Dragon’s Dogma 2 highlights the problem with stealth in many RPGs in the worst possible way…

Dragon’s Dogma 2 also has problems with stealth missions, but it’s not really unique to the game. Over the past few years, we’ve seen thousands of studios try to incorporate stealth missions… without having a system specifically designed for it. See Final Fantasy XV, for example. When Square Enix introduced the RPG to the world, it did so with some missions where you had to hide in the shadows.

Specifically, there was one where we had to sneak into an Imperial base to find the Regalia without being caught, all within a time limit.

The problem? Instead of creating a system designed for this, we could only rely on Noctic’s ranged attacks. Unfortunately, this didn’t work very well, just like it didn’t when you had to sneak during the prologue in The Witcher 2. We pretty much had to try to hide in the dungeons while the La Valette family was in the way.

Dragon’s Dogma 2, RPGs and stealth

Dragon’s Dogma 2 – which is a great game, by the way – has a similar problem. If you’ve tried it, you probably know that one of the first missions in the primary campaign asks you to sneak into the castle at night to get some evidence. Which ones? As I understand that some of you may not have completed this task yet, I would rather not tell you what they are. The point is that you must become one with the darkness…

This could even be an exciting, enjoyable mission – if the stealth system wasn’t so orthopaedic that it’s unbelievable!

DD2 basically asks us to sneak around the castle when there’s really nowhere to hide. We can’t even crouch because we can’t, but the guards’ AI is so bad that it compensates somewhat. So much so that in some cases, even if they saw me, they simply walked past me instead of catching me.

The worst thing is that this happens not only once but several times. We’ll have to break into a prison another time. In theory, we sneak in where we shouldn’t, but the guards don’t notice us and only react when we release a particular prisoner…

It’s really weird that Capcom decided to include stealth missions in an RPG that doesn’t have any mechanics for hiding from others.

The only thing we can do is play with the camera to get unrealistic and fictitious viewpoints where we push the machine to the max to see if someone is in the corridor. Without further ado, this is unnecessary and even annoying.

The thing is, this is not exclusive to Capcom and Dragon’s Dogma 2, either. However, it is relatively common in the industry and especially in RPGs, but we can also see such cases in other works. The question would be… why? If a mechanic was built specifically for such situations, that’s great. But if not, they do more harm than good.

It doesn’t fit, it seems unpredictable, and it even spoils the experience a bit. Fortunately, it’s only temporary. It’s also true that the thief class in DD2 gives us some tools to make these missions feel less weird. Yet it is shocking that there is absolutely nothing in it, even less that the AI reacts so badly. Perhaps it would have been better to find some alternative solution rather than forcing us to do stealth missions where there is no stealth.

Source: GamesRadar