What qualifies as an Assassin in gaming these days anyway?

A target is a requirement, clearly. But what else?

Is it attitude? the shyness of public speaking? a tendency to wear face-concealing clothing?

Let’s have a look at what it’s not:

It’s not the death toll:

Any space marine with a boomstick and a plasma rifle could fill the top spot, in that case, some of gaming’s best assassins have a relatively small body count of only a few dozen or so.

It’s not the clothes:

Many of today’s gaming protagonists dress like a ninja, move like a ninja, and wave fancy sharp things like a ninja….but they’re hardly the most stealthy or tidy of killers. In fact, the majority of gaming ninjas leave a river of blood in their wake and generally exit a building with an explosion on their tail.

It’s not purely stealth:

Some survival horror games demand that you remain unseen or avoid your enemies to survive. Abe from “Abe’s Oddysee” would surely die when confronted with any of that game's enemies. Are these guys assassins? In most cases (aside from the obvious lack of the main target), they’re not.

No, the best gaming assassins have something special.

They have style.

The ability to approach unseen, blend in with the environment (in most cases), and then.. with a flash… dispatch a foe with grace and speed. Returning to the anonymity of the crowd or darkness, all within a fleeting moment.

7: Agent 47 – Hitman

Cold and calculated, Agent 47 was engineered in a lab to be an Assassin.

He’s the epitome of a shady agency spook and not exactly the deepest character on this list, but personality is not why he’s here.

The beauty in a Hitman-style kill is all in the elaborate setup, like a game of mouse-trap where each level is a set of small steps leading to one massive pay-off.

Disguise, poison, bugging, or old-fashioned strangulation – 47 has myriad ways to approach any level. This opened-ended approach is one of the reasons the fifth installment is highly anticipated and maybe here by Christmas if we’re lucky.

6: Travis Touchdown – No More Heroes

Travis is an odd one.

He’s both an ultimate loser and an ultimate badass.

Travis Touchdown lives in a crappy apartment in a crappy town with his cat, his otaku t-shirts, and his anime paraphernalia.

He also has a lightsaber, a bike that is like Kaneda’s in Akria with a rocket attached to it and he has a penchant for random swearing and bizarre insults.

His only goal in life is to be the best Assassin out there, by murdering his way to the top….or at least We think that became his goal after he ran out of money to buy computer games.

Yes, there is a reason Travis became an instant hit.

Travis IS the guy who loves games like this. Travis shares many traits with a lot of us gamers, and the fact that the game regularly parodies modern gaming culture and Star Wars only added to the instant recognition a lot of gamers found with the world presented here.

Killing your way to the top is a bloody and hilarious affair, the duels with your main targets, in particular, are usually the bizarre stars of the show

5: Rikimaru – Tenchu

The only actual ninja on this list, Rikimaru is unique in the ninja-gaming world in that he actually does what it says on the tin.

He sticks to the shadows, stalks his prey from the rooftops, and performs brutal execution-style kills in silence.

I could have just as easily picked his faster counterpart Ayame, but for me, Rikimaru represents the quintessential ninja assassin.

Armed with a sword, throwing stars, and one of the first 3d uses of snapping to cover –

Rikimaru faced enemies that were (in fairness) thick as a plank and would eat anything you placed on the ground in front of them.

(“is that RICE on the ground?….YUM!”)

Good thing stealth gameplay has come a long way since then, a shame that the Tenchu series hasn’t.

The series has really fallen by the wayside this generation;

Tenchu Z was derivative and repetitive, there was a Wii entry that we personally enjoyed but we long for the day when they’ll bring a modernized and updated Tenchu to the table.

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