Good video idea! When I first saw the video I had no idea what you really want to say in this video, but you did a great job with it! It was very interesting! I‘m looking forward to your next video! Also it’s nice to see that your channel is growing!
Insightful as always, as I had not thought about the narrative failure of stealth in the RPG games, which shows how there is a distance from stealth now in Ubi's core design philosophy. I think you might be my favorite AC youtuber!
AC has always been a mixture of parkour, action, and stealth, so I disagree with the statement that it is a stealth series. Comparing it to the heavy hitters of the stealth genre-Hitman, Dishonored, Deus Ex, Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, and the classic Thief games, it simply does not hold up as a stealth-focused game. AC has always lacked the signature style of focused gameplay and deep level design that makes the heavy hitters of the stealth genre stand out. For instance, AC 2, which I consider the best game in the series, had many missions where you would be forced to get spotted and either engage in combat or runaway and you were rarely ever penalized or incentivized to not kill guards (who are not targets). This design choice was deliberate because AC has always been a casual, action-adventure series rather than a more hardcore stealth-driven series. Plus, even games like Mirage have short missions and somewhat generic level design that makes the execution of the mission objectives in a stealthy manner too easy and not interesting enough to sustain my interest for more than ten minutes at a time. If Mirage really was a stealth game then we would have much more focused and detailed levels where stealth is at the forefront of the experience and the mechanics were balanced enough to give our options weight (i.e., killing guards versus not killing them). The definition that was used in the video’s thesis is problematic because it can be used to claim that games like the Last of Us (Parts 1 and 2) and Ghost Recon Wildlands are stealth games when they clearly are not and it is not specific enough to differentiate between games that have some stealth mechanics, like AC, The Last of Us, and Far Cry versus games that are fully built around stealth, such as the heavy hitters of the genre mentioned.
Hi. Thanks for the informative response. However, 1/ AC not being stealth-focused as the heavy-hitters you mentioned does not make it NOT a stealth game. The heavy-hitters are just more stealth-focused while AC leans more on high-action stealth thus the level designs where pure ghosting is not an option and you'll have to kill non-targets. It is also story-driven, which leads to the moments of forced detection. So while AC is not focused on the slow and methodical type of stealth, it is still a (different) stealth game shown in its gameplay and narrative. 2/ I dunno if it's just me but I see Last of Us as an adventure-stealth game while ghost recon is an action-stealth game. Basically, games can have hybrid genres, especially stealth since the number of pure stealth games have dwindled through the years. I mean even Dishonored and Deus Ex can be played non-stealthily. As mentioned, as long as the gameplay and narrative agree on having stealth elements, it can be considered a stealth game. This is why we can say that AC is a stealth game but Skyrim is not even when it has stealth mechanics.
I see. As I've said in the video, haven't played valhalla yet so not 100% sure about the overall stealth experience. But I do remember seeing smoke arrows or something, which could indeed categorize it into Gen C.
Since you said you never played Valhalla allow me to give my take as a 500 hour player. I’d say has ok stealth after the patches and if you tweak it around a bit in the settings. It fits a Viking that isn’t great at it but has some training by Basim in the basics. A lot better imo than what we got in Origins and especially Odyssey there were no options for social stealth or environmental. It’s not perfect but it fits the character of Eivor trying not to be spotted by a cities’ worth of guards. Eivor also mentions a few times throughout the game where she encourages staying unoticed I remember in the Roshan quest in the final update where she says she doesn’t mind being sneaky compared to other Vikings lol
Thanks for the insight! From this, Valhalla may be in a different category than the other RPGs. I may revisit this topic again once I play and finish Valhalla.
@@TheMaudeth hey go for it usually the dlc edition goes on sale for like 15$ and that’s a good amount of content for that. It’s not a great game there’s flaws but I personally feel like it’s the only rpg ac that feels part of ac mostly because of the writer Darby McDevit and the way it ties up lose ends from back in ac brotherhood
