Video Game Cruelty Potential/Video Games/Stealth Based Game

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Examples of Video Game Cruelty Potential in Stealth Based Games include:

  • Hitman Blood Money allows many, many ways to kill people. A particularly satisfying example from the mission "A New Life" involves using lighter fluid on a grill and waiting for the wife of your target to start it and go up like a Roman candle. And by doing so, you orphan 2 kids since you need to kill their dad in that mission, all this happening on the younger one's birthday.
    • Rigged pyrotechnic display + Tank filled with oh-so-cooling water. And a shark.
      • If a bullet hits someone in the stomach but doesn't prove immediately fatal, the victim crumples to the ground and rocks back and forth before succumbing to the wound. Highlighting the brutality of the kill, the victim spends the next few seconds howling and moaning in pain.
  • The Metal Gear Solid series allows for cruelty to both people and animals;
    • The invisibility inducing stealth camouflage that appears in every game allows the player to abuse NPCs with near impunity.
    • Metal Gear Solid (and The Twin Snakes) allows players to shoot mice and ravens, which if done repeatedly causes Naomi to chastise the player via codec.
      • Shooting seagulls in Metal Gear Solid 2 elicits a similar response from Rose.
      • MGS3 requires the player to hunt and kill animals for food in order to survive, however it's also possible to use live captured creatures as weapons, for example throwing live venomous snakes at people - a combination of both cruelty to humans and animals which is often lethal to one of them.
    • Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake had something similar: Apparently, Snake could actually kill the NPC war-orphaned children if the player decides this. Note that these weren't even Enemy NPCs, but just defenseless children whose only action is to talk. The only punishment is losing health, which is pretty lenient compared to being docked of a rank in the the first Metal Gear, having it grant you a severely low rank in future games (and in the case of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, lowering your clearance rank after completing a mission), and also making some battles even more difficult than usual (case in point, The Sorrow battle in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater).
    • Metal Gear Solid 4 allows the player to kill caged chickens and guinea pigs.
    • You get a lot of chances to fuck with the guards in Metal Gear Solid 3. For instance, first, kill a poison dart frog and collect its meat. After that, blow up one of the guards' food caches. When they start complaining of hunger, toss them the meat of the poison dart frog you killed and watch what happens...
      • Overt guard and scientist abuse is possible when dressed in the Major Raikov disguise. Victims can be physically attacked and fail to fight back, instead cowering before and apologising to their "commanding officer."
      • This is lampshaded before you get a chance to do it by a radio conversation with EVA where, to Snake's disbelief, she tells you that you can punch anyone in the face because Raikov is "just that kind of guy".
  • Some of the counter-attacks and combo kills in Assassin's Creed look and sound painful. One attack involves kicking out a guard's leg, and then stabbing the sword down through his hip and out his crotch...
    • Other such attacks include a counter kill option to break a guard's legs with an audible crack. A short sword combo kill in which Altair grabs his victim in a sleeper hold before breaking their neck, again with an audible crack. And who can forget throwing your opponents into the merchant stands, causing the stands to collapse and killing both your opponent and the merchant. Bonus points if you catch civilians in the collapsing merchant stand.
      • For the above leg breaking and neck snapping, one combo kill combines both: Altair kicks a guard in the knee hard enough for it to bend backwards and break, to which the guard lets out a quick scream of horror and agony. Once the guard is bent over, Altair finishes him off by getting the man in a headlock and snapping his neck.
    • Which is still nothing compared to finishing someone off with a normal attack and seeing them writhing in pain for twenty seconds before they finally die.
    • Not to mention some of the "high profile" Assassination animations, one of which involves you walking up to a man from the front and stabbing him in the eye in broad daylight with your hidden blade.
    • Considering how annoying some of the citizens are, especially the beggars, lepers, and drunks, it's not surprising when one feels the urge to start stabbing and slashing.
      • Not only that, but citizens simply love getting in your way when you're trying to stab a guard.
      • Sometimes if the guards have enough room and after you've killed enough of them, they'll panic and flee. You have two choices, chase after them (since you're faster) and kill em with the hidden blade, or simply toss some throwing knives in their direction...
    • The approach to Jerusalem. A long, narrow path packed with at least a hundred civilians walking along, and you're on a horse. Its like the developers want you to maim them under your mighty steed's hooves...
    • Civilians will absolutely freak out if they see someone die suddenly. Want to see some chaos? Stand on the rooftops and fling throwing knives at the guards below, or perhaps sneak up behind an archer and shove him off his roof.
    • There is absolutely no penalty for killing guards at random. Stab one guy, wait for his friends to show up and investigate, stab them, rinse and repeat. It's quite easy to get caught up in this and carpet a street with bodies.
  • Assassin's Creed II introduces the ability to poison a person, causing them to go insane for a short while before dying. If said person is a guard holding a weapon, there will be blood. Bonus cruelty points for throwing money on the ground to attract more people. It's possible to get 30+ casualties this way, and because the only person you kill directly is one guard, there is no penalty.
    • You can also poison a civilian near guards and they'll distract the guards. While they're focused, assassinate them all without being noticed.
    • Get a bunch of guards chasing you and jump on a tight-rope run while they're on the roof. If they're close enough together, they'll jam into each other and fall to their deaths. Also works with thieves.
    • One finishing move jams the dual hidden blades through both eyes.
    • You can pick up bodies in this game which adds all new dimensions, like the following: Kill an archer on a rooftop, then grab his body and chuck it into the street near guards. They guards will walk over to investigate; use the opportunity for an aerial dual-assassination.
    • Some of the combo kills you can perform with the sledgehammer are hilarious in their brutality. Block of iron swung straight at a guard's crotch? Check. Hitting that same doubled-over guard again in the back of the head to lay him out on the floor? Check.
    • One of the barefisted counters lets Ezio break the victim's Adam's Apple.
    • One assassination technique you gain is that of hanging off the side of a building, then stabbing the target in the gut as they walk past before pulling them off the roof. If you find an especially tall tower with guards, you can use this technique, then, as gut wounds don't kill instantly, watch them plummet to their bloody dead with the knowledge that they are still conscious. Bonus points if they hit a slanted roof and then the ragdoll physics sends them spinning halfway down the street.
    • Or you can just throw them off the roof and hear them scream. Them hear the civilians scream as they realise that someone just dropped out of the sky and died in front of them. It is not unknown to find someone still running in fear of the cruel deed you commited several minutes later. Congrats, they're probably scarred for life.
    • Using Ezio to quietly nudge a fishing civilian into water is a great way to kill as many people as you want without penalty or incurring the wrath of the guards. Also, the civilians never, ever resurface.
  • Assassin's Creed Brotherhood looks set to continue the proud tradition. Among the moves that have been shown:
    • Stabbing a guard through the bottom of the head up, followed by point-blank headshot.
    • Flooring a guard with a Groin Attack, then stomping on his head.
    • Throwing a spear hard enough to impale a guard and send him falling back.
    • Ezio's Counter Kill animations have also become severely more...violent than they were in AC2. The strongest knife, the Dagger of Brutus even has its own kill-animations, including, but not limited to, Ezio trying to force a 5cm wide dagger into a person's eyesocket, only to turn the dagger 180 degrees, while it's still implemented in the victim's eyesocket.
    • Execution Rows. Ezio is able to kill a guard and then seamlessly move on to killing the next. And the next. And the next. All in one hit each.
    • If the player is feeling lazy, he can even call for apprentices to kill the guards for him.
  • In Thief: The Dark Project and Thief: The Metal Age, you can potentially kill every single last person on almost any level. Granted, you can't be playing on the higher difficulty settings (as those make killing innocents, or on the highest difficulty setting, killing anyone, a "mission fail" condition. Also, some levels are pure stealth missions and auto-fail if you kill anyone on any difficulty setting.) Since your character is relatively physically weak, you're encouraged to use ambushes and sniping. Still, you can render entire sections of The City devoid of human life.
    • Or, you can knock people unconscious with your blackjack or gas arrows, then drag the unconscious NPC to the nearest body of water and throw them in. Not only will they drown, you will actually get to hear them choking and gasping frantically for breath as they expire.
    • On some levels, you can throw their unconscious bodies into lava!
      • There's a lot of lava in the The Dark Project mission "The Lost City." And in Thief Gold, there's wizards from the Mage's Guild running around down there. And the designers didn't add a 'Don't Kill Anyone' for the updated mission. Have fun!
  • Shoot to wound in Sniper Elite and then shot (preferably to wound) anybody who comes to help him. He'll die within a few minutes without any treatment. You can practice your grenade skills, run away and shot him again for bonus sniper points or just watch.
  • Splinter Cell Conviction requires you to outright torture certain people for information from simply slamming them into things to forcing their face against a burning hot grill.
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