Ranking the 9 best stealth games

polygon.com:

The stealth genre has grown and morphed since it came to prominence in the late 1990s with Thief. In fact,it may be fair to say that most stealth games now are not fully about stealth — most are immersive-sim-adjacent games that give you the option to be stealthy. How you play through a level, and how you approach every encounter, is up to you.

So, considering that evolution, whittling the best stealth games down to nine entries was no small feat. But we attempted the task nonetheless: The list below is a compilation of games that skew toward the “pure” side of the stealth genre, but it also includes phenomenal examples that allow for open-ended solutions, and it reflects the malleability of one of gaming’s most intense genres.

Thief is the precursor of all stealth games, and Thief 2: The Metal Age is Thief perfected. Developed by Looking Glass Studios and released in 2000, this game sees protagonist Garrett unraveling the conspiracy of a new, shadowy religious order. It set the blueprint for all first-person (and arguably third-person) stealth games to come.

Sneaking past guards, knocking them out with Garrett’s blackjack, killing them with his bow, and exploring the game’s large levels never gets old, even by today’s standards. The level and visual design, while obtuse at times, are in many ways timeless. It still looks downright incredible, but then again, I’m partial to the graphics and visual design of the late 1990s/early 2000s era of PC games. Difficult at almost all times and unforgiving when your stealthy cover is broken, Thief 2: The Metal Age is a stealth game to its very core.

Thief 2: The Metal Ageis available on PC.

Klei Entertainment’s side-scrolling stealth game, Mark of the Ninja, is one of the best