Whether it’s Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed, Thief, or any other genre titan, stealth games all suffer owing to the same paradox – a tension between what they’re meant to be in theory versus what they actually are in practice. You’re the world’s greatest secret agent. You’re a superhuman hitman. With instinct, intellect, athleticism, and cutting-edge equipment, you can infiltrate even the most securely guarded enemy bases, complete your objectives, and get back out without anybody knowing you were there. That’s the pretence. The reality is an abortive clash of trial and error. You quick save. You try something. The alarm goes off. You get killed. You quick load. You try something else. The alarm goes off. And so on.

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