Terrible Stealth Sections Forced Into Otherwise Great Games

Unique stealth gameplay pits gamers against advanced AI as they sneak through corridors, discover secret shortcuts, and dispatch enemies in deadly silence. And while genre-bending titles like The Evil Within and Dishonored have proven that these sneaky mechanics add a whole new dimension to action-oriented games, others have not quite mastered the formula. In fact, there's nothing worse than a tacked-on stealth mission that strips you of your gargantuan guns and forces you to evade a building's worth of armed guards. Let's take a look at the most terrible stealth sections shoehorned into otherwise great video games.

During a visit to his parents' grave, Indigo Prophecy protagonist Lucas recalls his childhood at Wishita Military Base—specifically, that one time he saved all his friends and his brother from being blown to  pieces in a hangar moments before it exploded. After his friends ditched him to play hide and seek in Hangar 4, Lucas had a psychic vision of his pals' collective demise. He quickly realized that only he could save the bunch, and off he went to rescue them from a tragic fate.

Except, it's likely plenty of players never got to the rescuing part, since they probably flung their discs out the window after trying and repeatedly failing this annoying mission. Even just accessing the hangar requires hiding behind the slowest trucks on earth and climbing fences that are almost impossible to scale. Then, when little Lucas finally does make it to the 'bout-to-blow building, it's not even guaranteed that all of his buddies will make it out alive.

David Cage's Indigo Prophecy is an innovative game that proved video game narratives could rival those of Hollywood blockbusters. That said, Quantic Dream's supernatural adventure didn't exactly revolutionize stealth gameplay. Lucas' flashback sections—and their potentially devastating repercussions—are among the most hated forced stealth moments in gaming history.

If there are two things Hotline Miami embraces, it's violence and psychosis. That said, the unnamed protagonist affectionately nicknamed "Jacket" isn't crazy enough to endanger his life by attempting to escape Chapter 12's hospital section by force. Actually, maybe he is that crazy—but the chapter, appropriately named "Trauma," sees him stripped of all weaponry following the murder of his girlfriend and a near-fatal attempt on his life. After his surgery, Jacket overhears a conversation between a nurse and a cop, and he learns that he's a prime suspect in a major case. He also realizes that his only course of action is to flee to his apartment. Doing so, however, means dodging both police officers and doctors by stealthily climbing through windows, hiding behind walls, and evading NPCs' lines of sight.

To add insult to literal injury, scrambling too quickly from room to room momentarily paralyzes Jacket as he holds his head in pain and an ear-splitting screech blares from your speakers. This brief delay often gives the po-po just enough time to spot Jacket, promptly tossing the ruthless ruffian back into his room.

Now, interrupting the flow of gameplay is one thing. But yanking the Uzi out of players' hands, dressing them in a hospital gown, and forcing them to forget everything they knew about a game they've invested hours into is another. All's well that ends well, though, as Jacket's next excursion takes him to the local precinct—where he proceeds to unload round after round into Miami's finest.

For a legendary vampire who can transform into a living mist at will, Dracula—aka Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2's Gabriel Belmont—sure is one noisy guy. On second thought, maybe it's just that he makes enemies out of all-powerful Old Gods like the ram-skulled Agreus, brother of the satyr Pan, who probably has a pretty nifty sense of hearing. 

The confrontation between Gabe and the crazed Agreus, who seeks revenge for the murder of his brother, takes place in a massive garden maze covered in crunchy, dead leaves. It shouldn't be that hard to make a mad dash for the exit, snatch a fragment of the Mirror of Fate, and dispatch the skeletal giant...right? Wrong. 

Apparently, Agreus has been honing his hearing since lapsing into insanity after Pan's death, because stepping on even the smallest patch of leaves sends him chasing after you—and drops you back to the beginning of the maze.

Floating around in your mist form, and strategically leaping, climbing, and sticking close to walls is a surefire way to avoid detection—but good luck finding the gateway out. With twists, turns, and plenty of oh-so-dreaded piles of leaves, you'll probably be turning to a tutorial after your 75th attempt at this unforgiving stealth section.

Speaking of chaos, Ubisoft's insanity-tinged Far Cry 3 is yet another bombastic, blood-soaked game that unceremoniously forces players to play it cool in spite of an implausible arsenal of weaponry that could massacre their enemies in minutes. In the "Doppelganger" mission, protagonist Jason Brody must get close to drug lord and human trafficker Hoyt Volker by disguising himself as a Privateer, a member of Hoyt's loyal mercenary team. To do so, Jason has to sneak into a nearby training base, quietly slaughter one of its recruits, and steal his uniform—without killing or even alerting a single Privateer guard. Instead, players are encouraged to distract the guards by tossing rocks in different directions.

It's a lengthy, aggravating mission that insults its enemies' own AI, poses an artificial challenge to its players, and interrupts the game's otherwise guns-blazin' approach to progress. In fact, some gamers despise Doppelganger so much that they actively seek out exploits to get around it. And when players would rather cheat a stealth mission than suffer through its gameplay, you know the devs did something wrong.

The Game Awards' 2017 Game of the Year, Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece that needs no introduction. Its beautiful art style, impressive open world, and improvisation-encouraging gameplay changed the gaming climate forever...but it suffered one little hiccup along the way: its universally despised Yiga Clan Hideout infiltration mission. Why? Because it's a stealth-based section of a game that doesn't have a cover mechanic. In other words, Breath of the Wild's "sneaking" amounts to crouching behind walls and pressing up against them, which often leads to accidentally climbing them, which gives away your hiding spot to one of the many guards circling the hideout.

There's one sure-fire way to successfully complete this mission, however. Sneaking into the Yiga Clan's HQ requires players to exploit a very specific weakness of the notorious thieves: their obsessive appetite for bananas. Tossing a cluster of nanners in front of an unsuspecting guard beckons them away from their post long enough for Link to slither by. But if you screw up and alert the guard...well, good luck getting out alive. 

Being spotted by a Yiga henchman causes him to blow a whistle, slamming all of the doors shut and summoning his fellow cohorts to take you down—with a one-hit kill to boot. To make matters worse, resurrection items like Mipha's Grace and fairies are disabled in the stronghold, along with checkpoints and the ability to save. In a game that so keen to offer players a number of ways to tackle any challenge—and a number of ways to come back to life on the off-chance they fail—this mandatory forced stealth section is a real bummer.