would require at least 3 key prerequisites:

1) mandatory combat segments should not be forced on Naoe;
2) there should be an option to skip the character selection every single time during missions and default to Naoe;
3) and last but not least - assassin experience should be worthy of a dedicated stealth game

As you can see from the distinct lack of mouse next to my name, I'm on the fence. To me, Shadows right now feels like two different, separate and even disjointed games. And on their own, neither of those games feels good enough or compelling enough for the asking price. I previously shared my thoughts on how I believe the warrior character was added as an alternative to a stealth playstyle, which turned out too demanding and taxing for the AC RPG crowd. But whereas for a Valhalla player stealth is Shadows will likely prove too much, for a dedicated stealth enjoyer stealth in Shadows will likely prove too little.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Harris:

For a Valhalla player stealth in Shadows will likely prove too much.

For a dedicated stealth enjoyer, Shadows will likely prove too little.

Interesting way of looking at it.

I recently played Star Wars: Outlaws, which was a game that was infested with puzzles and stealth missions. That game took a lot of heat for its forced stealth missions. If you failed a stealth mission you had to start over. I thought it was great. It certainly made the game challenging, but others didn't like it.

There were so many complaints, that they patched the game shortly after I finished it.

The patch removed all of the forced stealth missions and made the game easier to complete. Now you can simply blast your way through the game if you get caught sneaking about.

That's exactly what would happen to this game if stealth was too challenging.

Gamers today are as impatient as ____.

They claim that they don't have time to be messing about trying to complete difficult quests. There were a couple of challenging stealth missions in Cyberpunk and they complained about those, too.

They are always in the forums bragging about how they 'beat the game' in x-number of hours. Even a Creed game, which often prides itself on stealth, would get complaints if it became too difficult.

I'll be playing this game exclusively as Naoe because she has all of the skills required to complete the game 100%. And I'll be jacking it up to the hardest difficulty due to my experience with Outlaws.

I see no use for Yasuke. It has nothing to do with social issues. He's far too big for a stealth game.

This is still predominantly a stealth game, as much as Star Wars: Outlaws once was.

[BrotherMurus]

God, I want a water arrow to douce bonfires.

[Harris]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Gamers today are as impatient as ____.

So what you're saying is if Ubisoft made a game where Naoe is best played by waiting patiently on top of a tree until nighttime and running away when spotted as opposed to engaging in combat - it would be a commercial disaster? And yet, this is exactly the kind of game Shadows is shaping up to be. You can win combat against a couple basic enemies or against a single elite, provided you'll crutch on abilities and tools like crazy. But anything beyond that, and you're probably dead.

I watched JorRaptor stream and couldn't help but notice he plays Naoe like how I would play Yasuke. So what you're describing seems to be spot on. Which is why I think Ubisoft felt Shadows needed a playable samurai for the more impatient players.

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Even a Creed game, which often prides itself on stealth, would get complaints if it became too difficult.

For me as well as the IGN guy, the criticisms are not as much concerned with difficulty, as they're concerned with options - this is both in terms of tools and level design. From what I've seen, you mostly lure the enemies towards red barrels and explode them. I haven't seen the ability to hang in corridors (like it was advertised previously) in any of the preview clips. I'd love the ability to control the environment with traps, prepare an escape route in advance, things like that. I was left with an impression we'll be able to modify the existing tools, changing their function (a-la Mirage), but I wonder how far that goes in terms of being able to customize your playstyle.

I suppose your experience with Ubisoft's more recent games like Outlaws goes a long way towards managing your expectations, meanwhile the strongest criticisms seem to come from enjoyers of other titles who've seen what those games can do better.

Any event, a quick search reveals Splinter Cell was indeed a common talking point when describing stealth in Shadows and this is what we were told over the last year. It's only fair for people to be asking where it is. Because as it stands, we seem to have gotten a sturdy stealth game, which nonetheless suffers in terms of depth from having to share the bed with the samurai fantasy.

[sigina ✝]

Originally posted by BrotherMurus:

God, I want a water arrow to douce bonfires.

Say you played Thief back in the day without actually saying you played Thief, lol

[SkFy]

Wow even IGN won't rate it 9/10?

[guillermoelnino]

Originally posted by Paraborne:

0 trust in those "critics". Lol according to them this game is about as good as veilguard!

To be fair it probably is.
And that's not a compliment.