Confessions of a Gamer Who Can’t Stay Hidden

I’m not sure who has it worse: the characters in stealth games, or me.

Sure, they’re the ones in life-or-death situations, but I’m the one steering them through it!

Don’t get me wrong, I love action games. I don’t mind losing repeatedly against a hard mission in Call of Duty or Cyberpunk 2077. In those games I’m doing something. I’m fighting, guns blazing and hoping for the best.

When I’m playing PUBG: Battlegrounds, I have no problem camping out with a sniper rifle on the third floor of an abandoned house—for a bit. My best free-for-all games playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came from camping in a building until I hit my 25-kill streak to call in a Nuke.

Pure stealth games, though? I just can’t play them.

And it makes me sick.

I’ve got the Ubisoft launcher on my computer, full of Tom Clancy games. I want to love Splinter Cell: Conviction. The story grips me, I love the controls and the aesthetics of the game. But I cannot for the life of me stay hidden.

My finger starts to twitch on my mouse when I have to stay hidden for more than a moment. I panic, fire off a shot, and suddenly insurmountable waves of enemies are coming at me. I never pass a single mission.

Even in Gears of War, a game literally designed as a cover shooter, I can’t keep myself from running around like an idiot with my Gnasher. 

I want to like stealth games. 

Hell, I want to love them.

When I play video games, I want to let loose. Stealth games bottle up all the emotions that playing action games are supposed to help me release.

I’m just glad that my Tom Clancy collection came from a Humble Bundle, so I didn’t waste even more money on games collecting digital dust.