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What are the best games that you can complete as a pacifist on Xbox One?

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Jun 29, 2018

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5 Games Considered

Best games that you can complete as a pacifist on Xbox One	Price	Steam Rating	Native Resolution
-- Dishonored 2	$19.85	Very Positive	-
-- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain	$15.99	-	1080p60
-- Valiant Hearts: The Great War	$14.99	-	-
-- Deus Ex: Human Revolution	$19.99	Very Positive	-
-- Dishonored: Death of the Outsider	$29.99	Mostly Positive	-

Dishonored 2

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Top Pro

Taking out enemies feels satisfying

Whether you separate an enemy's head from the shoulders with a blade, causing blood to splatter everywhere. Or if you just strangle an enemy with your arms until they pass out. The animations, the sound, and the overall feel of it is really enjoyable. See More

Top Con

Input lag can make the gameplay feel awkward

There is a slight delay between button presses and the on-screen actions. It can throw off your timing and/or break your rhythm, especially in high-intensity moments when split-second reactions are important. It seems weird something like this even passed QA since most modern titles have no input lag. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Supernatural abilities liven up the stealth gameplay

Your character has a set of special abilities that can be used for both getting around unnoticed and silently taking out enemies. For example, one of the abilities lets you teleport a short distance forward, which is very useful for moving between hiding spots or getting over obstacles. Another example is an ability that links enemy souls together. If you kill one of the linked targets all of them will die. This is useful when you can't perform regular stealth kills because multiple enemies are standing close to each other. These abilities make the stealth gameplay feel different from what you usually see in games. See More

Top Pro

Excellent level design that supports player choice

The levels in Dishonored 2 have many branching paths, so you're never forced to use any specific playstyle to complete a level. You can barge in through the front door, slashing and shooting everyone in the way. Or you can sneak in through the window, navigating the building through vents and hidden passages while remaining unnoticed and only taking out your assassination target. Whichever way you choose, it will feel like you've made the right choice. See More

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Top Pro

Freedom in approaching a mission

Metal Gear Solid V gives players multiple choices on how to approach a mission. You can choose to use stealth, taking out enemies only when it's absolutely necessary. You can run in guns blazing, killing everyone on sight. You can get on a high vantage point and take out everyone with a sniper rifle. Or you can call in air support to do all the work for you. The choice is up to you and the game doesn't penalize you for sticking to a single way. This helps keep the gameplay fresh for a long time. See More

Top Con

Micro transactions make multiplayer pay-to-win

You can buy bundles of in-game currency, which can be used to gain an advantage in multiplayer. This makes multiplayer not fun for the players who don't intend on spending extra money. It also makes it boring for the ones who spend the money. Both of these things negatively impact the longevity of the multiplayer. Some of the bundles go for $79.99, which is more than the game's price. It's sad seeing Konami milk their fans with microtransactions like this. See More

Top Pro

Allows players to create their private military company

Throughout the game, you will be trying to rebuild your private military company. Your base of operations is the "Mother Base", which is a giant structure similar to an oil rig. You can expand it and add new facilities such as Research and Development. You'll also be managing your personnel, allowing you to recruit (capture) enemy soldiers and assign them work in their area of expertise. This can be research, development, various upkeep tasks around the base or earning resources out in the field. All of these things truly make you feel like you're running a PMC. See More

Top Con

High learning curve

MGS V can feel really overwhelming at the start. First the controls have various nuances such as different ways of crawling. Then you get a bunch of mechanics thrown at you, such as stealth, base managment, etc. It will take quite a while until you can fully enjoy the game. See More

Top Pro

Reflex system helps you stay unnoticed

Time will slow down for a short time if you're spotted by an enemy. This allows you to take them out before they can sound the alarm or alert other soldiers. This is quite refreshing compared to other stealth games, where messing up means an immediate end to being stealthy. See More

Top Pro

Large assortment of weapons and tools

MGS V has a lot of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and sniper rifles. There are both lethal and non-lethal variants, allowing you to find something suitable for any playstyle. There are also many tools such as the Fulton device, which allows you to capture enemy soldiers and animals, sending them to your base. It's a ton of fun experimenting with new gadgets. See More

Top Pro

Enemy AI adapts to your playstyle

The enemy will pick up on your habits and react accordingly. For example, if you use tranq darts to knock enemies out, they will try to wake up their comrades at first. Do this for a couple of missions and they'll immediately run to sound the alarm when they spot someone knocked out. This way the game expertly keeps you out of the comfort zone, having the later missions feel as tense as the first. See More

Valiant Hearts: The Great War

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A game about war where you don't kill anyone

Valiant Hearts tells a story about war, but you're not the one spreading death and misery. Your character simply journeys through battlefields, trenches, and various other locations. You meet other characters and solve puzzles along the way. This is quite refreshing because most modern titles about war always have a gun toting player character. See More

Top Con

Short

Valiant Hearts takes about 6 hours to complete and there's not much to do afterwards. While the collectibles give this game some replay value, not many players will be interested in finding them. See More

Top Pro

Simple but satisfying puzzles

The puzzles in Valiant Hearts aren't exactly the most difficult, but they'll often require a little more thought than you initially believe. One type of the puzzles you'll have to solve is fixing a pipe system. You just have to turn sections of the pipe system until it all fits together. Even solving something so simple is very satisfying and leaves you with a feeling of achievement. See More

Top Con

Historical facts may become annoying

There are historical fact boxes that will pop up during gameplay. They are optional, but can be annoying because they disrupt the flow of the gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Striking artistic style

The style of Valiant Hearts appeals to most aesthetics. It's simple and clean, allowing you to spot even the tiniest details in character designs and backgrounds. You'd occasionally spot interesting things like a flute attached to a soldiers backpack. Or even spot a very detailed Cathedral in the spaces between the rubble. The colors are very dim and blend quite well, giving you the sombre feeling of war. There are no random mashups of colors or effects like in many recent games. See More

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

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Amazing futuristic themes and visual style

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a great aesthetic that fits with its setting and themes. The visuals have plenty of bright golds and harsh blacks, and many recurring instances of hard geometric shapes to match with the prevalence of augmented humans with cybernetics. Along with this rapidly expanding technology, the story delves into the angle of what would happen if corrupt corporations became more influential than the government, bringing up some tough parallels to the current year in the real world. The unique look of the game goes so well with the subjects it tackles, creating a cohesive and stylistic whole. See More

Top Con

Boring main protagonist

Adam is such a dull lead character. He's stereotypically gruff, he barely ever shows any emotion, and he seems quite disaffected by the game's events. Even though most of his arc revolves around his quest to save his ex-girlfriend, it's hard to get invested or care about either of them, since you don't see them interact that much except during the start of the game. Though there is a silver lining to his personality, since his unconcerned attitude leads to one particular line of his that's turned into a running joke online. But other than that, he's not a remarkable protagonist that you find yourself rooting for on a personal level. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Action Role-Playing, Stealth, First-Person Shooter

Top Pro

Tons of ways to customize your playstyle

Unlocking and upgrading abilities gives you a great chance to tailor how you approach missions and explorations. There are certain perks that lean more toward stealth, like an invisibility cloak, and others that are more lethal-oriented, like a flashy area of effect ability that lets you take out surrounding enemies all at once. And there are other skills that give you a leg up in exploring levels, like boosting the amount of fall damage you can take to prevent death and reach secret locations. One player's build may be completely different from someone else's, adding replay value to experiment with unlocks. See More

Top Con

Stiff character animations during cutscenes

It can be distracting to watch two characters speak during a cutscene. Aside from maybe Adam, everyone has such stiff and repetitive gestures and movements. Mouth movements don't sync up with voiced lines, making it look like the characters are just miming and faking their way through conversations. Depending on your tolerance levels, it's possible to tune out these annoyances and still enjoy the scenes. See More

Top Pro

Conversations feel dynamic from your dialog choices

Speaking with major NPCs feels natural thanks to the dialog options you get to make. Each character has their own personalities and worldviews, so selecting certain options gives you the chance to move the conversation forward, make the person hand over something you need, or persuade them during debates. You can choose to appease someone who has a dominant personality in order to get what you want from them, or you can intimidate someone with a weaker personality. There's even a cool cybernetic implant you can get that lets you read someone's personality and reactions to you to determine the best options to pick. This gives discussions a lot of weight and impact, making sure that your choices matter. See More

Top Con

You must be lethal during boss fights, even on a pacifist run

It's really disappointing that the game doesn't let you take a purely pacifist approach. You can sneak around all you want while making sure to only perform silent takedowns, but the moment you step into a boss room, all of that role-playing goes out the window. You have to kill the boss, no questions asked. It would have been nice to have the option to outmaneuver them instead and lead them into non-lethal traps. Thankfully, the devs addressed this issue in the sequel, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, but you still have to deal with it here. See More

Top Pro

You can take a lethal or pacifist approach to missions

You have total freedom in how you approach missions, mainly with whether you want to take the silent approach or go in guns blazing. Going with weapons such as stun guns, picking non-lethal knock-outs, and sneaking around through vents and hidden passageways makes up the pacifist methods. The more violent ways of playing include using deadly guns and abilities, killing enemies when you take them down, and generally running head-first into each mission. You don't have to stick with one or the other; if the situation calls for it, you can change things up as needed, keeping things interesting as you go along. See More

Top Pro

Cool soundtrack

The music in Human Revolution is an amazing mix of synthwave and other electronic sounds. Each track that plays in the different locations you explore, such as Montreal and Singapore, make you feel like you're in a futuristic version of those places. Even the more atmospheric tracks go a long way to set the mood in any given place, like the somber yet thoughtful track that plays in the main protagonist's home, giving you a moment to breathe after playing through the game's tense and exciting missions. The soundtrack absolutely does its job of setting the stage for wherever you're at while creating emotional memories of where each song plays. See More

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

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Fun options for stealth and mobility

Your character, Billie, has many abilities that can be used for stealth and mobility. This includes a teleport ability that warps you to a specified point in your view, an ability that lets you steal peoples' faces as an innovative form of disguise. There's even a foresight ability that stops time, allowing you to individually mark enemies with visible outlines to better keep track of them while sneaking around the map. These supernatural elements are fun and unique, with many ways to use them in various situations, such as using the displace ability to quickly get out of sight right before being targeted. See More

Top Con

Gameplay gets repetitive throughout the short campaign

Originally pitched as DLC for Dishonored 2, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider stands on its own as a solid game overall, but the limited amount abilities and unlocks get old after a while. The story is only about 8 hours long. Things can fall into a routine of tracking enemies, slipping past them or stabbing them, with the only added bonus of figuring out ways of making your way through each level. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:Action-Adventure, Stealth

Top Pro

Many different approaches to clearing objectives

Death of the Outsider's levels are filled plenty of options for exploration and escape routes. As an example, the bank heist level features a number of ways to enter the vault and deal with patrolling enemies along the way, like abusing an air duct to sedate bank personnel inside the building. On another playthrough, you may choose to clear the level by killing each enemy you come across, or by taking a different route altogether. It's the type of intricate level design that gives players a lot of freedom to progress through levels however they want, which can make each playthrough very engaging. See More

Top Con

The story is passable, but not great

With a revenge story where Billie sets off to kill the Outsider, the plot sets up a number of moral issues about who or what the true cause is behind the chaos, as well as the idea of killing God as the Outsider as a form of social commentary, but it doesn't do enough with this topic of morality. The story is more interesting through gameplay where the player decides how to tackle each level that they traverse through, defining Billie's character as either a pacifist or a cold-blooded killer. Thankfully, the conclusion wraps everything up nicely for those who have been around since the first Dishonored game. See More

Top Pro

Freedom to choose between lethal or stealth gameplay

Changing things up from Dishonored 2, in Death of the Outsider, you can tackle levels with any playstyle you choose: stealth, lethal kills, or a mixture of both. There are no story penalties for messing up and getting spotted this time; you can simply pull out your blade for a bloody, visceral attack, making quick work of anyone who gets in your way. Sticking to either playstyle is more for your own personal style and satisfaction. See More

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