Splinter Cell veteran says realistic modern lighting has screwed up stealth game
Recorded: May 27, 2026, 6:01 a.m.
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Splinter Cell veteran says realistic modern lighting has screwed up stealth games: "it gets very hard to tell what’s light, what’s shadow, what’s dark, what’s safe" | Rock Paper Shotgun Skip to main content Subnautica 2 Databank entries Best Minecraft seeds 26.1 Hollow Knight Silksong walkthrough Elden Ring boss locations Past Wordle answers Rock Paper Shotgun Latest News Reviews Hardware Features Videos Guides Bestest Bests Free games Discord Deals Podcasts RSS Supporters Go Get our newsletter Support us Sign in / Create account If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Home News Splinter Cell veteran says realistic modern lighting has screwed up stealth games: "it gets very hard to tell what’s light, what’s shadow, what’s dark, what’s safe" Image credit: Ubisoft News Published on May 21, 2026 40 comments Follow Assassin's Creed: Codenname Hexe Finally, a game developer who agrees with my fervently held view that new technology makes everything worse. Celebrated designer Clint Hocking – him wot worked on Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Watch Dogs Legion, and the forthcoming Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe – has publicly opined that realistic modern lighting has made life trickier for stealth game creators, because realistic lighting conditions are harder to lurk in. Now you tell me! “I actually think one of the difficulties with modern stealth games is the sophistication in the rendering has made lighting so much more realistic,” Hocking told FRVR in an excerpt from an upcoming podcast episode. The simulation of, say, diffusion - light scattering from different surfaces – makes stealth games “so much harder to read”, he explained. “When you think about those old school stealth games because of their baked lighting, the lighting is very clean and readable and very understandable for the player,” Hocking told the site. “But once you get into this diffuse and ambient occlusion and all of the stuff that comes with it, it gets very hard to tell what’s light, what’s shadow, what’s dark, what’s safe, what’s dangerous and all of that stuff.” Stealth game developers have always had to think carefully about how to communicate these things, of course. The original Thief introduced the concept of a light gem, providing a more digestible, abstract indication of how hidden you are. Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher wears ludicrous headlamps that somewhat perversely indicate when he's well concealed by making him more visible. Klei's Mark of the Ninja desaturates your character when you're in shadow. Still, I can't deny the point that as a player, I often struggle to know how visible I am in a game with the latest hi-fi lighting tricks. “Part of it is also just lighting direction,” Hocking told FRVR. “When you go and see a play on a stage, the lighting is often super dramatic. So, you can do it with real lights. It’s just that, you know, these places are often lit to be very realistic and not lit to be aesthetic to purpose for stealth gameplay.” The games industry has recently fallen in love with ray-tracing, which simulates the bouncing of imaginary beams of light from surfaces (providing your hardware can keep up). “I think there would be some learning if we wanted to really use these modern lighting techniques to have a really pure stealth experience,” Hocking added. “And, you know, people who go ahead and make that game, I think need to do some really deep thinking.” It feels like you could write a big old essay about how changes in lighting technology have shaped stealth. I wonder if the rise of "social stealth", instigated by Hitman and Assassin's Creed, has anything to do with designers pulling their hair out over the balancing of lighting systems? It'd be good to hear more from Hocking about this and other matters. He's just founded a studio, Build Machine Games, after leaving the Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe team in February. I guess I should do the 'journalist' thing and send him an email. As for Splinter Cell, there's a remake in the offing, but we've heard little about it for years. Ubisoft recently laid off a number of the project's developers in the course of wider book-slashing. Read this next New Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Ghost Recon games will release by early 2029 say Ubisoft, who're also dumping cash into a "first playable generative AI experience" Following about 50 Assassin's Creed Hexe devs reportedly being taken off the game, Ubisoft say team switches are "a standard part of how we operate" A decade later, they’re still trying to make a Watch Dogs movie - but now it has a director, writer and star Mentioned in this article Assassin's Creed: Codenname Hexe Game Follow See 3 more Far Cry 2 PC, PS3, Xbox 360 Follow Get it from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory N-Gage, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PC, PS2, Xbox Follow Get it from Watch Dogs Legion PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S Follow Get it from
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A veteran of the Splinter Cell franchise, Clint Hocking, a celebrated designer who has worked on numerous major titles including Far Cry 2, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Watch Dogs Legion, and Assassin's Creed Codename Hexe, suggests that the implementation of realistic modern lighting has complicated the creation of effective stealth games. Hocking posits that the increased sophistication in rendering, particularly the simulation of diffusion—light scattering across different surfaces—makes the environment significantly harder for players to interpret regarding visibility, shadow, and safe or dangerous areas. He contrasts this with older stealth games that utilized baked lighting, which offered lighting that was clean, readable, and easily understandable to the player. The difficulty arises because modern lighting techniques, including diffuse and ambient occlusion, make it challenging to discern crucial information necessary for stealth gameplay. While earlier titles utilized specific visual cues, such as the light gems in Thief or Sam Fisher's headlamps in Splinter Cell, to indicate concealment, the current high-fidelity lighting tricks often prioritize aesthetic realism over functional stealth gameplay elements. Hocking further notes the problem of lighting direction, observing that environments are frequently lit dramatically for aesthetic purposes rather than serving the functional requirements of stealth mechanics. The broader industry adoption of ray-tracing technology, which simulates the physical bouncing of light beams, is highlighted as a relevant development in this discussion. Hocking implies that there is a need for developers to engage in deeper thought regarding how to utilize these advanced lighting techniques to achieve a truly pure stealth experience. He suggests that developers creating modern stealth games need to conduct thorough analysis when balancing lighting systems. This challenge is contextualized by the rise of concepts like social stealth, introduced in games such as Hitman and Assassin's Creed, leading to further complexities in managing lighting as a core gameplay balancing factor. |