The Method of Mark of the Ninja

"In most 3D stealth games, when somebody's coming, I'm going to hide around the corner," says Mark of the Ninja designer Nels Anderson. "Here, oops, it's in 2D. No corners. So what do you do?"


You tuck behind nearby objects if they're available, cling onto walls, hop down a floor, climb into vents, grapple onto objects above, set traps, cause distractions, and do anything you can to stay out of sight. Even though the ninja is a deliberate, slow-walking stalker, he is much more navigable than the enemies he's evading. Mark of the Ninja is a stealth game about mobility, but it's absolutely not an action game.


"There aren't any ninja games that are actually about being a ninja," Anderson says, so Klei Entertainment is making one. 

 

Mark of the Ninja Teaser Trailer

Mark of the Ninja isn't a period piece, but "there's history to it," says writer Chris Dahlen. The 2D side-scroller takes place in a modern setting while retaining some traditional values. "Being a ninja was kind of a shameful thing," Dahlen continues. "You feel heroic when you play him because you have these abilities and you have a certain role in the game that's very important. But he's very vulnerable physically." He's right. Taking a bullet or two from an enemy soldier will drop the nameless ninja dead. 


Klei quietly guides the way you play Mark of the Ninja, but not in a harmful, detracting way. For Anderson, designing a glass cannon protagonist "means playing with power and weakness, which is super interesting mechanically." Frailty as a counter-weight to power encourages stealth while creating tension within each encounter. This is something Dahlen incorporated into the story of Mark of the Ninja as well. "There's a lot of stuff about the trouble the clan is in," he says, "about how precarious its position is in the modern day. It's a serious mood, it's a heavier thing. That's the emotional arc of it, it's more intense." 


Combat has a similar balance of intensity and brooding. Improper input of an attack means a louder, messier kill. Deep blacks permeate the vast majority of Mark of the Ninja's world, so the bright red of a bad guy's blood stands out all the clearer. Successful stealth kills are clean and efficient, so it was slightly discomforting to mash the attack button and gut a guy like a fish when I blew my cover. If I couldn't get the rough kill, the hero's flashy kicks and punches became the emergency method of taking down a soldier. The smartest thing about this is that these strikes aren't effective at all. I felt like a weakling without my traps and gadgets. This once again reinforced the notion that I was supposed to be quiet, hide the bodies to prevent problems later, and only stab dudes if I had to. 

If you're in the light, you're going to get caught. Be careful.

Killing isn't necessarily to your advantage, and Mark of the Ninja is designed to make you consider approaches and outcomes. For instance, a foggy cloud distorts the view of anything the ninja character wouldn't be aware of, so his line of sight, like those trying to find him, is limited. Storming through a ceiling could alert guards guarding the second story of a structure. Popping through the floor without looking my have you headbutting a bad guy's feet. "It's not just you versus the A.I." Anderson explains, "there are things in the environment that are passively malicious, things you can manipulate, lots of stuff that disturbs your normal force of conduct." 


This is the identity of Mark of the Ninja: It knows what's cool and fun, so it aims to make you work for it. Detection isn't failure, it's an opportunity to try new things within the same environment. When I botched my approach from above, I could retreat and sneak into the same room in other ways. 


It's interesting to me that my first instinct was always to retreat and never to fight. Vulnerability truly is important to Mark of the Ninja. It displays an unwavering devotion to stealth that could really resonate with stealth nuts. It's not a brawler with sneaky bits -- Mark of the Ninja is a slow, subtle stealth game from surface to soul. Everything else about it serves only to reinforce this idea. 


You'll get to play Mark of the Ninja this summer on Xbox Live Arcade.