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I’ve never been a big fan of stealth games, or even optional stealthy approaches in action games, but I’ve always enjoyed the incredulous NPC reactions you get when you sneak up on a guard or henchman. Sadly you only get the best ones when you don’t insta-kill them, and that’s often the goal of the stealthy approach. There’s just something comical about thumping some guard on the head only for them to stagger forward and exaggeratedly whirl around as they call for help or shout some threat or other. It’s like the other side of an NPC losing track of you and deducing aloud that the arrow embedded in their throat must’ve come from nowhere \u2013 less absurd but equally extreme and decidedly NPC-like. But this reaction is less funny when you <\/em>are the hapless character who’s been thumped on the head, or indeed \u2013 to finally get on with the point of this article \u2013 stabbed in the back by a godforsaken bird in Elden Ring<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n