First reported on by Bloomberg (opens in new tab) and still to be confirmed by Ubisoft, Rift apparently began life as yet another expansion for Valhalla, but became a standalone game late last year. It’s said to star Basim, the assassin who first teaches Eivor how to wield a hidden blade, and to be less sprawling than recent entries in the series. For Creedheads of a certain age, that’s a thrilling concept. With a generation’s distance from the franchise fatigue that led Ubisoft to pivot towards Witcher-esque exploration, the idea of returning to busy streets in a cramped city sounds like bliss.

Daylight robbery

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Ranking the best Assassin’s Creed games

Assassin’s Creed is often talked about as a stealth game that, over time, became an RPG – but that’s an oversimplification. In the beginning, going wholly undetected was impossible. While Altaïr’s peers preached subtlety in approach, they never gave him the tools to follow through, leaving him bereft of smoke bombs, poison darts, coin bags, or any of the other gadgets that might have made it viable to distract his enemies. Investigating a target often involved fighting openly in the streets, and crowd-blending was only doable when a scholar’s morning walk happened to converge with your own.

Haystacks and benches? These were means of escape, not of getting in and out unseen. Even if you were to somehow reach a target quietly, a cutscene might be deployed to uncloak you, cueing up a messy chase sequence in the aftermath. Anything to get you back on the rooftops – the only place where the game truly made sense. Of course, 2007’s Assassin’s Creed was a commercial success despite its shortcomings. And in its immediate sequels, Patrice Désilets and team developed novel stealth concepts that better delivered on the fantasy of killing unnoticed. Assassin’s Creed 2 introduced air assassinations, as a way of conferring a covert advantage to players who found a path along the gutters. And it declared that three was a crowd – allowing Ezio a kind of conditional invisibility so long as he could find a few fellow Italians to brush shoulders with.

Most brilliantly, it traded the scholars for prostitutes who, with a small monetary incentive, would surround and cover Ezio as he stalked the streets. A shrewd reimagining of Halo’s shield, this barrier was slowly stripped away as the women peeled off to occupy nearby guards, leaving Ezio all-but naked if alternative shelter wasn’t found. This, finally, was social stealth as Ubisoft had first pitched it.

Over time, more traditional forms of stealth bled into Assassin’s Creed too – ideas crossing the membrane from other nearby Ubisoft games, as they so often do. By the time Unity came out, the cover stealth system that had defined Splinter Cell: Conviction was present and correct – as was the indicator that rendered your last-known-position as a translucent ghost. The influence of Far Cry’s outposts was clear, too, in Black Flag’s plantations – stealth puzzles which required you to study the patrol paths of your opponents, before picking them off in the correct order to evade detection.

Yet Black Flag’s swashbuckling premise ultimately became the turning point for the series – proving the potential for Assassin’s Creed as a broad action-adventure. With Unity launching in a buggy and finicky state, and the audience palpably tired of familiar stealth mission formats, Ubisoft recognised an opportunity – allowing the Black Flag team to double down on RPG action with Origins, and directing its other Assassin’s Creed studios to follow suit.

Infinity and beyond

Ever since, the publisher has distanced itself from the social stealth fantasy it once sold to the public. It must have been a relief to leave behind the unsolved problems of a premise that was, necessarily, fuzzy. Just as all social interaction is opaque and subjective, so too is the stealth derived from it. When is a person hidden in plain sight? What does that look like, exactly? These aren’t questions that naturally lend themselves to the binaries of player-facing game design. Yet, in Ubisoft’s absence, others have moved the form along. IO Interactive has folded Assassin’s Creed 2-style crowd-blending into the toolset of Hitman’s Agent 47 – alongside poisons, overheard conversations, and disguises that act as keycards, allowing access to forbidden areas. The resulting World of Assassination trilogy has shown that social stealth can be both a commercial prospect and critical catnip. Surely, Ubisoft has taken note.

With Rift, it has a chance to capitalize on that appetite – as well as the nostalgia of fans who, by this point, miss the distinct style of the ‘00s Assassin’s Creed games. These are time-poor 30 somethings who would fall over themselves to play a fully featured stealth game with a 20 hour runtime, just the way they used to make ‘em. Unity was already leaning towards Hitman, with main missions that offered various scripted angles of approach, and IO could do with a true competitor to keep it hungry.

If Rift turns out well, then Ubisoft could have a subseries on its hands – which would suit it perfectly. As an enormous global company which handles development internally, one of its biggest problems is ensuring every team has something to work on. Rather than continuing to oversaturate the likes of Valhalla with samey expansions, it could dedicate some of its workforce to a parallel vision of the Creed. If the mysterious online service Assassin’s Creed Infinity will indeed tackle more than one historical setting simultaneously, as Bloomberg has reported, then surely it can encompass more than one genre too. That way, Ubisoft can more easily avoid the repetition that forced Assassin’s Creed’s developers to abandon social stealth in the first place. 

“Have you forgotten the meaning of subtlety?”, Jerusalem bureau head Malik once asked Altaïr. Rift is Ubisoft’s chance to prove that it has not.

The best stealth games will keep you concealed in the shadows. 

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Meanwhile, a second player with a sniper rifle occupies a roof across the street, with a single task: they must pick out the spy in the crowd and take the shot. But they need to be sure of their target because they have just a single bullet. For the sniper, the game is about reading social cues, spotting a strange gesture or conversation cut short and mentally building the case against a suspect.

Crowd cover

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It’s a design that tends to quickly woo those who hear about it: easy to grasp, yet dense with possibilities. SimCity creator and industry mentor Wright, however, isn’t on board. “It’s gonna be too easy to tell who the player is,” he concludes. As it turns out, Spore will be a grand lesson for Wright in what works and what doesn’t. But the assessment his game receives gives Hecker pause. “When game design genius Will Wright tells you that your game’s not gonna work, you’re like, ‘Ah, shit,'” he remembers. 

Ironically, it was Wright and EA who had enabled Hecker’s experiment in the first place. Hecker negotiated the use of assets from The Sims, Wright’s breakout paean to domesticity, in the 2005 Indie Game Jam. Then in its fourth year – and still a few more away from the indie boom that would be triggered by regular participant Jonathan Blow – the event challenged participating designer-programmers to explore human interaction. “Some of us organisers thought, well, there aren’t a lot of games about normal people,” Hecker says. “People in the world – not space marines.”

If that’s true today, it was considerably more so at the time. Entrants had few examples to draw from. But Hecker recalled a previous Indie Jam entry, Thatcher Ulrich’s Dueling Machine, in which a Doom avatar with a single bullet hunted a target player hidden by thousands of sprite pedestrians. “What’s the intimate version of that?” he wondered. Among the selection of NPCs that The Sims could muster, one differently modelled character would be immediately distinguishable. But if that character was physically anonymous, dressed like any other guest, a searcher would have to rely on subtler tells. 

“I got a room full of characters walking around,” Hecker says. “They would pause, play a talk animation to each other and then walk away. Really simple – no missions, no nothing. And I put one of them under my control. He recorded a video and sent it to Wright as a kind of digital Where’s Wally? test. It was a success. Wright couldn’t pick out the player. As soon as I came up with the spy and the sniper, the game basically designed itself,” Hecker says. That was true up to a point: a decade and a half later, he is still designing the game, developing an evolving build in public. Now called SpyParty, it has inspired a new multiplayer genre, a crowd into which it easily blends. In these games, stealth happens in the daylight, as targets brazenly attempt to pull the wool over their predators’ watching eyes. It’s taken over a decade to rise to prominence, a period during which the mainstream game industry embraced the trend and then abandoned it.

Out of the shadows

Back in 2005, just as Hecker was happening upon the project of his career, triple-A developers around the world were searching for next-gen concepts that would sell their games on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Ubisoft found its million-dollar idea in crowds – masses of on-screen NPCs fuelled by the bonus RAM of new hardware. 

“We’re going to show off something that we call social stealth,” then-Ubisoft executive producer Jade Raymond said when introducing Assassin’s Creed at E3 2006, coining a term in the process. “This is an idea that you’re not hidden when you’re in shadows, you’re hidden when you’re doing things that are socially acceptable.” There was a truth there, certainly more than the stealth genre’s traditional focus on light and shadow. With that mechanic seeming dated by its association with the ’90s, blending in with crowds seemed like the future – and for a few years, it was. 

Assassin’s Creed was a hit, and by the time of its second sequel, Brotherhood, Ubisoft introduced a multiplayer variant to the mix. Hecker was beginning to sweat. “It was in closed beta after I had announced SpyParty, and I was a little bit nervous,” he says. “I was like, ‘Oh, man, everybody’s really catching on to this. I’m just this tiny little indie game’.” He needn’t have worried too much, as it turned out. Though it certainly belonged to the same crowd, Assassin’s Creed’s multiplayer wasn’t quite shoulder-to-shoulder with SpyParty. Its design was symmetrical, each assassin tailing one player while evading another, an ouroboros of disguises and hidden blades. And while elegant, it was fundamentally flawed. 

“The designers couldn’t make the [social] tells really subtle, because you as a hunter are constantly having to watch your back,” Hecker notes. “You couldn’t spend that much time looking around.” The problem went unaddressed in subsequent iterations, and when Ubisoft dropped competitive multiplayer from the series, few complained.

Before long, social stealth started to die out in Ubisoft’s single-player games too. The Assassin’s Creed missions that foregrounded blending into crowds, asking you to tail targets through cities and eavesdrop on their conversations, were a persistent source of complaints from players who found such sequences contrived and fiddly. Today, the series has almost entirely stripped out social stealth mechanics in favour of hiding behind cover or stepping out into open combat. A planned crowd-blending reboot of Splinter Cell was similarly scrapped, and more recently Watch Dogs: Legion launched without the PvP invasion mode of previous instalments. 

“No one at the triple-A level has worked out how to make this genre work as something you can put 100 people on,” Hecker says. Square Enix appeared to agree when it dropped Hitman developer IO Interactive from its studio roster in 2017, swallowing a loss of $43 million in the process. Hitman had been critically acclaimed for its use of player disguise in busy environments, but Square Enix said it preferred to focus on “key franchises”, which could “maximise player satisfaction as well as market potential”. In other words, for a major publisher, social stealth simply wasn’t bankable enough.

In plain sight

Having sold the public on its potential but failed to work out the kinks, the mainstream industry left social stealth to the indies, right at a time when self-publishing had become feasible and affordable. A hobbyist named Adam Spragg read about SpyParty and was inspired, before actually trying it himself, to make his own game about players mingling with NPCs. The result was Hidden In Plain Sight, which he paid $99 to publish on the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace. It was a shrewd investment: the game’s sustained success since has funded a slew of ports, most recently to Switch, where it arrived this March. “After playing SpyParty, I was relieved to find the games are nothing alike,” Spragg says. “There is plenty of room for both games and more to exist in this genre.” 

Hidden In Plain Sight floods the screen with identical ninjas, almost all of whom stride aimlessly about a large hall in accordance with their basic AI. Up to four of those ninjas are players – though which is initially a mystery even to the players themselves, who must first identify their own avatars amid the herd. That done, their goal is to find and kill their fellows by analysing movement patterns.

It’s easy for players to mimic the predictable perambulation of the NPCs, so Spragg added potential win states that would tempt them to deviate from accepted behaviour: touching statues and picking up coins. “They want to do two opposite things at the same time,” he says. “I think it is exactly this tension, and its resolution, that makes the game fun.” 

In one mode, Death Race, players become spy and sniper at the same time, creeping towards a finish line with one hand while aiming a crosshair with the other. Separating from the NPC flock too early is suspicious and risks drawing bullets – but wait too long, and players will miss their opportunity. 

“People quickly discover the ‘put the gun sight on my own character’ bluff,” Spragg says. “The games tend to last longer and longer as players gain experience because people learn to reserve their shot until it really matters. This leads to a large crowd just inches from the finish line, waiting to not be the first one to run for it.” It’s messier than SpyParty, less nuanced – but, crucially, it’s funny. The genius of Hidden In Plain Sight was to turn the social stealth game social. 

“Once I had a working version of the game, I lugged my Xbox 360 to a friend’s holiday party to see if I could get them to help me test it once the party was over,” Spragg recalls. “Watching them play, I had this wonderful moment of realisation that they weren’t just humouring me. I left ‘early’ at 1am, but they wouldn’t let me take my Xbox home.” The game was tense enough to engender competition, but silly enough to keep things light. 

Spragg committed to local multiplayer only, making Hidden In Plain Sight a party game by design. “You are hiding from a person who’s literally sitting right next to you,” he says. “It took me a while to realise it, but what I finally discovered is that the fun of the game actually takes place in the physical space of the room, in the air between the players. The stuff on the screen just facilitates that interaction.” 

Despite the tendencies of the games it has inspired, SpyParty itself isn’t a party game. It accommodates just two players, and has a tendency to become deeply competitive. 

“I was really into Counter-Strike, and I knew I wanted a high- player-skill game,” Hecker says. Spies are given a range of actions to get to grips with, and snipers an equal number to keep track of. Hecker has even identified ‘types’ of top snipers: behaviourists, the ‘voodoo’ killers who rely on a sense of the uncanny emanating from their target; campers, who keep their scope trained on the ambassador and the statues, the parts of the map that offer hard tells; and etiquette snipers, who specialise in identifying breaks in the flow of natural conversation. “It’s really small stuff that changes all the time as I update the code, so these people have to constantly spelunk for new etiquette tells.” SpyParty’s depth lends itself to tournaments and leagues – the kind of cultures that attract hardcore players and put off those looking for casual, social matchups. 

There is, however, a social ‘fuzziness’ naturally inherent to SpyParty that Hecker has learned to lean into more over the years. “I thought I was making Go,” he says, “a crystalline, full-knowledge strategy game. And it turned out the game I was actually making was poker. It’s all about probabilities and suspicion, bluffing and figuring out how much you know. A big part of game design is listening to the game, and you’ve got to follow.” 

SpyParty may not lend itself to gatherings, then, but it does reflect social interaction in a real way. Conversation, after all, is a game in which you read another person to try to discern their intent – attempting to divine sense from words and gestures that could mean any number of things depending on their context. SpyParty is much the same. “You make a model of what’s happening,” Hecker says, “and then you do your post-game analysis.” It’s the same ruthless self-admonishment that takes place in our brain the moment we step into the shower after a party.

The mask slips

At the fuzziest end of the social stealth spectrum is Among Us, a spaceship horror game that doesn’t so much map social interaction to mechanics as step out of the way and let conversation take over. Mic chat opens up in emergency crew meetings, during which players accuse each other of murder, or cover up their own by bluffing, deflecting and framing others. 

Belonging to a long history of ‘hidden killer’ parlour games stretching back to the ’80s, Among Us was released to little fanfare in 2018. The game rose to pop-cultural prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic precisely because of its social aspect. Its success ensures a high-profile future for social deduction as raucous party entertainment. 

What games like Among Us lack, though, is the idiot robot: a limited AI that players must mimic in order to blend in. It’s the NPCs, social stealth developers have discovered, that give players a dance to learn – and consequently, a sense of mastery when they get it right. In Unspottable, a multiplayer crowd blending game from French-British indie studio GrosChevaux, the NPCs are explicitly characterised as automata – metal humans that move in jerky, erratic patterns. 

“Their behaviour is a bit different from map to map and always slightly randomised,” says GrosChevaux co-founder Gwé Limpalaer. “Pushing the players to do silly things like running against walls or spinning in circles was an opportunity we could not miss.” It’s the kind of NPC activity that would break the illusion in a big-budget single-player game such as Assassin’s Creed. “[Their] AI needs to be very smart, varied,act and react as crowds and be able to surprise players in some ways,” Limpalaer says. But in an online game, flawed or clumsy AI is ripe for comedy – making social stealth viable for indies who can’t spend years perfecting patrol behaviour. 

What’s more, PvP circumvents the frustration players feel when they’ve been unfairly spotted, since all the spotting is carried out by human beings. “Disguise and cover in a singleplayer game is really just smoke and mirrors,” Spragg says. “The game code obviously knows exactly where you are at any moment. In a multiplayer stealth game, the stealth is real.”

Stealth games, social or otherwise, have always thrived on the David-and-Goliath sense of a wily underdog running rings around a better-armed opponent. And in multiplayer, that sense is amplified – even if, as in SpyParty, the difference is just one bullet. Outsmarting a real person taps into something fundamental and thrilling. “It’s got this frisson, this deeper, lizard brain, visceral component to it,” Hecker says. 

“You are competitive with someone you are otherwise friendly with,” Spragg adds. “Humans are social creatures and have evolved with cooperation and competitiveness as critical traits. So there is something deeply primal at play that just doesn’t exist when playing against a computer.” Hecker, who has remained a constant in the social stealth genre while its fortunes have waxed and waned, suspects that it may be cyclical. “There’s always [social deduction card game] Werewolf,” he says. “It gets really big for a while, and then fades away as everyone moves on to the next thing, and then it comes back. That’s part of what happened with Among Us – it was just time for another Werewolf.” 

A big-budget social stealth resurgence may be on the cards. Ubisoft has promised an invasion mode update to Watch Dogs: Legion, albeit reluctantly – it appears to be at the bottom of the dev team’s priority pile. And IO Interactive has flourished as an independent. Hitman’s recent iterations even have a crowd- blending mechanic identical to that of Assassin’s Creed Unity, in tacit recognition of Ubisoft’s achievements in social stealth.

The publisher may be eyeing Hitman 3’s celebrated release and wondering whether it shouldn’t have another go after all. Hecker might even have a solution to social stealth’s singleplayer AI problem. If you log into SpyParty and click the new Daily Challenge button, you can play against a previously recorded spy. “You’re playing as the sniper from the past,” Hecker says, “anywhere from a week ago to three years ago. The one flaw is that there’s no feedback between sniper and spy – that [recorded] spy can’t know where your laser sight is and change their behaviour. But it actually works amazingly well, and you can get a great game that way.” 

Hecker’s social stealth game – the one that started a slowburn multiplayer revolution – has finally and unexpectedly taken the genre back to solo play, albeit in an unconventional form. “What I can do is feed you a replay at exactly your skill level instantly if there’s a lull in matchmaking, because I’ve got 2.5 million replays in my database,” he says. “It’s a huge timesaver, because I don’t have to have a spy AI now.” His only dilemma is whether or not to tell players. “Social stealth doesn’t require another person. But if you know you’re playing against a replay, you feel a little bit different.” 

We can attest to that. Playing in daily challenge matches, we get the same stomach-tingling sensation of being out of the loop, looking in, straining not to miss a crucial detail. It’s a feeling akin to walking into a party late and trying to catch up with the conversation. But the frisson of besting a live opponent vanishes. “That word, ‘social’, has interesting psychological ramifications,” Hecker admits. 

Whether it’s driven by AI or repurposed player data, the best social stealth is never going to be solely simulation. The genre comes to life when it invites the gaze of a second human being, or a third, or even a fourth. If triple-A developers want to embrace social stealth once more, they’d be wise to follow the example of the indies, and make room for the electricity that enters the room alongside another person. Even if that room happens to be a multiplayer lobby masquerading as a crowded dinner party.

This feature first appeared in issue #358 of Edge Magazine. For more great articles like this one, check out all of Edge’s subscription offers at Magazines Direct (opens in new tab).

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Hitman 3 Mission Stories: Dubai – On Top Of The World

Two of the Providence Partners, Carl Ingram and Marcus Stuyvesant, are at the top of the Burj Al-Ghazali skyscraper towering over the Dubai desert. Carl Ingram is holed up in the rooftop penthouse suite, while Marcus Stuyvesant is admiring the “Accumulus” art installation below.

How The Mighty Fall

Approach the terminals in the upper right corner of the Level 0 Atrium, and interact with the highlighted unit to start this Mission Story. Head to the entrance to the Staff Area in the lower left corner of Level 0, where Grey should help you by accessing the security camera to reveal 4706 as the door code, which you’ll need to enter manually. Once inside, you’ll need to follow the instructions to reach the Level 3 Server Room, then obtain the key card from a nearby maintenance worker. Back in the Server Room, look for the server rack with a different display above and sabotage it to get admin privileges, then update the schedule. Grab a nearby Penthouse Guard’s disguise, then head up to the Lounge to secure both targets inside.

Bird Of Prey

Go up to the Level 1 Garden area, where you’ll find assassin Zana “The Vulture” Kazem being refused access to a secure area. Follow him into the Garden, and he’ll soon walk off to a secluded area where you can subdue him, take The Assassin disguise, then hide his body in the bushes – don’t take any of his weapons as you need to return to the secure area and pass a frisk. The assistant will lead you to a meeting with Carl Ingram, who will ask you to take out reporter Hans Lucht.

Head back to the Atrium and locate Hans Lucht, then use the Escort prompt to have him follow you. Lead him to a quiet spot – there are several bathrooms off the Atrium with private stalls – then knock him out and take a photo with your camera. Deliver the picture to the assistant, then follow her to the penthouse to meet Ingram again.

(In)Security

Make your way up to Level 2 via the stairs to the left of the Black Gold Bar on Level 1, and at the Security Room you’ll overhear a conversation about Marcus Stuyvesan’s replacement bodyguard, who you need to locate. Although the marker then highlights the door by the Level 1 Black Gold Bar to access the staff area, you can also use the Level 0 entrance from How The Mighty Fall with code 4706. Once inside, grab an Event Security disguise – there’s one in the laundry room off the staff area stairwell on Level 1 – then find the changing room inside the kitchen on Level 0.

After a humorous exchange with the boxers-clad new recruit, swipe his Transfer Papers from the bench then report to the Security Room on Level 2. Meet Marcus Stuyvesan then follow him out to the balcony, before hitting the four moving targets with throwing knives. This will complete the Mission Story, and once the other guard is dismissed you’ll immediately have the opportunity to push Marcus Stuyvesan off the side of the building.

Dubai – On Top of the World: Other Assassination Opportunities

These are the other location-specific Assassination challenges you can complete in Dubai:

• Pick Your Poison: Eliminate Carl Ingram by making him eat poisoned food.
• Vertical Approach: Eliminate Marcus Stuyvesant by pushing, dumping or pulling him over a ledge or railing.
• Angry Birdy: Eliminate Carl Ingram by making him strike a Hitman 3 explosive golf ball.
• Black Gold Eye: Eliminate Carl Ingram by impaling him on his oil-rig model in his office.
• Impactful Art: Eliminate both targets with a single chandelier.
• Mile High Drop: Eliminate each target while they are in the air parachuting.
• Conserving Ammunition: Eliminate both targets with a single bullet using a sniper rifle.
• Steep Task: Eliminate Carl Ingram by pushing, dumping or pulling him over a ledge or railing.
• Icarus: Electrocute Marcus Stuyvesant using the sun at the art installation.

Hitman 3 Mission Stories: Dartmoor – Death In The Family

After the recent announcement of Alexa Carlisle’s death, the most senior Providence Partner has shocked her family by returning to the ancestral home of Thornbridge Manor in a very much alive condition. The same can’t be said for younger brother Zachary, who was found dead in his bed after many years of living as a recluse at the mansion.

Means, Motive And Opportunity

For this Mission Story you’ll need to become a Private Investigator and solve the mystery at Thornbridge Manor. The process is quite involved, so we have a complete Hitman 3 Death In The Family Clues walkthrough to guide you through every stage of it.

A Day To Remember

Head to the Garden in the upper area of the map, where you’ll find the Photographer setting up a family photo. To get started you need to disguise yourself as the Photographer, but as he walks in a loop around the area past a storage crate it isn’t difficult to take him out and dump the body. Next you need to grab a fuse cell, and although the marker directs you to one you’ll need a crowbar to access it – you can get a crowbar from outside the kitchen on the right side of the map, or behind the Greenhouse at the top of the map. With the fuse in hand, install it in the other fuse box in the Garden then take a photograph of the staff member.

That completes the Mission Story, but to wrap things up you can wait until the staff member moves to summon the family members, grab the screwdriver from the bench to the side with blue boxes on top then expose the wire behind the chair in front of the camera. Next, grab the wrench from the opposite side of the fountain then use it to open the water valve on the side and create a leak. Wait for the family to assemble in position, then use the camera to take the photograph and electrocute Alexa Carlisle.

Her Final Resting Place

Go to the Graveyard on the left side of the map, where you’ll overhear a maid talking about the funeral arrangements. First order of business is to get rid of the graveyard birds, which you can do by shooting the three nests in the trees they are circling. Try and do this with a silenced weapon from a distance to avoid raising suspicion, though if any shots are heard then hide in the bushes until the search ends. You’ll now have a brief window to disguise yourself as the Undertaker, before Alexa Carlisle arrives on the scene for a tour. Either way, the Mission Story is complete when your target reaches the graveyard.

Dartmoor – Death in the Family: Other Assassination Opportunities

These are the other location-specific Assassination challenges you can complete in Dartmoor:

• Another Death in the Family: – Allow Emma to poison Alexa after you discover her in the Greenhouse as the Private Investigator.
• One for the Ages: Electrocute Alexa Carlisle during the photo shoot.
• I Find This Amoosing: – Drop the huge antler chandelier hanging over the Foyer on Alexa by shooting the support as she walks underneath.
• Grave Mistake: Put Alexa Carlisle to rest.
• Keep Calm and Aim: Eliminate Alexa Carlisle with a sniper rifle from the roof of the mansion.
• Sweet Dreams: Eliminate Alexa Carlisle in her private room.

Hitman 3 Mission Stories: Berlin – Apex Predator

After following a lead to meet Olivia Hall, Agent 47 is left on his own to handle five ICA Agents who are hunting him down around the remote Club Holle nightclub and connected biker hideout. As he has no handler present, there are no Mission Stories to complete during Apex Predator.

Berlin – Apex Predator: Other Assassination Opportunities

These are the location-specific Assassination challenges you can complete in Berlin:

• Suck a Bag of Bricks: Eliminate a target with a bag of bricks.
• Waaagh!: Eliminate a target with the scrap sword.
• Crane Trauma: Eliminate Agent Thames by setting up a crane accident.
• How the Turntables: Eliminate Agent Montgomery and Agent Banner in the light show grand finale.
• Drive It Home: Eliminate ICA agents as they evacuate the area.
• Rule of Threes: Eliminate 3 agents from the radio tower using a sniper rifle.
• The 47th Trick in the Book: Eliminate Agent Tremaine with his own rifle.

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Tom Henderson, who previously shared a number of details about Battlefield 2042 ahead of its official announcement among numerous other leaks, briefly touched on the future of the Splinter Cell franchise. Rumors from October claimed that a new Splinter Cell was in early production at Ubisoft, but they didn’t include any more details about the game beyond it being a new mainline entry in the series. 

Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell game that is in early development is currently scoped as a… You guessed it… Open World of sorts.”A more stealthy version of Assassin’s Creed””Similar to how Halo Infinite has done its Open World” pic.twitter.com/eqSzRplhu5December 8, 2021

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Henderson specifically refers to the Splinter Cell as being “in early development,” so he’s likely talking about the same thing. He says it will be an “open world of sorts” and cites a few anonymous quotes, presumably from people who are close to the project, who compare the new Splinter Cell project to a stealthier version of Assassin’s Creed or similar to Halo Infinite’s own open-world approach.

While series protagonist Sam Fisher has continued to appear in spinoff games or via cameos in other Tom Clancy’s titles from Ubisoft, the last main entry in the franchise was 2013’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist. That game took the franchise in a more action-heavy direction, which was controversial at the time, and online servers for its multiplayer mode are largely broken at this point (though you definitely won’t be banned for sending in support tickets about them).

If you’re from Ubisoft and are reading this, might we recommend our guides to the best stealth games and the best open world games to give you some extra inspiration?

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As announced earlier today through the official Konami website (opens in new tab), the servers for Metal Gear Solid 5 on PS3 and Xbox 360 will be shut down over the course of a few months. The first stage of the servers being shut down actually begins right now, as players on both PS3 and Xbox 360 are unable to make in-game purchases in Metal Gear Solid 5.

The next stage rolls out on November 30, when Metal Gear Online will be taken down from storefronts on PS3 and Xbox 360. Metal Gear Online was the standalone multiplayer component for Metal Gear Solid 5, which launched a few months after the game first debuted in September 2015.

The third phase for this process is Metal Gear Solid 5 being wholly removed from PS3 and Xbox 360 storefronts next year on March 1, 2022. Then, finally, servers for existing players on both platforms will be terminated on May 31, 2022, bringing the curtain down on both Metal Gear Solid 5 and Metal Gear Online on both platforms.

Goodnight, sweet prince. Reflecting back on things, it’s sometimes strange to remember that Konami actually managed to get Metal Gear Solid 5 working on both the PS3 and Xbox 360, considering it’s a massive semi-open-world game with a slate of intangible systems working off one another at any given time. If you want one last marvel at that old-gen technology, there’s plenty of time for existing players to enjoy Metal Gear Solid 5 and Metal Gear Online until May 2022, and servers for more modern consoles will remain available for now.

If Metal Gear Solid ever does return, under Konami or anyone else, here’s our Metal Gear Solid 6 wishlist detailing everything we’d love to see if the series returns.

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The expansion includes a new Escalation mission called The Gluttony Gobble, as well as the flashy Profligacy Suit, the equally glitzy Maximalist Shotgun, and the ‘Bubble Queen’ Gum pack. All that will be available when the Gluttony DLC launches on Tuesday, August 31. You can buy the Gluttony DLC individually for $4.99 or upgrade to the complete Seven Deadly Sins collection for $30 and gain access to all past, current, and future DLCs.

The upcoming Season of Gluttony is the fifth expansion in Hitman 3’s Seven Deadly Sins series, with two more to come at unknown dates. The collection kicked off with Hitman 3’s Season of Greed DLC, which was followed by Season of Pride, Season of Sloth, and then Season of Lust most recently. Each little expansion has included various new suits, weapons, and missions themed around, you guessed it, the seven deadly sins. IO Interactive calls each DLC a “season” as they continue to release new content in the weeks following launch, so expect to see more Gluttony-themed additions in the near future.

IO Interactive hasn’t announced the next DLC in the Seven Deadly Sins collection yet, but by process of elimination we can safely confirm it’ll be titled either Wrath or Envy.

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The open-world RPG Cyberpunk 2077 has finally returned to the PlayStation Store on PS4 and PS5, with an announcement (opens in new tab) from developer CD Projekt Red. Those that purchase the game on PS4 will also be able to play it on PS5 through backward compatibility. The PS5 upgrade will be coming in the near future and will be free to players that own the PS4 version, be that digitally or physically.

Despite Cyberpunk 2077 returning to the store, PlayStation has officially advised players (opens in new tab) that “Work on the PS4 version continues,” and that for the best experience, players should play the game on PS4 Pro or PS5. In the press release from CD Projekt Red, it’s also noted that “users may continue to experience some performance issues with the PS4 edition,” and highlights that it’s working to improve stability across all platforms.

Cyberpunk 2077 is now available at PlayStation Store. Work on the PS4 version continues, with fixes and updates to be released throughout the year: https://t.co/XWCfOEQrLS For the best experience on PlayStation, playing on PS4 Pro or PS5 consoles is recommended.June 21, 2021

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The game’s return to the store was speculated last week when it became available to wishlist. Shortly after, it was confirmed to be returning by Sony who said that “users will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4”.

Cyberpunk 2077 returning to the PlayStation Store has been months in the works. When the game launched last year, it was ripe with bugs and performance issues to the point that Sony removed the game from its digital storefront, with no roadmap for its return, refunding players who were dissatisfied with their experience. 

Over the last few months, CD Projekt Red has been clear that the game’s return would be up to Sony, and the studio has been pushing regular updates to improve the game somewhat. It looks like those efforts have finally been enough to bring the game back. For the future of Cyberpunk 2077, in addition to planned updates and free DLC, a new game director is jumping on board to focus on the planned future expansions

Want to treat your PlayStation? Have a look at our Prime Day PS5 deals for the best offerings from Amazon’s big sale.

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The tower’s verticality looms large over Gollum’s small stature as he begins to jump across ledges and avoid being detected by roaming orcs patrolling the area. Gollum is certainly a very interesting and complex character in The Lord of the Rings, but when I think about a game set in Middle-earth, he isn’t admittedly the first character I’d jump at the chance to play as. However, after seeing how the team at Dadelic has brought the character to life – using his personality and attributes to create a blend of parkouring and stealth-based gameplay – I’ve already warmed to the idea of experiencing Tolkien’s world from Gollum’s perspective.  

Up on high  

The demo I saw was from an earlier build of the game (meaning that there are still improvements and refinements to come), but it still gives me insight into just what you can do as Gollum and how his unique skill set comes into play in this adventure. As someone who has lived for hundreds of years, he’s become an experienced freestyle climber who can nimbly jump from ledges, swing from poles, and leap with ease. You have a stamina bar which dictates how long you can hang from a certain spot, for example; any action Gollum can take that requires force will use up his stamina gauge. 

At one point during the demo, Gollum is spotted by an Orc who begins to follow him. Since our protagonist is no match for a larger foe, we see how Gollum can also use the environment to lose his pursuer – by hanging from a wall, he’s able to hide from sight, and the orc eventually gives up the chase. Gollum also uses his climbing prowess to navigate through the tower and reach high vantage points, letting him discern the whereabouts of Orcs and take in the vistas of the level. 

Dark, smoky, and sprawling: the famous Barad-Dur tower in Mordor really is a sight to behold. It has an imposing height and size that really impresses upon you just how small Gollum is and how much danger you’re really in when existing in this space. Daedalic designed the level with pillars and decorations that draw from Tolkein’s vision and evoke the steep heights of the location; I can already see myself spending a lot of time up on high just soaking up the spectacle of it all. 

With its impressive sense of depth and scale, exploration is an important part of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, with several approaches and routes you can take to reach your goal. As I follow Gollum through the tower, I quickly get a sense for the kind of freedom you have when deciding how you want to reach the gate, with routes that are more parkour orientated and paths that require you to be stealthy. Thanks to our protagonist’s nimbleness and small size, he can also get through crevices and tight spots that enemies can’t reach, which can also be used to your advantage. With different avenues to choose from, you can play to your strengths and preferred playstyle, and it also adds an appealing replayability factor since you can try and get through each level in various ways. 

Stick to the shadows  

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Climbing isn’t the only strength Gollum has. He can also use his keen senses to navigate through the darkness and feel sounds, which allows for stealthy tactics. As well as hanging from a ledge to hide when spotted by a patrolling enemy, there are also other ways to use the environment to your advantage – in order to get the upper hand on your foes, you’ll need to pay attention to the lighting around you. 

At one stage, Gollum has to get past a well-guarded area as he tries to reach the gate. Thanks to his aptitude for seeing in the dark, he can use the shadows and unlit spaces to get around enemies undetected. Since he can’t hope to win in a fight against an Orc by charging in head-on, you’re also able to take out enemies from behind. As you venture through a level, you may also encounter items you can use to cause a distraction if you’re in a particularly tricky spot. 

Being stealthy is crucial if you want to get through unscathed, and sound plays just as vital a part in your success as light. Everything Gollum does creates noise, from movements to actions, and you have to be ever mindful of what you’re doing when foes are nearby. Enemies have a sound gauge that represents how alert they are to your presence as you try to inch past Orcs and get around obstacles. If you make too much noise and you happen to be detected, the enemy NPCs will also alert each other, which ups the chances of getting caught or being attacked. 

Two sides  

Outside of stealthy approaches and climbing, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum also looks set to explore his split personality. As a brief glimpse in the demo shows, there are certain situations that ask you to decide whether you want to lean into the harsher Gollum side, or the gentle Smeagol side of our protagonist. It’s interesting to see one of the most famous scenes from The Two Towers (opens in new tab) explored through a game mechanic in this way. 

As the game is still in active production, Daedelic notes that the mechanics of this system are subject to change in the final version. Regardless, it does present a compelling side to the game that lets you make choices that will have consequences further down the line. As an example, should you choose a response that’s more in keeping with Smeagol’s personality, it may close you off to certain choices later on that will only be available to Gollum, and vice versa. 

What I find most interesting, though, is the moment Gollum expresses concern for the safety of another character called Grashneg. During your journey, you will sometimes encounter others who will join forces with you during a level and help you progress in different ways. Grashneg is able to help you through obstacles you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get past – by using his strength to break through them – and, in return, Gollum can use his ability to navigate through the darkness to help Grashneg to safety. For just a brief moment, there’s a softer side to Gollum that shines through, and I’m interested to see which other characters we’ll meet.

At the end of the session, Gollum finally sees daylight after emerging from the tower, and Mount Doom can be seen looming on the horizon. The Lord of Rings: Gollum will take us beyond Mordor to places like the land of elves, with a diverse range of different levels and beautiful vistas, and other well-known characters are also said to make an appearance. As a big fan of The Lord of the Rings, I’m already drawn to exploring Middle-earth. While Gollum certainly isn’t the first character I’d necessarily choose to do just that, after finally seeing how his unique personality and skills will play into the adventure, I’m excited to experience Tolkien’s world from his perspective and maybe even see new sides to his character. 

This new look at The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was revealed as part of the Future Games Show – Spring Showcase. It’s expected to launch in 2022 for PC and next-gen consoles.

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