Below you will find the 25 best stealth games ever released on PC. There are sneaking missions, grand thefts, assassinations, escapes and infiltrations. Stay low, keep quiet and we’ll make it to the end.

Stealth games fall into various categories but I tend to think of them as either ‘pure’ or ‘diluted’. A pure stealth game is one in which the player has no alternative to sneaking and hiding, and in which combat is at best a frantic and painful last resort, and at worst is cause for immediate failure. Diluted stealth games are those in which creeping around in the shadows and avoiding contact with enemies, or incapacitating them without being spotted, is one of several options. In those games, there are usually several approaches to any given scenario and being spotted often simply causes the game to shift gears rather than stalling or spinning out of control.

Most of the games listed are pure, or tend toward purity. That’s partly because stealth is an option in so many games now that worlds are becoming more open that an argument could be made for almost any action game you care to mention. Even if you can choose to attack every enemy base with nothing but a knife and a (silent) prayer if you decide to leave your rocket launcher at home, that doesn’t mean the game is due for consideration on this list. That’s not a snub toward any particular game or series, it’s simply a way to exercise control and give the 25 games below some contextual meaning.

With that said, here we go. Or if you’ve suddenly had second thoughts, why not try our regularly updated list of the best PC games you can play right now.

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