This is the worst mission in the first 3 games BY FAR. I always heard Chaos Theory praised to no end and expected so much from it, only to be met with this fucking embarrassment of a mission. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS BOMB SECTION??? THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO. THEY SEE ME INSTANTLY AND SHOOT ME WHEN I CAN'T SHOOT THEM.
I thought that this game allowed you to go for a pure ghost playstyle but guaranteed you have to manipulate the AI in such a stupid way that it becomes ridiculous speed running bullshit.
I haven't raged this hard at a game since Martyr Logarius in Bloodborne back in 2022. This is genuinely fucking enraging. There's nothing I can do. Fuck the developers for this shit. Both Seoul and this mission should have just been removed from the fucking game. They took it from an 8/10 down to a 4/10 for me.
The enemies are wearing night vision goggles that's why they can see you and can kill you. And no I love bathhouse very much
Yes I'm aware. It's fucking bullshit as there's no way to get around that. And this mission was good up until the last few rooms where it becomes by far the worst mission in the trilogy.
Use sticky cams from they places they spawn. Either distract them with the noise or use the gas.
It is (on purpose) not easy but doable. There are a lot of YouTube videos out there on how to ghost that section.
It's so cheap though. There's no way to negate their overpowered night vision, no way to get the drop on them, nothing. They're so overpowered that you have to manipulate the AI in a way that feels so cheap that it's immersion-breaking. It feels like a speedrunning strategy. Games, and ESPECIALLY stealth games shouldn't require that. It's a pathetic display of competence by the developers.
Smoke grenades are literally part of the game - that’s not “manipulating the AI”.
You could also just place sticky mines on the entrances. With the timer running you do not really have the option to run around them and stealthily take them out anyway.
If it's helps, you can look at my (kinda) map.
There is always the possibility of starting the level over and saving a lot of sticky cameras, sticky shockers and airfoil rounds until the end and then spamming the Displace elite guards with them (which i'm pretty sure I did). If you know where they're going to enter from (first two waves from the door you come through, last guard from the roof access at the back), you can pre-emptively place sticky cameras there and trap them with knockout gas as they pass them.
A bunch of us have ghosted bathhouse. It may have taken 20 years, but we've done it. I think the vent is harder than the bomb bit though.
I enjoyed ghosting it. But then again I'm a sadist.
And I'll be one of those people eventually, but for now my first time experiencing it I have the right to voice my complaints about a terrible level.
Except it's not terrible, it's meant to be a test of all the skills you've been working on for the rest of the game. The last level is more of an 'Oooh...ahhh...' combo of cool lil situations.
oh man that bomb part kicked my ass cuz i didnt have any health, no ammo, only one flash grenade and my dumbass only saved once in the mission so i either had to get through it or restart the whole mission. it was trial and error trying to take out the enemies and take out the bombs in time but damn it felt good to finish it all in time. i still liked this level and it was reasonable challenge, especially for an older game. theres much more difficult games out there, it wasnt that bad.
That's my issue. I had about 1 health point left due to being shot a few times before with the forced combat encounters, and I didn't couldn't hit them with anything when they could kill me instantly with perfect accuracy. It's completely unfair.
yeah their accuracy was insane, mother fuckers got me every time i could barely even hide behind anything [and i didnt realize they had night vision goggles]. i had to be stealthy af to take them down, didnt help that they were really close to eachother so i had to rush to take them both out from behind before one of them notices the other was down while I only had like 10 seconds to do it.
Wdym? It's one of the best in my opinion.
Yup, it’s frustrating and that’s understandable. I played it at launch and remember feeling exactly the same way as you when trying to ghost it failing over and over again. Don’t give up though. Now when I play, I get a lot of satisfaction booby-trapping the shit out of their spawn points with wall mines before they enter the room.
Frustrating? Yes. Worst? No I wouldn't say that. Once you get past those frustrations you might even enjoy it
Little short of clicking Sticky Cams back and forth like dangling a toy in front of a kitten is the way to go through that final section.
Justified in the hatred of it though. Suddenly having an entirely new enemy type introduced late stage in a very cramped room is a real ball ache when you've spent so many levels having become so skilled at the game's other mechanics. I mean, sure the night vision guards were introduced once in Pandora Tomorrow but that flipped the night vision mechanics on it's head and worked and then was forgotten about.
There's something about these Chaos Theory guards that feels glitchy though, not helped by the sometimes just not listening to distractions. It requires nailing down such a precise method through trial and error to the point it feels like fucking around with the AI in Conviction to get ghost through a technicalilty.
That's alright in a glitch/exploit ridden speedrun type play through of a broken game but certainly not what you want from intended design.
yeah those enemies were a pain in the ass, they seemed to react to your every movement even if they werent looking at you and crouched down
Yeah they seem to spot you instantly and be able to shoot you when you can't shoot them. It's very enraging. And there's no mechanics to get around their night vision either like there was in Pandora Tomorrow. It's such a terrible design overall.
Intended design of this section is to stress the player and force them to a more offensive approach. It also fits in the story narrative at that point. Sam is fleeing from an active firefight, there is no need to ghost this section story wise. It is only for completionist driven gamers and for those they made it intentionally hard.
If you want to go the unnatural way you have to cheese it.
Last half of Bathhouse does suck, but Chaos Theory is still a great game.
It's practically tradition for each Splinter Cell game to have one or two extremely annoying/frustrating missions or sections of missions, anyway.
SC 1: Oil Rig and Abbatoir
Pandora Tomorrow: LAX (killing Soth and his men)
Chaos Theory: Seoul (2nd half) and Bathhouse
Double Agent: Kinshasa
Conviction: Iraq
Blacklist: Philadelphia (train part; extremely annoying trying to enter the window on Perfectionist without getting smoked instantly).
Oh yeah Kinshasa was a bitch but somehow I managed to ghost it while saving the guy.
smoke grenades are your best friends
Nice informative post.
git gud
OP is right but yall aint ready for that.
It's just the difficulty of a classic video game... I'm not surprised. If you're young, don't play it, period.
Oh get your stupid Boomer crap out of here. Splinter Cell came out what, 2 years before this and wasn't nearly as hard because it was designed better. Same with Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty.
Being an old game isn't anywhere near an excuse, let alone a good argument for defending terrible game design. And on top of that you try to gatekeep with some Boomer crap.
I don't know what a Bomer is, I'm neither European nor American... Relax, anonymous.
A bad craftsman blames his tools…
Seriously though, if you go on Youtube and see how it’s done, you’ll be kicking yourself. It does take practice, mind!