90s styled stealth action with an asymmetric coop multiplayer twist

Clandestine is like a 90s styled indie version of Splinter Cell which features the curiously enticing possibility of asymmetrical coop. This means the expected presence of orthodox spy-like mechanics which you might expect in a stealth-action title, but where this one really differentiates itself is the ability and need to play the game as two very distinct roles: the operative, and the hacker.

The operative is your on-the-ground sneaking grabbing killing third-person character. She can do the variety of things you would imagine: she has a gun and she can shoot people, she can perform silent takedowns, she can drag bodies and hide them, and she also has an arsenal of gadgets and tools which she can use to distract, disable, and kill guards. She controls rather as you’d expect. Some of the character animations are of a distinctly ‘indie’ level of quality, but this is early access after all.

Communicating well with the hacker, the operative can move through the level without alerting the guards

She currently has two load outs, one which makes her look like she’s a professional secret agent about to try and pull off mission impossible, which allows you carry more stuff, and another which makes her look like a horrendous victim of 90s colour clashes, doesn’t allow you to carry as much stuff, but won’t alert enemy guards in public areas. The operative has an array of tools available including grenades, a device which she can throw and attract guards to, and a kind of panic siren which can be used in an emergency to stun guards temporarily if they see you. You get to personalise your equipment on a load out screen before the missions start.

The other role in the game is the hacker. The hacker assumes play on a kind of desktop display, showing a live camera feed, a top-down map of the level, a hacking map, and a sort of hacking log which cascades a readout of your activity. The hacker’s main role is spotting guards, marking them up, and providing direction and eyes to the operative.

The hacker plays out on a desktop like display

One of the ways he can do this is by hacking cameras throughout the map and taking control of them. He can then provide the operative with the exact timings when she needs to dive down a corridor and sneak into another room while the guard’s back is turned. Hacking at this point doesn’t involve much other than navigating a 2D map and pressing enter, however the developers plan to do a little more with this in the future with system administrators moving around the network repairing the nodes you hack and so on.

A key mechanic in the game is that the hacker can only see guards moving on the top-down map if they’re currently in view of his camera feed, if the operative can see them, or they have already been tagged by him. Guards in view can be tagged by the hacker by clicking them on the map, and once a guard has been tagged they can be seen permanently, however only three guards can be tagged at any one time. This means you have to be constantly on the lookout for new guards, tagging them up as appropriate, and perhaps taking a few out as the operative just to keep the possibilities in your favour. The hacker is also able to provide guidance to level objectives, deactivate alarms, bribe guards and hack secure doors.

In single-player these two roles function a little disjointedly. It’s a game of haphazardly swapping between roles and temporarily leaving your operative immobile and vulnerable while you hack cameras and tag up new guards. It’s still fun to play but it’s a little senseless at times, particularly when you take a cheap shot to the head for the umpteenth time by a security guard coming around the corner because you were too busy playing as the hacker trying to bust a door open.

Guards who find an unconscious or dead guard will become alerted and start to look for the player

Clandestine becomes far more interesting when playing in co-op mode. Now you’re communicating in real-time with someone else who’s real-time guiding you through the level. As the operative you’re relying on the hacker to tell you when to dive around a corner, when to pull back, and when to go in for a quick takedown. It’s fast paced, engaging and much more fun to play than the single-player game. Success highly depends on well-planned and well-executed manoeuvres coordinated between the two players. It’s quite clear this is how the game was made to be played.

This is a game which presents entertaining stealth action gameplay with a twist. Right now it still looks some way from the finishing line. The enemy AI is not entirely convincing, there’s only a handful of weapons and levels in the game, and there only seems to be one enemy model. There is also a campaign planned which isn’t at all playable yet. In addition, the sound and graphic assets aren’t going to win any awards, and some of the character animations are very clunky. The aesthetic side of the game, in-fact, requires a kind of ‘indie-game suspension of disbelief’, either the gameplay will carry it all the way for you or it won’t.

Clandestine is currently available on Steam’s early access.