Summary
Mark of the Ninja is 12 years old, and yet there still isn’t anything quite like it. It seems like, all things considered, there should be. The 2D platformer is the most overpopulated genre in all ofindie gaming. Game designers love the systemic play of stealth titles and immersive sims. Why, 12 years after Klei Entertainment showed us that it could work really well, have there been so few attempts to put the peanut butter and jelly together again?
There Are Many Routes To A Killer Stealth Game
I’ve seen third-person stealth games likeHitman, first-person stealth games likeDishonored, top down stealth games like The Church in the Darkness, and isometric stealth games like El Hijo - A Wild West Tale. There are retro first-person stealth games likeGloomwood, horror stealth games likeThe Last of Us Part 2, and even a stealth game starringGollum. But, I’ve never played another 2D platformer stealth game like Mark of the Ninja, despite the game making an open-and-shut case for them.
The concept is pretty simple. You play as a ninja who traverses sprawling 2D levels, attempting to accomplish various objectives — take out an important dude, steal an important object, etc. — without being spotted. In your effort to avoid setting off alarms, you climb on walls and ceilings like Spider-Man, hide behind vases, and kill guards in surprisingly graphic ways for a game that looks like a Disney XD cartoon. Along the way, you get new tools like noisemakers, smoke bombs, and spike traps, and unlock useful skills, like the ability to dangle off a perch or drag guards out of sight.
Mark Of The Ninja Shows That Stealth Works In 2D
The game shows that nothing about stealth, as a genre, requires three dimensions. Stealth requires enemies, and places to hide them. You need to be able to tell when you’ve been seen or are about to be seen, so awareness indicators, voice lines from guards, and/or really precise audio are also important. And you need ways to get around your enemies (tools) or dispatch them (weapons). None of those design aspects require 3D.
Usually, when a genre doesn’t require three dimensions, we see variations on it in 2D. Sonic, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and many other characters that began life in 2D have maintained timeshares in both perspectives, even after making the hop to 3D. First-person and third-person RPGs like Skyrim and Final Fantasy 16 haven’t stopped developers from making 2D RPGs like Sea of Stars and Undertale. First-person shooters like Doom didn’t kill side scrolling shooters like Contra. The 3D versions of a genre may be more popular, but 2D tends to persist, too.
That isn’t the case with stealth - at least, not with Mark of the Ninja’s 2D flavor. Games like this just don’t get made. And, despite the viability of 2D, they never really have gotten made with any regularity. That probably is down to when the stealth genre broke out. The original Metal Gear came out in 1987, true. But, the one-two punch that made sneaking mainstream didn’t occur for another 11 years when, in 1998, both Metal Gear Solid and Thief: The Dark Project launched. Maybe stealth just missed the window.
Game Maker’s Toolkit has a great video on this moment in stealth game history which you can watchhere.
Still, Mark of the Ninja shows that there is a viable path here. Stealth broke out in 3D, but it doesn’t need to stay there. Mark of the Ninja proved that sneaking worked as well in 2D as going fast, collecting coins, or blasting Metroids, so why don’t we pursue this evolutionary opportunity. Come on Konami. Give us Paper Metal Gear Solid.
