Ubisoft's creative director has been making the rounds talking about how its games will be "less scripted" and story focused and more worlds where players can "make their own fun."

This seems like a bad idea to me, and it makes me sad and a little worried about the future of the kinds of games I like.

I've liked open world games since as long as I can remember. The first one I can remember playing is the Legend of Zelda, but I've always enjoyed freedom in a game world, and it adds to my immersion to be able to go "anywhere" and do "anything." When Grand Theft Auto III came out I thrilled in the open world destruction like everyone else, and I've enjoyed the boom in complex well-realized digital worlds over the last 15 years.

Here's the thing, though. Digital worlds are still quite primitive.

AI is still rudimentary. Characters basically have to either follow specific scripts or be nothing more than background objects. There is no such thing as an AI character who can talk to the player in a meaningful or interesting way outside pre-scripted lines and intentional storytelling.

Actions in games are very limited too. The best we can do is the ability to pick things up and move them around, or put together pre-crafted objects (like in Minecraft) that interact in some way. There are no games where you can, for example, break things apart to make novel objects, or build things that interact realistically with the world outside lego-like combining of objects intended for that purpose.

This means that clockwork worlds fall apart very quickly. They are fun to mess around with but you need something to DO. Story is that thing. Following a specific pre-scripted path gives you goals (which can't really exist organically beyond "how many cars can I pile up here") and drive in a game. Now sometimes that story is broken down into smaller parts (like in Skyrim, where the main questline exists but there are lots of other questlines you can follow) and that's fine, but without any written story you end up with something like Far Cry Primal (which does have a story) which is fun to mess around with for a little bit, but then quickly gets boring as you run out of reasons to engage with the game.

When I think of the games I have enjoyed the most over the last 5 years they basically all have some handcrafted portion, even in the open world games. I loved Grand Theft Auto V's mayhem, but I needed the central story, flawed as it was, to give me reasons to engage with that world. I love the powers in Infamous, but the story gives context to those powers and the characters who wield them. And my favorite parts in Skyrim were following questlines and interacting with the characters, not just finding random dungeons to wander through for no reason.

Minecraft is fine. Goat Simulator is fine. But they're not the games I like. And hearing that Ubisoft, a major publisher and arguably the major maker of open-world games right now outside of RockStar are moving away from telling compelling stories and creating interesting characters (which, due to the limitations of games, can't really exist independent of stories) is disappointing to me.

How do others feel? Are people looking forward to every Ubisoft game being Crackdown, where you have a lot of freedom and nothing specific to do?

I'm hoping they don't go any further than they did with Far Cry Primal on the de-emphasized story route. I would have liked a more cohesive story in that game, but at least it had enough narrative and storytelling to give my actions context and lend my allies some personality. I could pretend my actions had more weight than "check off another side-quest / activity marker on my shiny checklist of things-to-do."

If they're going even more minimalist than Far Cry Primal, though... I'm not sure how that works without taking something away from the experience. Then again, how many players play for story? *shrug* I wish Ubisoft the best on this. I do like them.

Not everything needs to be Minecraft or Skyrim, especially Assassin's Creed. Personally I'm not a fan of this at all and of the larger trend in general. I want good story in my games as well, I want to see good writing and well animated well directed "cut scenes." I wan't linearity I want to be directed, give me that story juice. Making games like Skyrim or Minecraft, games that de-emphasize story is fine. But don't turn existing series and franchises that were most definitely not that into that either. Mass Effect is doing it, Dragon Age did it, now Assassin's Creed. Fallout 4 did it kind of, with it's fewer story heavy quests and more on base building and crafting. A lot of publishers and developers are still going after Skyrim and Mincecraft. They want that YouTube-friendly moment-by-moment style game that get's shared and goes viral, they don't want people to play a game, be done with it and move on. They want it to be a constant thing, a service almost, the focus away from story and and narrative driven gameplay supports that pathway, so from a business perspective I get it. Games like Baldur's Gate, the Witcher games (yes, I do still consider Witcher 3 to still adhere to the story/driven type gameplay that the game industry tries to kill off, even though it's still and open-world game, it's an outlier) , KOTOR, Mass Effect, DA1&2, Deus Ex, Dark Souls, they'll be considered good books that have a start and finish. The future of RPG's (or perhaps video games in general) I think is (persistent) worlds where nothing is asked of you and you can do whatever you want. A place where you can share "moments" and show them to your friends or upload on YouTube, games with vibrant communities and constant developer updates and content flow. Assassin's Creed was always a bit of a unique one as I never considered it an RPG or open-world type game like a Skyrim, Fallout, or Minecraft but more of an action game like the Arkham games. Maybe the game will be great and I'm just rambling. I still feel like story-heavy games and high-budget RPG's are going more and more "open" and will be less and less linear and narrative-driven. Ubisoft is just following the trend.

I have a similar opinions. I also expect at least some structure to my open-world game. It can actually lead to more exploration if your storytelling is good and the game nudges you towards interesting unknown areas in a smart way. Narrative gives you a reason to enter an area whose complexity and difficulty are at first intimidating. If the narrative is restrained enough then a little or even no mystery is lost, but your motivation to go forward is enhanced considerably.

Your examples of inFamous and Skyrim are spot on I think. I would add to them Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. The games are excellent examples of how to do open world that has structure and narrative without feeling that it strips the environment of any sense of mystery.

Basically they are just making sandbox open world games, which is honestly what they have been making anyway. I think a lot of times the story can get in the way of those types of games, and even give a sort of cognitive dissonance when they try to portray a character one way but in gameplay you do the opposite.

I find i burned out on open world games years ago and would rather just play shorter story focused games instead of trying to "make my own fun" and decide when i'm satisfied. For example i had more fun with red dead revolver than a i did with red dead redemption, which I burned out on and never finished and that was YEARS ago. Open world games i enjoy are like skyrim, where there is more than just the main story so i can finish a self contained side quest that has some depth and still feel like i had fun with the game, rather than never finishing the main story because i got bogged down and bored with fetch quests and one off side quests.

I don't really have the same experience with Skyrim as you do. The story and characters I thought were terribly forgettable, and I spent most of my time going in a random direction, making up a narration in my head as I went along. It's my favorite walking simulator, more than anything else, because you do have that freedom to just go anywhere right from the start, and I thought it was very engaging to be able to do that and discover the lands. Even if the gameplay wasn't great and I didn't care for any quests, I still had hundreds of hours of fun. If that's what they're going for with this next Assassin's Creed, I think that's a fine change after like what, a dozen games? Especially considering all I hear about their overarching future plot is that it hasn't really existed for several games now. But if they're doing Assassin's Creed 2, now without cutscenes? Then it's pointless, a story-focused structure without a story.

Sounds perfect to me. I find it hard to care about any game story anymore because more often than not they have been disappointing or badly written. I can count the amount of meaningful game narratives I've experienced on one hand and I don't have the patience anymore to endure boring cutscenes that are in the majority of games.

@bigsocrates:

As someone who likes the gameplay parts of games and who the vast majority of games with a story this seems like a good thing to me. If it was pretty much and other company than Ubisoft it would be an interesting development but to me I have no faith in them to actually develop or deliver a good gameplay experience that this change in focus necessitates.

What 'compelling stories and creating interesting characters' do you feel that they have delivered in recent times? because I'm struggling.

I haven't found story to be the strongest part of Ubisoft's games, so it's hard for me to be too saddened by these statements. It doesn't feel like some terrible loss to me. We'll see what all this means in the practical sense, I guess, next year when AC returns.

I would rather have them invest in better writers and story development than to just say "weeeelllll.....let's just go as open and story light as possible so the players create their own stories." Scrapping or replacing something isn't necessarily making it better, it just makes it different.

When I read the thread title I assumed you were going to critque Ubisoft of already doing this. Which I would agree with. All of their games seem to follow the same template. Eliminate opressive group with rag tag anti establishment goons and climb towers along the way. The writing is always boilerplate and the characters tend to be archetypes. And that's fine. I've never come to a Ubisoft game for it's story. Ghost Recon Wildlands looks fun as hell. Do I care why these tactical meat heads are waging a war against a drug cartel? Hell no. I just want MGS V levels of stupidity on a larger scale and with co-op. (maybe i'm setting my expectations a bit too high) Obviously it's not going to be as polished (because Ubisoft) but i'm okay with that.

Honestly I feel like the games industry has been trying to make games more like movies and it's gotten in the way of just pure fun. I'm not a fan of the aimlessness of games like Minecraft but I do want more emergent gameplay experiences like MGS V. (and possibly Breath of the Wild) And what I mean by that is breaking clockwork worlds in fun and unexpected ways and being given the tools to do so.

My biggest problems with Ubisoft games are the same problems I have with a lot of open world games and that's repetitive and boring mission design.

In other words context is important but not as important as gameplay. At least in a sandbox game. (didnt mean to rant, apologies if i went a bit off track)

Give me a Splinter Cell in the vein of the new Rainbow Six - raw gameplay balance focus, relaunch Spies vs Mercs, re-cast Ironside as the new "Lambert" in your ear. No more embarrassing action movie doomsday pulp. Steal the design template from Far Cry 2 / MGSV for sandbox-y encounters.

Completely agree but with some caveats. By and large I don't think Ubisoft tells absolutely terrible stories (some are better then others to be sure) and do like it when they get "weird." Seeing a cutscene to move a story along doesn't bother me or upset me because I don't get to "express" as Serge Hascoet put it. It's that most of the time said mission design in Ubisoft games is either very run of the mill/boring or aggravating. I enjoyed the hell out of Black Flag, I even enjoyed it's story beats but there were many times when main story missions had "follow this guy! Eavesdrop on this guy but don't get seen! etc" and that was the problem, not the fact that I had to see a cutscene but that I had to fulfill a boring ass task.

You could still have your story beats, and cutscenes but give the player many ways to solve a problem in that mission. I don't think throwing out the baby with the bath water when it comes narrative and hand crafted elements is the way to go. Cause some games that have touted tell your own story can easily have moments of a lot of dead air and just wandering what the fuck to do. Highest highs but also lowest lows kind of thing. I'd like to see a mix of these type of game philosophies personally.

Still, we'll see what happens with that next AC. I enjoyed Syndicate but that series could definitely use a shake up and this new direction might exactly be what it needs. But I do at times get wary when developers tout "Emergent Gameplay! Tell your own narrative! Anecdote factory!" as if it's some type of cure-all.

Give your world lore and give me the freedom to roleplay as part of it instead of being an interloper who kills his way across the map.

As someone who watches movies and TV shows almost daily, I'm sick of cutscenes, dialogue and scripted events. Very few games do them in a way that interests me. It's gotten to a point where I now skip dialogues and cutscenes of some games, which I never used to do. Ubisoft has failed with AC, WD and FC. Cohesive stories can be told without cutscenes and dialogue. Look at Limbo, Inside and Portal. I know what you're gonna say, but Portal has monologues, not dialogues. Left 4 Dead also managed to tell simple little stories over the course of its campaigns, without any of the tedious interruptions you get in other games. Half-Life 2 had long stretches without scripted events. I don't need these poorly done cutscenes interrupting my fun every few minutes. Video games can be better than films. Stop trying to emulate them all the time.

It's good that they're admitting that they want to cut the story for budgetary concerns. Besides, it's not like they put in that much effort in the last batch of games.

On one hand, making your own fun is great from a gameplay and "anecdote" perspective - it embraces the interactive nature of games as a medium. On the other, some of my all time favourite games have been fun to play while still relying on a strong narrative structure to propel me forward - Alan Wake, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill 2, Journey.

Personally I'd be a little saddened if the crazy sci-fi story promised in the first few Assassin's Creed games fades away completely.

Meh, video game stories are mostly shit anyways so it doesnt really bother me. Ubisoft games in general have had bad stories, especially the far cry, watch dogs and assassins creed games and if they want to focus more on just making a fun game then Im all for that.

This isn't a particularly uncharacteristic thing to hear from Ubisoft, given the games they've been putting out. Given that those games have started to take some criticism for being one checkbox sidequest open world after another though, I'm a little surprised that they're doubling down on the strategy.

I play a lot of big open-world-type games, but the only ones whose stories left a lasting impression on me were Red Dead Redemption, Assassin's Creed 4, and (to a lesser extent) Mass Effect 2. (And since I see AC4 getting some crap here, let me say that what I liked about it was Edward's emotional arc, from rash young scallawag to watching all his friends and colleagues die/go to prison/turn traitor to turning to something larger than himself. The individual story beats didn't make much of an impression.) I loved Ezio as a character, but I can't really tell you much about the stories of his games. I liked Nico Bellic, but the plot of GTA4 made virtually no impression at all. And I honestly think I would've liked RDR just as much even if the story hadn't been as good as it was.

IMO, the Souls series show that a big story isn't necessary even in a game from a genre that is typically story-driven. The lack of story in those games certainly turns some off, but they remain popular nonetheless. (Yes, those games have deep lore, but you have to dig it up yourself, which I doubt most players do. And you don't need to know any of it to play through the game--it's not story, it's backstory.)

That sounds like a great way to get me to avoid Ubisoft games.

I feel like people who are criticizing game stories for being bad (a criticism that is mostly correct) are missing the ways in which games telling stories helps propel the mechanics and define the game worlds. Without stories games can be aimless and often feel bland, since the worlds are inhabited by digital characters who don't really want anything and don't do anything beyond basic AI routine stuff.

Take Skyrim, a game where the story is de-emphasized and also kind of bad. Most of the fun in Skyrim is in the world itself and in character management, but without the story of the dragons return and the Dovakhiin that world wouldn't feel nearly as well-realized or alive. And for people who like the Dark Brotherhood questline or the civil war, those are game stories too, just not the main story. Since Ubisoft is talking about "gamers creating their own stories" I take it that they're not talking about emphasizing side-stories more, they're just focused on creating worlds in which you do...what? For what purpose? Far Cry Primal is sort of like this. You wander around, see the sights, fight various animals and it's fun for awhile, but when it starts to feel pointless.

Without a story nothing you do matters or really effects the world. Without a story you don't really have strong characters or even fully realized worlds.

And for people who are criticizing cut-scenes and dialog trees as storytelling techniques in games...I completely agree. Games don't have to be movies. There are lots of interesting ways to tell stories in games through environmental storytelling or mechanics or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be where Ubisoft is going, into better and more experimental storytelling. They seem to be going away from stories altogether and I think their games will be worse for it.

Without a story what is Assassin's Creed even? Just a dude or lady clambering around buildings killing people at random? That sounds like the new Hitman game, which is cool, but it's also extremely silly and Ubisoft games tend not to have a great sense of humor (I guess the new Watch_Dogs is an exception.) A po-faced version of the new Hitman sounds pretty dire.

There is an argument for both but personally the tightly paced, hand crafted 6-8 hr campaign is always more memorable to me than any open world adventure. The last open ended game that I thought had a powerful story was Red Dead Redemption and that's only because of the expertly crafted ending as that game certainly had a long and meandering middle.

I'm having a hard time not reading "we want to move towards AC Online" from this or as @bigsocrates a Hitman type experience. To be fair, AC has been milked to death so this might be a better way to still capitalize on the brand. It might also be a good way to get new investors and try to further fight off Vivendi.

These are games that in most cases had very poorly executed stories so I'm not exactly so worried about it over here. There will still be story based games even if Far Cry 5 doesn't hit me over the head with just HOW NUTSO CRAZY ALL THESE COOKS I'm dealing with are. I'm fine with more games, especially grindy open world affairs, doing away with having so much story. Besides AC II, I'm honestly having a hard time even thinking of the last Ubisoft game I enjoyed the story in.

I also think you can, in a weird way, take this approach to games and actually yes make interesting stories. Player generation of story through gameplay and dynamic bits of AI that have story attached. That can be valid to me. I am down for more experimentation.

This sounds like a gigantic improvement over what AC has been since Brotherhood. What you're losing in the critique is how that structure would entirely free up the game from being boring, linear "Follow this guy to X" or "Tail guy X" affair, which is what makes AC so boring for games and games now. Aside from really II, what has been good with AC as far as story is the atmosphere and setting, most other aspects are at best okay (IMO, they actually have sucked).

What is lost with storytelling attempts (which IMO are extremely half assed) is entirely different and more freeing gameplay. Yeah, we don't know if it would have humor or what have you but even without it's an improvement to me. I would assume some effort would have to go into stuff like dynamic AI dialogue (which has been so excellent in the new Hitman game) if they go that route. I also think open world games embracing being open, dynamic affairs over still trying to be these linear affairs as soon as you start a mission is a good thing.

I love story-based games, a recent favorite being "Until Dawn". I think Ubisoft's games already are pretty terrible, in large part because of poor story & characters...minimizing those aspects even more? Saves me some money I guess :P

But on the other hand, I love Prototype just because it feels good to fly around the city ripping people & monsters apart. ~8 years later I still pop it in from time to time.

I think I was with you right up until I read this part and realized that, man, I really had a blast with Crackdown.

I do enjoy a good story and/or single-player campaign, but I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game since AC3. Presented with another entry that consists of missions based around some kind of over-arching narrative? No thanks. A Crackdown-like "hitlist" of 30+ NPCs scattered throughout a historically inspired open world? That has my attention.

Somebody else mentioned Hitman. I've been imagining a Hitman inspired AC since the first game. Ditch the open world, and each map/level could be a different historical setting with any number of approaches or methods, and I think it would be fantastic.

one thing i wish ubisoft WOULD emphasise is fucking pc optimization. it's ridiculous ac black flag runs as shitty as it does on my gtx 1080, amd processor or no.

I liked Crackdown too, but Crackdown pushed open worlds forward with a bunch of interesting/cool ideas like the agility orbs and its focus on "everything is a weapon, play with these physics." Even then I think the game would have been better WITH a story, which wouldn't have inhibited the fun parts but would have given agents something to do beyond just jumping really far and throwing cars around. I even pursued the actual missions in the game in the hopes that they would give some structure, and they did lead to some fun encounters, but would have been better if there were actual writing behind them.

Note that Crackdown 2 was not well-received (and I didn't enjoy it nearly as much) and was even LESS structured. It had other problems, but part of it was that there was no real reason to be doing anything in that game, and the freshness of the original was gone.

I was also the one who mentioned Hitman, and an Assassin's Creed Hitman type thing could be cool, but as a yearly franchise (which they are NOT giving up as far as I can tell) I could easily see it get boring.

I don't know why people think that "de-emphasizing story" is going to make Ubisoft more creative in mission design and game activities.

Finally, what does this all mean for Beyond Good & Evil 2? That game was very story driven, and people have been waiting for the sequel. Is it just going to be a weird open-world photography game? Like Pokemon Snap off the rails?

Okay, even I will admit that could be cool, but it also wouldn't really be BG&E2

Because if you break down what their missions are like, most are following around a guy for a while listening to him talk to you? A lot of open world games do that, at least Rockstar games have good writing and dialogue by comparison though. It's not a guarantee but it's a step in the right direction no doubt.

I think that's fair for Assassin's Creed, but not really the Far Cry games I have played. Missions there seem to be a lot more "Take over this installation" or "Kill this guy." You don't necessarily even have a companion of any kind with you and while there's often a radio play going on at the same time, how you accomplish the mission can be pretty open-ended.

But that doesn't make the mission design good or non-repetitive. I don't see much to be gained by taking away the radio play aspect.

Meanwhile I don't think story interferes with good mission design in open world games. I think Saints Row the Third, for example, had reasonably good mission design. There was a lot of variety, a lot of memorable missions, and overall it was a really good open world game. But it also had a very enjoyable story that helped tie everything together and gave context to the crazy open world.

I think mission design and a game being "Story driven" are pretty independent. I don't trust Ubisoft to open up the possibilities of mission design just because their games don't have stories anymore. Also, if you want to look at Rockstar games, GTA V had the heists that everyone agreed had excellent mission design (and I agree, they were great) but that game also had a long and involved story that the heists fit into. The story didn't get in the way of mission design, and I don't think they would have been better if the story had been stripped out. They would have still been good (GTA Online shows that) but it wouldn't have improved them.

I dunno, the first thing I thought of in regards to Ubisoft's attempts at emphasizing storytelling was Assassin's Creed III's 8 hour long introductory sequence... which is not something I really want repeated. I'm not sure I'll want whatever they replace it with, but that has more to do with my trust in Ubisoft and less to do with the idea of more dynamic, systems-focused games in general.

Oh wow, almost forgot. Yup, that was the turning point where I had enough of that series.

Regarding open-world mission/activity design - if you (the designer) find yourself repeating the same tropes that every game does (follow/eavesdrop on someone, get behind chest-high cover and wait for waves of enemies to rush in, stay out of the police radius for a few seconds, etc) without contributing anything new, interesting, or clever... then you've already fucked up. Playtesting ideally should root this stuff out and I know Ubisoft has been including the "rate this mission" thing in most of their games nowadays, but who knows how effective that even is.

If Assassins Creed can become more like the new Hitman but with a bigger, more rich world with different ideas/mechanics going on, that's fine. A lot of the story stuff in recent entries has been really troubled. I could say the same for Far Cry.

This is disappointing especially since Ubisoft has made games with great stories in the past. Not everything needs to be Minecraft!

Thank you, streamers...

In all seriousness, I'll reserve my opinion until I see how this actually permeates.

I can see why they want to do this. Stories are expensive. Especially for triple-A developers who are expected to have lots of cut scenes and well-spoken dialog.

De-emphasized game story can mean a few things. I think the prospect sounds great, as I'm tired of watching game stories play out like a movie. If I want to watch a movie I'll go watch a movie. These are supposed to be video games. And we need to remember that de-emphasizing story doesn't turn every game into Skyrim or Minecraft. Bloodborne's story wasn't told through hours and hours of cutscenes. It was told (in large part but not entirely) by the player's actions.

If Ubisoft wants to make games where the player tells the story through their actions, or the story is revealed to the player through how they play, instead of through lengthy, badly-written, and poorly-acted exposition, I'm all for that.

I think you misunderstood what they're saying. I'm sure they mean less scripted, interactive action movie type games (like Uncharted 1-3), and more open world games that you can make you own way and own fun in - but OF COURSE they're still going to have story lines and realistic or creative settings and worlds (Uncharted 4, Last of Us)! You took that quote too literally I think. You'll get the story from the characters and world, and make the story of your character yourself... as you should, and would, do in real life.

Think of it this way - this could start toward solving the ludonarrative disconnect for games like Watch Dogs 2, where the characters are all very different than they should be based on what they do, day in and day out (Story wise, they're a group of goofy kids having fun sticking it to the man and helping people - but really you just destroy shit, steal shit, and kill people - even the players who are TRYING to be non-lethal!).

I think it's a good idea, IF they can pull it off.

Nah a game with little story I would find it hard to get behind. The stories that cone out of games can be beautiful and moving and can stay with you for years. Hell I play fighting games largely for the story.

Brace yourself for a non-ironic statement MGS4 is the finest narrative experience I have ever seen.

Its not all about gameplay, no matter how good the gameplay of MGSV is, it doesn't forgive the awful abomination of a story they failed to deliver well and in a meaningful way.

The worst part about Ubisoft's open world games have been their tightly scripted missions, especially ones that require you to follow a very small, narrow path for success. They're always riddled with bugs, often bring down the game to a grind, and feel like they should have just been a cutscene or something similar. If that's what they're getting away from, more power to them.

Outside of Ubisofts smaller game offerings like Rayman and Valiant hearts the only games ive bought from them were: Far Cry 3 and The Prince of Persia games.

Wish i could say i was dissapointed by this, but this company does not cater to may taste at all.

A lot of other devs make those types of games. You'll always have options. Mafia just showed us that.

Dozens of hours in Just Cause ignoring the story give me hope for this sort of thing. Outside of that first FarCry reboot game I haven't seen them put a quality storyline in a game. They've all actively put me off of playing with their storylines.

Not everything needs to be the same.

@sparky_buzzsaw: they've kinda gotten away from that since AC4 though. Watch Dogs 2 feels like Diet Saints Row 3 at times because you end up doing some wacky, fun shit during some of the missions.

Could it be? Could Ubisoft actually redeem themselves and become somebody who champions true gameplay after their myriad crappy tightly-controlled-progress releases? Here's hoping.

bit funny how many people tout story as being and having been so important, when story was 90% nonexistent in games not too long ago. also people clamoring for story also seem to complain when the focus is that. (see gone home, though that is probably an extreme example)

This gives me a glimmer of hope as I came to the AC series (since 1) in an attempt to chase my Blood Money dragon. 1 had promise, and then everything past that was a swashbuckling/cutscene affair. And there is story in Hitman, but a lot of it is hiding for the player to sneak around and find. It makes the eavesdropping both optional and enticing if you DO care about story. Also, the cutscenes in the last Hitman were between 2-3 minutes long. And there are about 7 through the whole first season (game). AC games are too worried with making a big recreation of a historical setting to tighten up their AI for a truly great stealth experience. Sorry, not to inflate 47 too much in this discussion, but that game was my all time favorite for ten years, and no one even tried to replicate it (at least in the AAA space, and fuck Alekhine's Gun!) while IO was off the grid.