开发者谈值得学习的7个优秀潜行游戏设计案例

原作者：Richard Moss 译者：Vivian Xue

在周围个体察觉不到的情况下——趁人不注意、或者至少别人看不见你时行动是一门艺术，特别是在游戏里，当其他角色的设定是四处寻找可疑的迹象时。但潜行游戏的敌人和关卡设计时常很糟糕或者死板，带给人们的更多是失望而非惊喜。

无论是在一款潜行游戏里，还是在射击或动作冒险游戏里增添潜行内容来换换口味，设计出优秀的潜行体验需要新意、技巧和耐心，很难把握准尺度，但幸运的是我们拥有许多可供借鉴的优秀范例。

我们联系了四位爱好潜行游戏的设计师，向他们了解值得人们学习的潜行游戏设计，我们由此获得了以下七个建议。

1. 《杀出重围：人类分裂》（Deus Ex: Mankind Divided）—派对潜行

游戏《野火》（Wildfire）的设计师、潜行游戏观察评论网站“Sneaky Bastards”的编辑丹·海因兹（Dan Hindes）认为《杀出重围：人类分裂》的收尾部分是一大亮点。“通常上，潜行游戏要求你渗入一个充满敌意/守卫森严的区域并把敌人一个个干掉，且不引起察觉，”他说。但在《杀出重围》的关卡中，玩家处于一个“中立”的区域：玩家和敌人是一场豪华派对中的客人，而玩家的目标是在不引起服务生、安保或其他宾客注意的条件下干掉敌人。

“当敌人可能潜伏在一名普通派对来宾的身边时，会使人感到紧张、兴奋，” 海因兹说。“你将需要把客人引走，然后在几秒钟内干掉敌人，在客人回来续杯前把失去知觉的敌人藏到香槟酒桌下面，然后若无其事地离开。或者你会利用电磁脉冲干扰摄像头，在几秒钟内击倒敌人，然后在摄像头恢复工作前将敌人拖离监控区域。这些就像《碟中谍》电影片段一样。”

Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution(from pcgamer.com)

更棒的是，游戏中还有一些区域比如厨房和后台——这些区域是诱导敌人上钩的绝佳地点，同时又充满了风险，因为周围的守卫格外森严。游戏通过简单地调整场景设定，使传统的潜行机制和动作变得新鲜和令人兴奋。

设计建议：新奇的场景和全新的故事背景能让陈旧老套的玩法焕然一新，没有什么比在大庭广众之下完成潜行任务更酷炫的事了。

2. 《蝙蝠侠：阿甘之城》（Batman: Arkham City）—大战冰冻先生

Boss战是游戏设计中的难点，但《蝙蝠侠：阿甘之城》中蝙蝠侠与冰冻先生的大战堪称大师级设计。对战过程是一场相互博弈的猫鼠游戏，玩家在被追杀的同时需要思考如何利用周遭环境潜行击杀Boss。“作为玩家，能够扭转局势打倒那个过分自信的混球感觉真的很棒。”游戏《荒神》（Aragami）的开发工作室Lince Works的主管David León说道，

“潜行游戏中的Boss战尤难设计，因为潜行类游戏的意义在于避免正面对抗并寻找一种隐蔽/间接的方式完成挑战。” 但在这个关卡中，开发者找到了一种方法，沿用游戏全程潜行机制并将它们调整为一个对抗更强大敌人的高风险1V1战斗。与之类似的还有《合金装备5》“地狱边界”关卡的最后阶段——Snake带着叛徒躲避强大、可怕的敌人。

设计建议：最佳的潜行Boss战均关于玩家扭转局势战胜更强大的敌人（并且这一过程的机制和整个游戏的核心机制保持一致，但有所变化）。

3. 《盟军敢死队 2》（Commandos 2）—“白色死亡”

Big Robot工作室的创立者/总监吉姆·罗西尼奥尔（Jim Rossignol）认为潜行战略游戏《盟军敢死队 2》是一部“里程碑式的游戏”——他认为这款游戏证明了2D游戏中的潜行往往最为出色。“如今看来，它缺乏很多当代潜行游戏的制作技巧和技术，”他说，“但极简的系统与精致的像素艺术结合在一起，使它难以置信地令人上瘾。”

以“白色死亡”（White Death）关卡为例。玩家被困在北极冰面上的纳粹集中营里，附近是一艘损坏的英国潜艇，玩家必须躲过巡逻的视线从船上偷偷溜走，躲到一个藏身地，在那里另一名逃离的盟军正在思考下一步行动。然后玩家必须带领战友快速冲过冰面，爬上一艘停泊的德军驱逐舰穿过一个布满巡逻德军的营地。

整个过程——包括接下来的时刻——玩家和战友的生存取决于准确把握时机、明智规划、巧妙地利用偷来的干扰物以及随机反应——游戏高低潮交错，玩家不停运用存读档打法。

设计建议：不要让复杂性束缚了设计。一些最吸引人的潜行体验源于多层简单系统交互触发的即时状况。

4. 《神偷3：致命阴影》（Thief: Deadly Shadows）—孤儿院的劫掠

《神偷》系列的四部作品为我们提供了许多潜行机制和关卡/情景设计的经验，但是罗西尼奥尔认为《致命阴影》的倒数第二关“孤儿院的劫掠”（Robbing The Cradle）是其中最出色的[尽管他承认他印象最深的是和一群人看漫画家/前游戏新闻记者基隆·吉伦（Kieron Gillen）在巨大的投影上打这个游戏）]。这个关卡的恐怖性使它与游戏其它纯潜行的部分区别开来，它被认为是有史以来最伟大（且最恐怖）的游戏关卡之一。

潜行游戏一般通过设置成批的巡逻者、警惕的守卫来营造危机和紧张感，而“孤儿院的劫掠”在这方面更进了一步。它采用的一个简单做法是取用《神偷》系列的动态光影机制——从本质上看光是玩家的天敌，而它的缺失是友好的，并操控这种关系。光线缓慢跳动、闪烁——像呼吸一样——伴随着四周起起落落令人不安的声音，营造出一种期望摇摇欲坠的氛围。

巧妙的关卡设计还会增强紧张的氛围，促使玩家自己去发现建筑中的黑暗区域，并且人们会逐渐意识到关卡的目的不仅在于偷偷避开敌人（大部分时间敌人都不会出现）。建筑本身是一个对手，一心想把玩家攥在手中。

“这的确是一个恐怖的关卡，” 罗西尼奥尔说，“并且我认为它是少数几乎能将一切拿捏得当的设计之一。叙述一个故事，让玩家用自己的方式去探索，通过引入真正可怕的敌人增强潜行的紧张感。吉伦打游戏时吓得尖叫。当然，不是每个人都能体会到那种恐惧。”

设计建议：伟大的潜行游戏制定明确的规则并点燃玩家的希望，然后尽情地玩弄和操控它们以强化和放大紧张感——这是优秀的潜行体验的本质。(还有，别害怕将剧情放在潜行设计的核心部分。)

5. 《最后的生还者》（The Last of Us）—金融区潜行

潜行游戏——或游戏中的潜行任务——玩起来总感觉像反动作（anti-action）的游戏，玩家要尽一切可能避免直接对抗，但是这种死板的设计近年来逐渐被另一种混合风格取代——比如在游戏《最后的生还者》中，玩家被敌人发现后只需改变路径。玩家在逃离金融区酒店后的遭遇是一个很好的例子。

“这是游戏中一个相对较小的区域，但它就像一个紧凑的沙盒，充满了乐趣和机会，” ECHO开发工作室Ultra Ultra的游戏/关卡设计师莫滕·赫德格伦（Morten Hedegren）说。一开始，画面中有一座两层高的咖啡馆、一道路障以及一颗大树，玩家可以选择沿着任一侧潜行，此外还有一些水泥建筑可以让喜欢进进出出掩护自己的玩家藏身其后——这种半开放式而非全程潜伏的玩法在当时不太寻常，但现在很普遍。”

赫德格伦指出地形设计极好地营造了紧张悬疑的氛围，此外它们还提供了一个有利于脱险或勘察地区的垂直空间。“《最后的生还者》在我们设计ECHO关卡时为我们提供了很大的启发，” Hedegren说，“我们总是试图为玩家提供足够的空间去尝试，使他们能以开放灵活的方式移动。”

设计建议：有时候让玩家灵活地在潜行和暴露中来回切换、自由地利用他们认为合适的地形、物品和障碍物是个不错的选择。

6.《杀手：血钱》（Hitman: Blood Money）—用愚蠢的方式伪装自己

潜行并不一定是偷偷摸摸地行动；有时它意味着低调地混入人群、不让他人觉得你的存在突兀。这种设计——潜行混合伪装——的最佳例子是《杀手》系列。

罗西尼奥尔特别提到了《杀手：血钱》，玩家装扮成一个小丑杀手潜入一个郊区派对。“这是个完美的设定，” 罗西尼奥尔说，“当然，这是一种艺术化的想法，而且非常‘游戏性’——现实中穿着从尸体上偷来的帽子和围裙骗不了任何人——但正是这种设计起作用了。”

“我们倾向于考虑潜伏在阴暗处，但对我来说，寻找合适的伪装道具是一种完美的潜行方式，”他说。

设计建议：除非你正在做模拟游戏(甚至即使你在做模拟游戏)，潜行过程不必总是严肃的。试着引入有趣和异想天开的潜行方案，并在情况允许的情况下设计一点愚蠢搞笑的元素。”

7. 《使命召唤 4：现代战争》（Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare）——“全副伪装”

很少有潜行体验能像《使命召唤 4：现代战争》一样营造出极致的刺激感。在“全副伪装”（All Ghillied Up）关卡中玩家扮演狙击手与一名长官并肩作战，玩家身着伪装服、听从长官的指示避开敌人的视线——而敌人就在你的周身移动——并用计悄悄干掉几个守卫。

游戏过程中一旦出错将引来大麻烦，敌人将从四面八方涌出并开启一场激烈枪战——不像典型的FPS一样直接判定玩家失败并从头来过。但放慢节奏、听从指挥、保持耐心，潜行全程将紧张度把握得恰到好处——尤其是在经历了前一个任务(一次失败的暗杀)的混乱之后。

这种潜行和本文提到的其它潜行体验不同，玩家很大程度上要跟着剧情走，不过优秀的潜行设计本就重在体验而非机制。

设计建议：伟大的潜行体验不需要精致的潜行机制，但如果你想要做一种更具试验性、剧本化的潜行体验，注意避免让玩家陷入惨败、无法翻身的境地——如果玩家选择以困难的方式完成任务，满足他们，即便在按照指示行动的情况下也应让玩家保持控制权。

结论：紧张的局势，创造性的解决方案

优秀的潜行设计取决于对紧张度的把控，在于让玩家选择何时、如何参与冲突，并使他们担忧自己随时可能因为一个错误而满盘皆输。

伟大的潜行体验说服玩家保持谨慎——由于耐心和条理是潜行所必需的——然后反复收紧和松开玩家头上的绞索，直到任务完成才让这种紧张感完全消退。

但它们同时也为玩家留出了自我表达的空间，问题的解决方案不是唯一的，即便在灾难性的状况下玩家也有机会存活下来——只要他们具备一点运气、技巧和聪明才智。《合金装备》固蛇的纸箱和《特工47》主角离谱的伪装方式可能看起来很荒唐可笑，但在潜行游戏的设计史上，众多不可能的尝试都被实现了，因此你也可以试着跳出框架。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

There’s an art to acting imperceptibly to those around you — to being surreptitious, or at least hidden from view. Especially in games, where other characters are programmed to spend all of their time looking for signs of trouble. But encounters and levels designed specifically for stealth are more often poorly-designed or rote by-the-numbers exercises in frustration than delightful moments of virtuosity.

Whether in a stealth game or as a palate cleanser or change of pace in a shooter or action-adventure, designing a great stealth encounter takes novelty, finesse, and patience. It’s hard to get it right, but thankfully there are plenty of stellar examples we can look to for pointers.

We reached out to four stealth-loving game designers to get their thoughts on the stealth encounters that everyone should study and came up with these seven recommendations.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s stealthy party takedowns

Wildfire designer and Sneaky Bastards editor Dan Hindes points to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’s closing stage as a standout moment. “Usually, stealth games require you to infiltrate a hostile/restricted area and take down enemies one by one, without getting spotted,” he explains. But this level puts you in “neutral” territory: a fancy party in which both you and your enemies are guests and the goal is to take them down without alerting waitstaff, security, or other guests.

“This leads to tense, exciting moments where a disguised enemy might be standing next to a regular party guest,” says Hindes. “You’ll need to distract the party guest for a few seconds, take down the disguised enemy, and stuff their unconscious body under a table of champagne glasses – just before that party guest comes back for a refill, while you walk away like nothing has happened. Or perhaps you’ll shoot a camera with an EMP blast to disable it for a few seconds, while you neutralize an enemy and move their body away from the camera’s field of vision, before the camera comes back online. These feel like moments from a Mission Impossible movie.”

Better yet, there are restricted spaces at the party like the kitchen and backstage — areas that are ideal for luring enemies into but that are also rife with danger because guards will notice unusual behavior more readily. By simply twisting the dynamics of the situation, traditional stealth mechanics and actions suddenly become fresh and exciting.

TAKEAWAY: Novel situations and new contexts can bring life to stale or old gameplay loops, and nothing says “cool spy shit” like pulling off big stealth maneuvers while staying out in the open.

Turning the tables on Mr Freeze in Batman: Arkham City

Good boss fights are hard to design, but Batman: Arkham City serves up a masterclass with the caped crusader’s big battle against Mr Freeze. The encounter is a double-ended cat and mouse game, with the player being hunted while simultaneously searching for a way to use the environment to create an opening for a stealthy boss kill. “As a player, it felt really good to turn the situation around and keep hitting that overconfident jackass,” explains David León, studio head at Aragami developer Lince Works.

“Designing a boss battle in a stealth game is especially difficult, as the whole point of the stealth genre is to evade confrontation and find a stealthy / indirect way to beat any challenge.” But here the developers found a way to take the same stealth mechanics that are used throughout the game and twist them into a high-stakes one-on-one battle against a much more powerful foe. In a similar vein, consider looking closely at the final stage of Metal Gear Solid 5′s Hellbound mission — in which Snake and his prisoner must hide from a formidable, terrifying Metal Gear.

TAKEAWAY: The best stealth-based boss fights are about turning the tables on a more powerful foe (and they’re about embracing the same mechanics that are central to the rest of the game, but with a twist).

Braving the white death in Commandos 2

Big Robot founder/director Jim Rossignol notes that stealth tactics puzzler Commandos 2 was “an absolutely landmark game” — one he believes that confirms that stealth is often best done in 2D. “Nowadays it lacks a lot of the finesse and technical scaffolding that modern stealth games demonstrate,” he continues, “but there was something about that systemic minimalism combined with exquisite pixel art that made it unbelievably engaging.”

Take the White Death mission, for example. Set on Arctic ice in a Nazi polar camp near a crashed British submarine, the player is left to sneak off the boat while it’s crawling with enemy soldiers, then to a hiding place where a second escaped commando ponders his next move. The player must then lead the pair, dashing through the ice, bootprints in trampled ice and snow trailing behind them, towards a parked German destroyer through a busy camp full of watchful Germans patrolling with their ever-pivoting vision cones stretching out before them.

All along the way — and in the moments that follow — the commandos’ survival depends upon split-second timing, smart planning, clever manipulations of an inventory full of stolen distractions, and constant improvisation — as tensions ebb and flow and quicksave/quickload keys work overtime.

TAKEAWAY: Don’t let complexity become a crutch; some of the most compelling stealth experiences come from the emergent possibilities triggered by multiple layers of simple systems interacting with each other.

Surviving the horrors of The Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows

All four Thief games can offer numerous lessons for good stealth mechanics and level/scenario design, but Rossignol mentions the penultimate level of Deadly Shadows, Robbing The Cradle, as a particular standout (though he concedes that what he remembers most was watching comic author/former games journalist Kieron Gillen play it in front of a crowd on a big projector screen). It’s a horror-inspired break from the pure stealth of the rest of the game, widely regarded as one of the greatest (and scariest) game levels of all time.

Where stealth games are generally content to create their tension by establishing a fear of detection with hordes of patrolling, attentive guards, Robbing The Cradle goes much further. One simple way it does this is that it takes the lighting dynamics of the Thief series, which in essence is that light is hostile while its absence is friendly, and manipulates this relationship. Lights slowly pulsate and flicker — like breaths — while sounds rise and fall and dance around uneasily with them, crafting atmosphere from shattering expectations.

Clever level design enhances the tension, too, forcing players to discover the building’s dark past for themselves, and gradually it becomes clear that this is not just a level about stealthily avoiding enemies (which are notably absent for much of the level). The building itself as an adversary — one that’s hellbent on keeping the player in its grasp.

“It’s a truly horrible level,” says Rossignol, “and I think it’s one of those bits of design that gets almost everything right. Telling a story, enabling the player to find their own way, and multiplying the existing tension created by stealth by introducing genuinely terrifying enemies. Also Gillen’s bug-eyed screaming. Not that everyone gets that part, of course.”

TAKEAWAY: Great stealth games set clear rules and establish player expectations, then toy with them and gleefully manipulate these same expectations to reinforce and amplify tension — which is the essence of a good stealth encounter. (Also, don’t be afraid to put storytelling right into the heart of a stealth encounter’s design.)

Braving the financial district in The Last of Us

Stealth games — or stealth missions in games — used to play like they were almost anti-action games, where direct confrontations were to be avoided at all costs, but that hardline kind of stealth has in recent years given way to a closer blending of styles — like in The Last of Us, where being discovered simply necessitates a change in approach. This is well exemplified by an encounter that occurs right after escaping a hotel in a financial district.

“It’s a relatively small area, but an incredibly fun compact sandbox that’s dense with opportunities,” says Morten Hedegren, game and level designer at ECHO studio Ultra Ultra. Right from the start, there’s a two-storey coffee shop, a barricade, and a large tree all in sight for possible sneaking options along the sides, plus some concrete to hide behind in the middle for players who like to go in and out of cover — which, unusual for the time but common now, is non-sticky — rather than full-stealth.

Hedegren points out that the routes around the sides are especially great for providing tension and suspense, and as an added bonus they offer a vertical element that’s great for escaping from danger or for surveying the area. “These types of encounters in The Last of Us served as a huge source of inspiration when we designed the levels in ECHO,” says Hedegren. “We always tried to give the player enough room to experiment and move through the environments in very open ended and dynamic ways.”

TAKEAWAY: Sometimes it’s good to let players slip fluidly in and out of a stealth mindset, free to utilize any pathways, objects, and obstacles you lay out before them however they see fit.

Blending in, the silly way, in Hitman: Blood Money

Stealth doesn’t have to be about sneaking; it’s just as readily about blending in and looking inconspicuous, so not to draw attention to the fact you shouldn’t be there. You’ll find some of the best examples of this — that disguises are as much a form of stealth as sneaking — in the Hitman games.

Particularly Blood Money, suggests Rossignol, who looks favorably on a mission in which the player infiltrates a suburban party dressed as a murderous-looking clown. “There’s something perfect about this,” says Rossignol. “It’s always a conceit, of course, and very ‘gamey’ — no one in real life would be fooled by a hat and an apron stolen from a corpse — but that is one of the things that makes it work.”

“We tend to think of viewcones and lurking in the shadows,” he continues, “but for me searching for the appropriate outfit is a perfect stealth solution.”

TAKEAWAY: Unless you’re making a simulation (and maybe even then), stealth need not be serious. Embrace fun and whimsical solutions to remaining undetected and drop in touches of frivolity if the situation allows.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s All Ghillied Up

Few stealth moments in games measure up to the carefully-crafted suspense of Modern Warfare’s sneaking flashback. Cast as a sniper and paired up with a superior officer, the mission has the player dressed in a ghillie suit and tasked with following his directions to hide from enemies — while they walk directly over the top of you — and sneakily, methodically dispatch several guards.

Get it wrong and all hell breaks lose — unlike in typical first-person shooter stealth segments, which tend to give hard fail states and require a do-over — with enemies pouring out from all sides to start a frantic firefight. But take it slow, follow orders, and stay patient, and there’s a brilliant build and release cycle of tension — especially in light of the chaos of the preceding mission (a failed assassination attempt).

It’s a different brand of stealth to the other encounters on this list, with heavy reliance on tight scripting, but it’s a compelling argument that artful stealth design is more about the experience than the mechanics.

TAKEAWAY: Great stealth moments don’t need elaborate stealth mechanics, but if you’re going for a more experiential, scripted kind of stealth take care to avoid hard fail states — let your players do it the hard way, if they choose to, and let them stay in control even if you direct them to behave a certain way.

Conclusion: Tense situations, solved creatively

Good stealth design is predicated upon tension. It’s about letting the player choose when and how to engage in conflict, and making them fear that their plans will be spoiled at any moment if they put a foot wrong.

Great stealth encounters establish a clear reason for caution — for the patient and methodical approach that stealth requires — and then constantly tighten and loosen the metaphorical noose around the player-character’s head, never completely allowing tension to wane until the mission is accomplished.

But they also leave room for player expression, with no one single solution and a systemic elegance that allows even catastrophic failures to be survived — with a bit of luck and skill, a lot of ingenuity, and possibly a very unstealthy few moments of activity. Solid Snake’s cardboard boxes and Agent 47′s far-fetched disguises may seem ridiculous, but history gives us much more unlikely attempts at stealth, so don’t feel like you have to be sensible in crafting your stealth systems and scenarios.（source：Gamasutra）