11 Best PSP Stealth Games

Tenchu: Time of the Assassins was developed by K2 and published by FromSoftware in Japan and Sega in Europe, and it was the first game in the series not to be released in North America. A lot of American PSP owners never saw it on a shelf. You play a skilled ninja assassin and sneak your way through the levels, and a black fog that hampers your field of vision makes it harder than the console games.

The best part is the mission editor, revived from Tenchu 2 with even more features. You can build your own story missions or custom maps for the versus and co-op modes, which run over ad-hoc with a friend. Fans shared their missions on a site called Tenchu Missions. It sits last here, but for ninja fans it is a whole toolbox.

Shadow Assassins started on the Wii, where the Wii Remote is also used for first-person sword fighting. The gameplay of the PSP version is generally the same, minus the waving. You play the first five stages and the last one as Rikimaru, and stages six to nine as Ayame, the two ninja at the heart of the series. Collect all of the map pieces in normal mode and you get an extended ending, which is a good reason to go back through the levels slowly.

Players name it among their favourite PSP games. It is slower and more careful than most handheld games, and that suits a ninja just fine. If you want sneaking with no guns at all, this is the one to start with.

Metal Gear Acid 2 is the sequel to the original Metal Gear Acid, with the story set sometime after the events of the first game. Snake's first job is to infiltrate a research facility run by SaintLogic, a military arms manufacturer. The game uses a completely new cel-shaded graphic engine, replacing the darker graphics from the first game. You still play with collectible trading cards based on the other Metal Gear games, and most of them move Snake three spaces.

The strangest extra is the Solid Eye Theater mode, which needs the Solid Eye attachment to watch its videos. There is also a Wireless Battle mode for two players over ad hoc. If the first game's murky look put you off, this one is much easier on the eyes. Both Acid games are worth playing back to back.

Portable Ops puts Naked Snake in a secret Soviet base on the San Hieronymo Peninsula in Colombia, where his old special forces unit, FOX, has started a revolt. He cannot win alone, so he has to persuade enemy soldiers to join his ranks. You knock them out and haul them back to a truck for recruitment. There was even a Wi-Fi trick: you tapped the Circle button near an access point to pull in new recruits.

The game was conceived when Kojima Productions decided to make a proper Metal Gear Solid chapter rather than another spin-off, and it was designed for a portable from the start. Some of the team had just made Metal Gear Acid 2, and this was their first main installment. It is rougher than what came later, and you can see it laying the ground for the game at the top of this list.

Dark Mirror is the fifth Syphon Filter and a sequel to 2004's The Omega Strain. It was the last game from Sony's Oregon unit before it was rebranded to Bend Studio. The plot involves a paramilitary group called Red Section and Project Dark Mirror, a nerve gas that could kill millions by fusing with oxygen molecules. Gabe Logan also runs into Addison Hargrove, his first partner, romantically and professionally.

Syphon Filter was always more of a shooter with sneaking in it than a pure stealth game, and that mix suits the PSP. There is a team multiplayer mode too, where the first team to reach the point limit wins. If you want to play it today, the PSP version was released on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on March 21, 2023.

Metal Gear Acid came out in Japan on December 16, 2004, and in North America on March 24, 2005. It is turn-based tactics, with a trading card system that controls Snake's movements and actions. Most cards only let him move three spaces, so every step past a guard is a choice. Snake is even led to believe that he is a researcher named Hans Davis. The name has a double meaning: acid dissolves metal, and it is also an acronym for Active Command Intelligence Duel.

Critics gave it somewhat positive reviews and singled out its turn-based stealth. One player called the Acid games "horribly misunderstood and underrated". That is about right. If you expected Metal Gear Solid, it was a shock, and if you like Final Fantasy Tactics, it is a treat.

Secret Agent Clank is a spoof of the James Bond series, built on the Secret Agent Clank bit from Up Your Arsenal in 2004. Clank finally gets the lead, and unlike previous Ratchet & Clank games his gameplay is more like Ratchet's. Qwark has levels too, based on dubious accounts of his own exploits, which is exactly the kind of hero Qwark is. A robot spy is a very good joke, and the game knows it.

Critics were mixed. Sanzaru Games ported it to the PS2 the following year, and the PSP version was re-released on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in September 2024. Players tend to recommend it alongside Size Matters and Daxter. It is the lightest game on this list, and that is not a bad thing.

Logan's Shadow is the sixth and final Syphon Filter, and the sequel to Dark Mirror. NIOC Director Robert Cordell convinces Gabe Logan that he is their only option, even though Teresa Lipan points out that the job is outside Agency jurisdiction. Part of the story happens inside a ship, and one fight ends with Gabe destroying the engine turbines to flood the chamber.

It reached the PS2 in 2010. A multiplayer spin-off, Syphon Filter: Combat Ops, came out on the PlayStation Network on November 20, 2007, and Logan's Shadow has a playable sneak preview of it from the main menu. Players almost always recommend the two PSP Syphon Filters as a pair. Play Dark Mirror first and go straight into this one, because the series ends here.

Bloodlines was announced by Sony at E3 in June 2009 and came out that November, alongside Assassin's Creed II. It follows Altaïr and explores his relationship with Maria Thorpe, the Templar agent whose life he spared in the first game and who would eventually become his wife. The gameplay is nearly identical to the first Assassin's Creed, with a few control changes because the PSP has fewer buttons. Blending still works as a way to bypass guards, and there is a new ledge assassination: Altaïr silently kills an enemy and pulls them off a ledge.

Reviews were mixed, and the animations were toned down to fit the system. Connect your PSP to a PS3 and six unique weapons unlock in both games. Players still put it on their lists of PSP games worth owning. A full Assassin's Creed on a handheld in 2009 was a real trick.

Manhunt 2 is the sequel to 2003's Manhunt, and Rockstar Leeds made the PSP version. You play Daniel Lamb, a mental patient suffering from amnesia, guided by Leo Kasper, a sociopathic assassin. Here is the catch: Leo lives in Daniel's head, put there by a brain implant called the Pickman Bridge that malfunctioned. Hiding in the dark is the core of the game, and the shadow system was tweaked from the first one.

The controversy began two days after the game was announced, before anyone had seen a single frame. It drew fire from British MP Keith Vaz and American activist Jack Thompson, and the British ratings board rejected it. The released version blurs the executions: the screen turns red and flashes black-and-white. Players still recommend it. It is a grim game, and it was meant to be.

Peace Walker was supposed to be made by other staff, but Hideo Kojima took the director's chair himself, at the same time as Metal Gear Solid 4. It mixes traditional stealth missions with Mother Base, where you recruit soldiers and build up your own military force. The truck from Portable Ops is gone. Instead you attach the Fulton Recovery System to subdued soldiers and prisoners. The cardboard box now comes in two-man versions called Love Boxes.

The game lowers your rank for killing and for being spotted, so it pays to play quietly. It borrows the crouching walk and the CQC system from Metal Gear Solid 4. Critics loved it, but the PSP version did not match the sales of the console games, because support for the system was fading. A remaster came in the 2011 Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Players recommend it more than any other PSP stealth game.