The Best Top-Down Stealth Games

Stealth mechanics have long been present in all manner of video games. Sneaking around dangerous enemies and avoiding detection provides players with rising anticipation that is often thrilling, and the stealth genre takes full advantage of this. From old-school classics like Metal Gear to later editions comparable to Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, the stealth genre has a wide range of experiences on offer.

Nevertheless, the Metal Gear franchise eventually evolved with the times, taking up a 3D aesthetic and launching the Metal Gear Solid series. Many games followed suit, providing players with immersive 3D environments and characters. Despite this, top-down stealth games are still being made, primarily as lower-budget indie titles, a lot of which take full advantage of their unique perspective.

6

Serial Cleaner

Unique Stealth Gameplay That is Atmospheric And Easy-To-Read

• Platform(s): PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
• Released: 2017
• Developer(s): Draw Distance
• Genre: Stealth

Serial Cleaner is a top-down motion stealth game that plays like a stealth-focused tackle Hotline Miami, with a clean, angular art-style that is each stylish and simple to read. This permits each encounter to feel fair, while remaining consistently pleasing to have a look at. More importantly, nonetheless, Serial Cleaner features slick stealth gameplay that is consistently fluid and regularly fast-paced.

Serial Cleaner contains a wealthy, Seventies setting and music to match, making the sport surprisingly atmospheric despite its top-down perspective. Players are tasked with removing bodies and other evidence from crime scenes, cleansing up each location while avoiding the police. This leads to a novel gameplay loop that is light on motion and heavy on strategy, but maintains a brisk pace due to its real-time gameplay.

5

The Escapists 2

Light Stealth Mechanics With A Focus On Careful Planning

The Escapists 2 is a largely-improved version of the unique top-down prison escape game, featuring the identical emergent gameplay and sandbox elements that allow players to formulate a wide range of escape plans. The Escapists 2 features all manner of gameplay mechanics and systems, all within the name of player alternative, allowing players to naturally develop strategies as they play.

Stealth, while not essential to the moment-to-moment gameplay, is a crucial aspect to The Escapist 2’s overall loop. While players will spend much of their time in plain sight, plotting their escape, executing their plan will often require them to sneak around guards. To achieve success, players may have to rigorously plan every a part of their route, leaving no stone unturned.

4

Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine

Top-Down Heisting With Stylized Shadows And Online Co-Op

This top-down indie game contains a unique aesthetic that takes full advantage of its stylized shadows to supply players with a one-of-a-kind challenge. Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine tasks players with pulling off all manner of difficult heists in single-player or, preferably, in online co-op. Monaco: This game is a careful combination of strategy and chaos, and even though it gives players loads of room to be strategic, they are going to need expert teamwork to succeed when playing in online co-op.

Monaco also contains a number of playable classes that improve the gameplay variety and add a level of technique to the sport. This permits players to strategize over team compositions and ensures everyone has a definite role to meet during each heist.

3

Heat Signature

A Clever Combination Of Immersive-Sim And Motion-Stealth

Developed by Suspicious Developments (the studio behind games comparable to Gunpoint and the upcoming Tactical Breach Wizards), Heat Signature is a clever combination of immersive-sim gameplay with action-stealth mechanics and a roguelike structure. This leads to a fast-paced experience with heaps of emergent gameplay that continually gives players decisions to make, and an abundance of tools with which to enact their plans.

Heat Signature puts players within the shoes of several randomly generated characters, each with their very own personal mission to finish. These missions are sometimes difficult, nonetheless, and players will need to collect stronger equipment through breaking into ships and completing side missions. During these missions, players are sometimes outnumbered, so brute-force motion is sort of never the proper strategy to go about things. As an alternative, Heat Signature rewards strategic pondering and cautious stealth, only occasionally giving players the room to let out with high-powered weaponry.

A Seamless Mix Of Motion And Stealth

Arguably improving on the unique in additional ways than one, Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake set the usual for future Metal Gear games by seamlessly mixing motion and stealth, with a deal with the latter.

With a useful mini-map that enables players to plan ahead, and the flexibility to run and conceal from enemies (reasonably than battle it out in a gunfight), Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is a regularly rewarding stealth game that is surprisingly lacking in frustrations despite its age. Nevertheless, a few of the game’s puzzles and trial-and-error design have arguably aged worse than its action-stealth gameplay, making it a game that is best for patient players and existing Metal Gear fans.

1

Intravenous

Gritty, Hyper-Violent Motion-Stealth From A Top-Down Perspective

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2021
• Developer(s): Explosive Squat Games
• Genre: Stealth

Featuring a gritty, albeit cliché narrative centered around a plot for revenge, Intravenous is a dark and hyper-violent action-stealth game with an aesthetic akin to Hotline Miami. Nevertheless, though the character designs, perspective, and motion are similar, Intravenous trades out the brilliant, vivid colours of Hotline Miami for a dark, drab, and shadowy look.

Intravenous rewards slow, methodical players who approach each encounter cautiously. Nevertheless, the sport also features slick top-down shooter mechanics, allowing players to enjoy every probability at a firefight. They’ll approach encounters from an action-focused angle, however the game becomes tremendously difficult if players ignore the old-school stealth mechanics.