Ghost Recon Wildlands released a new video showing a stealth playthrough for one of the missions you'll encounter in the game. The game previously posted the same mission played through in a much more overt, action-oriented fashion.
Replace "Ghost Recon Wildlands" in that paragraph with "Dishonored 2" and you have an equally factual statement.
So the question is: What's going on here? The answer: it seems that the tradition of branding your game as simply "stealth" is slowly trending downward, and what gamers seem to want more and more is freedom of choice.
There are a variety of reasons why this could be. Traditionally, stealth games are seen as particularly difficult genres that have massive consequences for being discovered (think the unforgiving early days of Metal Gear Solid), so branding your game purely as stealth could put people off, whereas advertising stealth as merely one option of gameplay equally as viable as any other type is a much more pleasing marketing strategy.
We saw this same strategy with the misguided 2014 Thief, in their 101 Video, where they briefly showed a stealthy approach and an overt approach, advertising both as legitimate options of gameplay, while at the same time boasting that you could complete the game without taking a single life.
The opposite could also be true that a stealth game wants to appeal to a broader audience, so they include the action-oriented alternative, but keep the pure stealth option to appease the hardcore fans.
In fairness, this trend isn't just an approach taken by stealth games, such as Ghost Recon, Thief and Dishonored 2. Even the action-packed Mafia III has been quick to point out that several segments of the game offer the player freedom of choice on how to approach a given level or mission, including both stealthy and overtly violent methods. So, this trend can also be used by non-stealth games to appeal to the stealth audience.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I do thirst for another game that makes me hide in the shadows and kicks my ass for not.
