The “tactical view” button appears at the top of the user interface during missions.

Within missions, tactical view can be used to get a clearer view of the facility layout and danger zones. In tactical view, purely decorative graphics are hidden, walls and doors are shown as lines on the floor and decor objects are replaced with shorter graphics, so as not to obscure the tiles behind them. Additionally, enemy vision is shown per tile rather than as more aesthetically-pleasing “vision cone” shapes. Solid red tiles are “watched”, shaded red tiles are “noticed” in a guard's peripheral vision, and yellow tiles are “hidden” in soft cover.

To enable tactical view in the PC version of the game, click and hold the “tactical view” button at the top of the user interface, or press and hold the Alt key on the keyboard.

Tactical view is particularly useful for understanding complex or dense facility layouts, and for planning movement to avoid unintentionally attracting guards' attention. However, not all important information is visible in tactical view; decor objects become visually indistinguishable, so the player cannot tell at a glance which objects provide soft cover or tall cover. This is addressed by the Tactical Lamp View mod.

A scene from the Tutorial in the standard view.

The same scene in Tactical view.