ALARM SYSTEMS
Detection infrastructure that escalates a stealth situation when triggered — cameras, tripwires, guards reaching a phone or panic button — shifting the level from its quiet state into reinforcements, lockdowns, or search behavior.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME
- COMMON IN STEALTH · IMMERSIVE-SIM · ACTION-ADVENTURE
Metal Gear Solid V lets guards radio HQ to summon reinforcements and gives players counterplay (shoot the radio, destroy comms gear beforehand), while Deus Ex: Human Revolution wires cameras, turrets, and alarm panels into hackable security hubs so the alarm network is itself a puzzle. Designers use alarms to give stealth failure a middle state between undetected and dead — raising stakes, creating tense race-to-silence moments, and rewarding reconnaissance since learning the alarm layout is half the infiltration. Key decisions: whether alarms are preventable in advance (cutting power, disabling stations) or only interruptible in the moment, how long heightened states last and whether the level ever fully resets, and how clearly the player can read current alert status. Pitfall: permanent full-alert states that turn one mistake into an unwinnable slog — most great stealth games let tension decay so the player gets to try stealth again rather than restarting.
SEEN IN
- METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN
- DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION