The basics | Stealth Watch Dogs Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
In the Combat chapter, I mentioned that you can strive for direct confrontations with hostiles, or avoid open combat and operate from shadows, depending on your preferences. The latter variant, in my opinion, harmonizes much better with a hacker character, especially that the game gives you the opportunity, to resolve the situation in a non-lethal way and sneak past, without alerting the opponents to your plans and actions, nearly every minute.
First of all, you should know that the game informs you exactly, whether you are invisible for the opponents, or whether they are becoming suspicious. In the latter case, above the head of the individual guard, there appears an exclamation mark, with a red line being drawn around it. In such a situation, you need to hide, before the red line connects into a triangle, because this is when the opponents will be fully alarmed and you will have to engage into battle, or sneak away from the location quickly.
Note - it is highly unadvisable that you start alarms, not only because Aiden is immediately targeted by one or several opponents. This will also reveal the current position of your character, as a result of which reinforcements may be called in. As a result, completing the objectives of the current mission may become more complicated. Reinforcements may arrive, into the area, if only there is an opponent capable of calling for them, in the area. What is even more, thanks to one of Aiden's abilities, you can prevent that opponent from calling for reinforcements.
While in stealth, you can attempt sneaking past the opponents and reaching the destinations, without human losses, or try to eliminate them, to some extent. If you prefer the latter, I recommend that you do either of the following:
1) Handle the opponent down - each time, you need to get such an opponent from behind and press the melee attack key/button.
2) Shoot the opponent - in this case, it is nearly necessary for you to have a suppressed gun on you, unless there are no other opponents around. Always try aiming at the head.
Note - by default, melee takedowns are impossible against Enforcers, i.e. the most heavily armored opponents. You can remedy that by means of unlocking one of the available abilities and to learn about that, see the chapter entitled Abilities.
Note - regardless of the method of elimination of a given opponent, you need to keep in mind that Aiden will be incapable of dragging the body away. Therefore, you should not try to attack the enemies when they are standing out in the open, because the bodies may be spotted by the others, sooner or later. Fortunately enough, the game is very forbearing, in such situations, because a slipup of this kind does not mean the immediate raising of the alarm. Nearly always, you get the opportunity to incapacitate the opponent that came to examine the body of the opponent that has been knocked down/killed.