Realistic, punishing stealth game Intravenous 2 adds new missions in free update

In many stealth games, from Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell to Hitman, you are the danger in the shadows. Being spotted in the Batman Arkham series can lead to a fast death, but your enemies are still more afraid of you than you are of them. Intravenous 2 makes stealth feel not like an advantage, but a necessity. You aren't slipping through the darkness to strike the fear of god into your foes, but because you'll be killed in a flash if you don't. Ruthless and intense, it gets my heart pounding in ways that few games manage. Now, for its one-year anniversary, developer Explosive Squat has delivered a free update and mini-expansion, and you can even grab it at a discount.

The best moments in Intravenous 2 are every bit as lethal and terrifying as being the last person alive in a round of Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six Siege. Following the trend increasingly adopted by the best stealth games, sneaking is much more analog in nature than a simple success-or-failure state. You're free to use lethal force to reach your target, and have an incredible selection of highly customizable weapons and tools at your disposal to do so. But alert anyone to your presence, and things become instantly, significantly tougher.

That's not to say that raising the alarm means failure, although I've lost count of the times that a shout punctuating the night air was followed by me hitting the restart button within the next ten seconds or so. Indeed, often there will come a time in a mission where you're forced to 'go loud' to achieve your objective, or as a result of the events that play out. Even when bullets start flying, however, Intravenous 2 still feels like a stealth game at heart. The moment your location is pinpointed, even if you're in cover, it's often but a matter of seconds before you're faced with overwhelming odds.

To celebrate one year since launch, Intravenous 2 version 1.4 has arrived to overhaul and expand the tactical shooter. "The focus of the update is to polish the main storyline in some aspects, add content that I wish I had the time for back then, and polish various sides of the game that I felt were overlooked," Explosive Squat's Roman Glebenkov writes. There's one new narrative level in the first half of the campaign, and three additional side missions that play out across four stages in total.

Alongside this comes a variety of touch-ups. Staged reloads have been introduced to all weapons that use magazines, meaning you can interrupt the process partway through (such as after taking the old mag out) and continue from where you left off to finish the reload. In line with this, the ability to cancel out of your reloads with object interactions or melee strikes has been added, which might prove a lifesaver in a pinch.

Sound has been given an overhaul. You'll notice indoor audio is slightly more muffled. The stinger to let you know when all enemies are dead has been made louder and clearer, and a new variant will instead signify when all threats have been neutralized. The behavior of enemy goons has been improved - they'll no longer go inside to turn on a lamp after complaining about how dark it is outdoors, for example, and it's now slightly easier to finish them off when they trip upon being shot.

The camera controls when using a controller have been overhauled and there are some additional benefits for the map editor and mod tools. Among the optimizations, a change to the way the lighting is displayed could improve your performance by "up to 25%" depending on your setup. All in all, it's the best time yet to experience Intravenous 2 for yourself, and a Steam sale means it's also the cheapest.

The Intravenous 2 anniversary update is out now, and the game is 35% off via Steam until Thursday August 21, meaning you'll pay just $12.99 / £9.74. Get it here if you've got what it takes to thrive in the shadows.

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